Inner Reflections…
Something I have spent a great deal of time pondering, writing about and quite frankly – for much of my life struggled with as a mother, a lover, a friend, a human – is the habit of making others needs and desires more important than my own. This has arisen mostly as a knee jerk and automated response within the context of my relationships with others.
I have extensively researched both personally and collectively the origins of these patterns that have run through my lifestream – deep and wide – my own Mississippi.
I have a greater understanding that these are not only patterns that develop in infancy when our basic needs – such as being breast fed on demand, vs a bottle on a schedule or being soothed and attended to when we are in distress vs being left to cry it out – inform our brains and psyches that our most human basic needs are unimportant.
These patterns are also handed down the generations through our DNA. Our mothers patterns and distress also deeply imprints and informs our own nervous system and energetic patterning in utero and through our day to day interactions with her.
Our father’s distance, his anger or frustration about his own life. Our father’s or grandfather’s PTSD from the experiences of war or deep hardships and other traumas also informs our most automatic of responses. Shapes our sense of self and where we fit into the larger scheme of things.
These patterns along with generation upon generation upon generation of doing and being predicated by gender and class “norms” creates a deep and wide river under the surface that simply runs…
Until we begin to notice the pull to something more.
Something more genuine.
Alive.
There are also all kinds of responses and messages we get from the outside world that affirm and perpetuate these behaviors and patterns that ultimately cause us to show up smaller, be quieter, bury our own needs and desires. Be less than we are.
I have observed all of this and so much more in my own journey firsthand. It has come to light and been shown to me in often surprising ways in my work with individuals, groups, couples and families.
By getting to the roots of the cause – sometimes going back many generations, narrowing in on the personal decisions made in utero or toddlerhood, a choice made in a previous incarnation – we can untangle knots and misperceptions about the nature of reality and our place in the grand scheme of things.
Allow a new more present moment way of being begin to play out in our choices, our responses. The very fabric of our lives can start to become more authentic, feel richer, more satisfying.
This is the work of multitudes of us on the planet at this time. This finding a new balance, a synergistic fulcrum where each individual’s needs are as important any others. As important as the larger group’s.
That each individual – that means you and I- showing up in their own authentic and aligned self – expressing beyond patterned, conditioned responses is creating a new fertile ground for the whole of humanity.
We are doing this together. We are birthing ourselves and future generations.
This takes Presence. Attention. Practice.
Sorting out what it means to meet our own needs first.
Knowing that WE are now as adults responsible for getting our needs met.
Discerning and discovering what those needs even are!
Staying present enough to know when we are off track, over giving or underserving ourselves.
Making ourselves important enough to slow down and listen inwardly over and over and over again until the internal lines of communication, the signs of misalignment become clearer, faster, more obvious.
Making new choices and trusting that when we do that planted firmly in our own inner guidance the ground of the cosmos will always rise up and meet us.
It means…
Asking for what we need.
Finding ways to have these often vulnerable and uncomfortable conversations.
Learning to not take another’s response personally – they too are in the midst of their own discovery process. And how well they are doing it is none of our business – even when they are our own children or partners.
Remembering that their part in our play is to help us create those stronger boundaries. Those clearer, cleaner “No”s and “Yes”s.
It means…
Finding the balance of caring for others with out becoming a “care-taker.”
Learning about what it means to live as an authentic, autonomous, loving human being.
There is soooo much to this dance we are individually as well as collectively learning about. Laying down new tracks, lighting up new neural pathways for every day.
And the necessary ingredient in all of this – is you. It is each of us as individuals.
It is our own Individual
Attention
Intention
And Willingness
To listen inwardly, to step out and make new choices.
To say a loving and firm “No” to the nonsense around us that no longer makes sense.
You, dear one have a profound affect on the Whole. This is science.
When you keep coming back to your inner knowing, aligning to the authentic core of who you are – you can feel the beautiful power within you. The possibility. The knowing that all truly IS well.
None of us has to do this perfectly or “get it right.”
You simply show up. Do you best. And you learn. Adjust. Course correct.
You practice.
I want to leave with you two bits that help me to illuminate my own motivations and actions in this context. That guide me in coming back over and over to what is more aligned, coherent and appropriate in my own life.
These are spiritual Truths.
The Silver Rule – Do not do for another what the will not do for themselves.
Not what they cannot. What they WILL NOT.
The Iron Rule – Do not give beyond your own overflowing.
This applies to time, attention, energy, information, substance, money – anything which you share.
Thank you for being part of my journey!
Now – please go do something that will bring you joy. Have some fun!
Joy is a need too.
Joy opens the door to new possibilities within your multilayered being – which spreads to everything not only in your life. Joy spreads out like a ripple way beyond any of our ability to imagine.
Happy almost August, dear one!
