The Unravelling

It was a delicately tied bow I was constantly tending to, making sure it stayed in tact and did not unravel. It required constant attention, a simple tug of the loose end would cause it to come completely apart. So I took on the full-time role of retightening it each time it came even a little bit loose. 

 

Until that one day when it finally unraveled. It was time. It was the very thing I feared so greatly leading up to it, because I knew once undone it would never be again, and I wasn’t sure who I would be without it. I felt the loss instantly, and for years I would painfully long to return to the presence of its sparkle. 

 

Yet, in that moment, there was something else. To let go of this heavy responsibility in ensuring it’s perfect form, and attempting to prevent the inevitable destruction that was constantly looming, brought an undeniable sense of relief. 

 

This I knew I could not ignore anymore. What I was denying in my surroundings in order to keep my attention on the survival of that carefully constructed bow now garnered my attention. In dropping the load that consumed my gaze, I could now to tend to all the knots that had become tangled around my ankles in their dismissal. 

a conversation with my worth

Last night I unlocked a new room of compassion in my heart. A gentle voice inside telling me that I was deserving of love. Of the affection from my husband that I so often turn away from because I don't trust it, because I don't trust that I deserve it. But last night, permission, and with it a stitch of slight repair in the long time disrupted connection between us. Soft tears rolled down my cheeks in this knowing.

Today there is a familiar fragile feeling inside. It does not come with words, just a sense that I am bracing against something and that my strength could falter in any moment. Like a sob between my throat and chest, waiting for its queue. I paused and looked a little closer. It almost felt like I was being picked on...but there was no one around to poke at me. Except me. All this happens beneath the language and it takes a still still quiet to even know it. But today there is a part of me that recognizes that it is me, the ways I view myself, my worth, my deservingness. 

What is that? Oh right, the familiar 'I am not good enough.' And just as I acknowledge it, a rush of emotion flushes to my forehead. Here the frustration. I know I have this trapped inside of me and I want it away, but that simply does not do the trick. In fact, the resistance only seems to make it push harder. I know it has roots that go deep down to my toes. I know that to pull on its head will only bring tension throughout my body. I am so aware of it and the fact that I don't know what to do about it creates a pounding in my head. 

But wait, what is that I hear, so subtle and soft? 'I do know?' I do know. For now my job is to acknowledge, respect, accept and love it for the ways it has served me. Loosen my attachment and for now, focus what I could grow around it, the things that serve me better now. When the time is right I will venture deep into the dark soil at which its roots first established and breath new life into them, when I am ready. The change will be felt throughout my body and it will be intense and possibly even painful at first, because it has become so embedded in my body, but the transformation that ensues will liberate all the pieces that this piece has dug its claws into. And the new life will loosen its grip. I will be free to move in ways that I forgot I was able to. I will no longer default to the self-sabitoge that feeds this rigid creature beneath my skin, but it will be love. It will set the emotion free to flow as it wishes, just like in that rare precious moment last night. 

Finding Peace Amidst the War

I've always been uncomfortable with conflict. I was the child who veered clear of it as much as I can. I was the adult who abandoned myself to keep the harmony (and still does time to time). 

One of six siblings within a ten year span, daily conflict was inevitable. Three of my siblings were easily set off and often either on the stirring end or receiving end of the fights. Three of us were pleasers and sensitive. We got along best with each other and occasionally fought with the others, but remained pretty compliant so to avoid any negative attention. I recall my sister just older than me and my brother just younger than me getting disciplined and it scared me so. But I learned young to play the cards that were expected of me to keep the peace and avoid negative attention that came of deviating from expectations. This message was not only in my family dynamics but consistent with our culture, and still is today. Positive attention for living up to others expectations. Shamed for expressing ourselves in un-liked ways. Shamed for being different, wrong, or anything other than the status quo.

I watch the world around me, more and more people coming into their voices quite aggressively. I don't know their intentions behind the advocacy and neither is it my position to judge whether their approach is right or wrong, good or bad. All I know is I am not called to use my voice in that sense. I am called to express gently, in ways that bring people back to love and harmony, in ways to validate their challenges, and in ways that do not hurt others. So when I see the division between groups of people, leaders and patrons, abiders and anti-maskers, it feels as if my heart itself is splitting in two. I see how we lose sight of the issue that seems so much larger to me, and get caught up in righteousness. My tendency when I feel powerless is to withdraw, surrender feeling as if I have no power. But in given time as I sit back, contemplation brings me home to myself, and it is only when I can remove myself from the noise that I find my voice. It is a noisy world and I have to be very intentional about making the space to do this, so that I can act from a space of my own conviction. 

In this space I  learn that my position isn't what is important in the big conflict. My actions don't determine my power. My power lies in my conviction while respecting others in theirs. I realize how caught up we get in needing to be right. Our conditioned sense of worth is tangled up with this need for righteousness. 

I feel it every time I come across someone who has a different opinion or stance than I do, my ego flairs up. I do one of two things, depending on which value is on shift in that situation. If it's harmony from which I am sourcing my sense of worthiness I start to questions myself, especially if the opposing person is someone who aligns with me in many ways, or someone I hold close to my heart and respect greatly. I doubt my own beliefs that just minutes prior I stood so firmly in, questioning my understanding. Swayed to avoid the shame of being wrong to another, I begin to abandon myself. This is a threatening place to be, especially when you have been working so hard to return to yourself. The disharmony puts me in a head-spinning anxiety and I resort to old worth-hustling patterns by needing to please and keep the peace. 

With others, my husband for example, I tend to lock down in my need to be right. I fear abandoning my position and I fear being proved 'wrong,' automatically armouring up to defend and offend. I stop hearing his view and dig my feet deep into my own arrogance and ignorance. Neither of us ends up heard nor validated in our view. It often creates a tension that mutates into other issues. We are too focused on the hurt and victimhood. We are too focused on all the ways we need to prove ourselves right, because if someone, especially someone we love and (think we) respect, their differing stance makes us wrong...creating a mountain of shame (because remember, our society doesn't accept 'otherness.'). 

However, if we were to love unconditionally, accept respectfully our differences and agree to disagree, we might open ourselves enough to each other to actually expand on our limited perspective. We might come back home to ourselves, reintegrate another viewpoint into our own and learn a thing or two. We might be able to find a mutual ground to stand in together, even in our individual differences. Not unlike the ceremonial shaking of hands between opposing teams after a competitive sporting event. What if we didn't place so much importance on being right or being the best, smartest, loudest and at the end of it could look back and simply say "good game," respecting all the players involved. Or what if we didn't wait until the end to respect each other in their opposition. Only when we can stand firmly in our highest selves do we really come from this place. For me sometimes that means stepping away from the noise of it all, from the push and pull around me that tends to knock me off my footing. And other times that means finding my footing right in the middle of the commotion, returning to myself amidst the chaos, responding from this place of purity even when it means disrupting the harmony or the current dynamic. 

I know one thing only. My highest self does not shame others. Nor does she have to defend herself, because she stands so assured in her own worth that there is no need to be further validated. She does not take on the responsibility of changing others, accepting them for where they are at. She only positions herself in the power of influence through the highest of love. Her worth is full and comes from a place greater than the need to be right or to prove others wrong. And when I can create space to embody this version of myself, it is when I feel at peace the most, and it becomes so clear to me that right and wrong actually do not exist. 

written from the inside out

I've been advised to write, the advice coming from within and from without. I notice the friction between wanting to write, even needing to and not taking action. There is a deep resistance in me that I don't quite understand, it shows up as avoidance by simply not doing. Thinking about it but not taking action. Lately the nudge is telling me that in writing every day I will help alleviate my emotional congestion. But routine is such a challenge for me to implement. I do not like to be fixed into responsibility that goes beyond what I am feeling in the moment. And even at that, I put it off often when I feel the desire or urge to write or release. I believe the resistance to be rooted more deeply, but cannot quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it does not matter? 

Yet for change to happen I typically need to understand what's at the root of the thing I want to change. I don't know whether this is a control thing, or motivation thing? I have to work extra hard to let go of the needing to know and accept the things I do not understand, trusting the flow. And other times I find that knowing or figuring out helps me to recognize the patterns holding me back and making the change from that place of understanding.

I know I am a gifted writer and I have proven to myself how releasing it can be. I recall writing a confrontational letter to a friend the day I came to one of the most important revelations in my journey. I had ended the letter admitting that my problem was I didn't trust my inner voice. I wrote that I needed to pay attention to and trust it and that this was the answer I had been so desperately seeking for some time. The words flowed through my fingertips to the keyboard like water, as if someone else was typing through my body. Yet I knew it was a message for myself disguised through this letter for my friend. I watched it take place, reread it and let out a big sigh of relief. My shoulders dropped and the waterworks began. After months of what felt like floating between identities, my foot finally found new ground. It was one of the most powerful feelings of realization that came simply from an expression beyond my conscious intention. 

When I allow it, I can experience versions of this through my writing. It usually comes more easily in conversation with a trusted companion, even through text message. It always requires a certain level of trust with the person I am conversing with that allows me to let go of any concern for judgement.  The greater the rapport, the more easily words flow, and I often re-read what I have wrote to take in the wisdom that had just spelled out of me. Lately I have started saving some of my text messages. I receive feedback from my confidants that I have a special talent for articulating experiences that they have trouble putting words to. I suppose this is one of my gifts, and something I would love to expand on. 

So if it is judgement or concern for judgement that births my reservation, I suppose the thing that keeps me from writing without an audience could be the fear/avoidance of my own judgement. Gah! This is such a tough one and one of my greatest barriers since the beginning of my conscious journey. In fact my earliest awareness came from statements I noticed were being relayed to me from my trusted supports. "You are really hard on yourself," they would say, in one way or another. The critical voice is loud and ingrained deeply in me, a core wound, one could say (and quite very human). Most of my life I thought this critical voice was serving me in ways I now realize were actually holding me back from my greater potential. So I have been chipping away diligently at this boulder for the last four years, but it's foundation is rooted especially deep. I have to make special effort to notice the critical voice of not enough-ness, or lack of trust in the merit of the information that flows from within me (as opposed to information coming from outside of me). For example, leaning into the trust in this little realization I just came to at the top of this paragraph even in the light that I seem to have pulled it out of my yin yang. It has been a slow trust-building process with myself, but I must remember that I am unraveling re-wiring thirty-plus years of doing. 

Today I will take a chance to believe that I have great knowledge in me, to understand myself and others in ways guided by my intuition over what I have been told. To consider that everyone else doesn't always know better than me, especially when it comes to what's best for me. There are times I may be wrong, but I am learning that when I lean into this trust, more than not something is gained (regardless of whether I am right or wrong). I am learning that not being right is not the greatest stake of risk. The risk is in not being truthful. Not trusting my own truth, my own intuition, my own ability to make decisions, my own knowing. So I take chances, through a gained understanding that life has lessons no matter which path you take, which conviction you lean into. There is no perfection because everything is perfect in its imperfection. There is no wrong and right, because every path we choose offers opportunity. We are not here to be perfect and right, nor to take the easy way out. I believe that we are here to grow and learn and continue our journey across lifetimes as part of a greater evolution. (I could be misunderstanding it all, but that is beside the point) I have found such value in the trust I have gained through these knowing bits of myself, the stuff that comes out of mystery from the inside out. It seems to be working for me, so I think I'll continue to roll with it.