Let me introduce you to the sentry, my protector. He is super strong and superhuman and thinks his job is to clear the path ahead for me. He says “Shona does not want to be dissuaded from her path, nor have her authority over herself questioned.” if he gets a mere sniff of an attack, he will defend and persist on my behalf.

The sentry is not a person or personality separate from me in the mental health sense; it is simply me becoming conscious of, and naming, one of the many ways of being in the world that I have adopted as part of the normal process of growing up.

That was useful when I was a child surrounded by others who did not always support my way of thinking, but as an adult who no longer wants or needs others’ approval, the sentry is a bit too heavy handed and I’ve dealt with a lot of path-clearing carnage over the years.

In fact, I only met the sentry this week, yet I’d been aware of the existence of this part of me in a more vague way for many years. I had been becoming increasingly frustrated and confused by, what appeared to be, an inner confidence in my own authority, and an ingrained habit of going into defence mode when questioned.

Focusing on that part of me as an individual part of my consciousness was invaluable. I realised if the sentry wasn’t busy clearing my path, creating carnage that was then creating more anxiety and work for me, that energy could be put into something new. The only thing standing in my way was an inner protection that had long since outlasted its use.

Parts work is a form of psychological work, often called shadow work, which looks directly at the things about us that have become subconscious. There are lots of ways to do this, but this week I’ve been using Teal Swan’s self guided process. It’s a bit like method acting parts of you as if they were another person.

In Reflections of the Soul – What Today Reveals About Tomorrow I talk about how I use whatever is actively triggering me in my life to dive into my subconscious and recognise old patterns and traumas. This latest process is one of the best I’ve used so far, as it is allowing me to look at myself through a much clearer lens even at some ordinary everyday things.

For example, other than the sentry, meet my head. When I stepped into my head as an individual part of my consciousness, I met a ground down, wizened old man. He was too lacking in energy to keep up the lifetime habit of keeping me safe by staying ten steps ahead; another outdated protection mechanism that could redivert and refresh its energy by working more symbiotically with my heart.

In contrast, my heart was like a vibrant youth, still running across garage rooftops to find a great hiding spot in the game. It felt expansive, present and in connection with everything around it. Polarities are common in parts work, where one part of us is sacrificed for another. Here you can probably see my head took over from my heart somewhere back in my childhood.

I’ve even taken a look at literal parts of myself, asking my right shoulder what it had to reveal as it seems to be in a constant state of tension and restriction. It told me that it needs my lower left hand side to be given attention, an area of my back that is often weak, so that it can work in symphony with the other parts of my body to maintain balance.

When I looked at that lower left side it wanted me to embrace the more feminine, gentle, kind and compassionate parts of myself so that it could be strong. There are so many facets to look at and, when I see myself though these lenses, it is a lot easier to see where old habits are no longer serving me and where there are opportunities for growth and more ease in my life.

Freshly equipped with the knowledge of my sentry, I went into a meeting yesterday that is part of a process with the kids’ school to inform them of any planned absences. The person who takes responsibility for this process generally uses it as an opportunity to voice disapproval at any unauthorized absence (anything except sickness and death of an immediate family member) regardless of reason.

In the past this has created turmoil within; see Evolving Education – Where Booking a Family Holiday during Term Time Took Me. But equipped now with my knowledge of the sentry, when I felt the anxiety building within me I was able to consciously recognise where that was coming from and used some tapping to calm my nervous system. I was in and out of the meeting in less than five minutes feeling balanced and happy in my choices.

Given these examples, you might have started to think of some others who could do with parts work. But do you really know the different parts of yourself? If we each take responsibility for the parts of us that are no longer serving us, we can leave yesterday’s version of us in the past where it belongs and be free to fulfill our potential in the now.

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Get out of Your Head and into Your Heart, The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth, Learn to See What Is in Plain Sight and Leverage Your Feelings to Find Your Authentic Self. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

As a parent, two issues that I have really struggled with, and been out of synch with my partner on, are TV and processed foods. From early on I noticed my kids seemed to exhibit addictive behaviour around these two things.

What does addictive behaviour look like? There is never enough TV or so called treats, there are long drawn and often violent reactions to the withdrawal of these things, a constant longing for them to the exclusion of other, healthier, alternatives (like a trip to the park, or a good meal), and frankly there is a lack of motivation and connection to life. 

But I don’t think the issue is the TV or processed foods; I believe the issue is why they are drawn to them. The same could be said of any addiction. As a society, it seems that certain things (take drugs as an example) are vilified and criminalized even, while other potentially (more) harmful and addictive things (like cigarettes, alcohol, TV, social media etc) are legal and commonplace.

This week I was talking to someone who is in the process of firmly drawing some boundaries around the behaviours she will accept from an alcoholic partner. She understands where the desire to numb likely comes from; it is a result of a family history and trauma most of us would agree was horrific.

However, Dr Gabor Maté, a Hungarian-born Canadian physician (and Jewish survivor of the Holocaust) says of childhood trauma “yes this includes terrible events such as sexual exploitation, violence etc, but it also refers to any set of events that, over time, impose more pain on the child than his or her sensitive organism can process and discharge.

Trauma can occur when parents are too stressed, too distracted, too depressed, too beset by economic worry, too isolated etc to respond to a sensitive child’s need to be seen, emotionally held, heard, validated, made to feel secure. Thus, this is the kind of pain that also occurs in normal, happy, childhoods.”

I can easily see why my kids would have felt the need to soothe themselves using TV or treats, in a world where I – as a normal parent in this day and age – went to work and they spent most of their days in another person’s home with someone who (albeit lovely and loving) was not their mother. And when I was around them I was certainly stressed and distracted a lot of the time.

In Beyond Drugs: The Universal Experience of Addiction, Dr Gabor Maté says “addiction is neither a choice nor an inherited disease, but a psychological and physiological response to painful life experiences.”

Most addicted people use no drugs at all… Addiction is manifested in any behaviour a person craves,  finds temporary relief or pleasure in but suffers negative consequences as a result of and yet has difficulty giving up…It can encompass any human behaviour from work to shopping, sex to eating, extreme sports to TV to compulsive internet use, the list is endless.”

When Maté asks his patients what their addictive focus gives them, universally the answers are about coping with stress, escaping emotional pain, giving peace of mind, a sense of control or connection with others.

As I said in Our Sensitive Souls, “For those of us that are sensitive in our temperament, Maté’s work may lend some interesting insights to assist in healing the scars that run deep in our psyche. In an increasingly frenetic world, where overstimulation abounds, we have a job to do in helping ourselves and our children understand and nurture our strengths”.

To do this job well, I also have to understand the coping mechanisms, soothers or addictions, which have nestled into the cracks. Becoming aware of what I do, what my partner does and what the kids do in order to tune out/zone out/escape reality is a vitally important step in being able to meet life head on and find emotional balance.

Talking with someone else this week, who has a grandchild diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder), I can see how it has served me to give in to my children’s desire for more screen time because, honestly, dealing with the constant emotional tantrums and outbursts is exhausting and screen time provides a welcome reprieve.

However, it does not help my kids to be present, nor happy, in the world around them. It doesn’t help them to find ways to regulate their emotions, build resilience, connect with other people and build relationships and patience, As Simon Sinek says in this clip about the Millennial Generation, where will they find real joy?

The same is true of any addiction. If I can’t find my way through pain without tuning out or numbing myself against it, what chance do I have of finding real joy in my life? And what does that mean for the people around me?

These words came to me “I love all your broken pieces, but I can't live with you treating me like I'm the one who broke you. When you learn to recognise and love those jagged edges the way I do, then we can live in love.” Addiction causes pain to those around us, the ones we supposedly love.

Any addiction points to pain, which points to childhood coping mechanisms that require healing. Recognising and dealing with the consequences of our childhood trauma seems to me to be the most important thing we can collectively do to open the pathway to more joy.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth, Learn to See What Is in Plain Sight and Leverage Your Feelings to Find Your Authentic Self. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

“Humans are the most violent and the most compassionate creatures on Earth, the most destructive and the most creative” the commentator said. I was watching a short video about what animals think and feel and it concluded that all animals do think and feel to an extent; it’s just that humans are more extreme.

If I dwell on the atrocities that have and still do occur among humans, it pierces my heart and makes me feel small and helpless. But if I spend time focusing on compassion and creativity; I feel that the whole world within me opens up to a brighter and better future, because it helps me be more present in the world instead of enslaved to my past.

Shauna Shapiro talked about this very issue in a podcast I was listening to this week, about having an attitude of kindness and curiosity to allow the parts of the brain, that increase our motivation to learn and create more of an open perspective, to function freely.

In contrast, she pointed out that when we get stressed we shuttle resources from learning and being open and receptive to survival pathways (the fight, flight, freeze, faint responses) and we are unable to learn. Here are the words that resonated for me:

“Really, when it comes down to this basic understanding of how we learn, I think this is why our educational systems, parenting systems and many others have failed, we learn when we feel safe and interested, and that is the kind of internal environment I want to help people create for themselves.”

This, I believe, is the very way to make a positive difference in the world today. And it is no more obvious than in our closest relationships. Shauna Shapiro mentions parenting and, as a parent of two young children, that certainly rings true. As I’ve often quoted, in the words of Dr Gabor Maté:

“It is often not our children’s behaviour, but our inability to tolerate their negative responses that creates difficulties. The only thing the parent needs to gain control over is our own anxiety and lack of self control.”

In Reclaim the Sovereignty of Your Soul I conclude “The anxiety we feel as parents in response to our children’s negative reactions, is the same anxiety we felt as a result our own parent’s reactions.”

But the same is true in our other relationships. James Redfield’s model of the control strategies that we each develop in order to stop others draining our energy is summarised in Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation.

For example, I noticed how defensive I got this week when my partner tried to talk to me about how he was feeling. Rather than feeling safe and open to really hearing him, I automatically sprang into a mode that felt nothing short of pull up the drawbridge, secure the perimeter and ready the cannons.

I then noticed how this pattern, rather like a blame game of tennis going back and forth, was reinforcing the patterns from our respective childhoods. To use James Redfield’s Interrogator archetype, he says if a child is constantly questioned, criticized, nagged and faults found, it makes the child self conscious and erodes their confidence.

As I grew, I learned how not to let my energy be drained in this way and, instead, refuted each criticism admirably, tussling to maintain an even field or win the upper hand. However, on the inside, the criticism ate me up, which is why I became such an approval seeker (see I Am a Recovering Approval Seeker and Control Freak).

My partner has his own demons, but none of these are really the fault of our parents, these patterns have been repeating subconsciously for generations. I think it is highly unlikely there is a person alive today who is not dealing with some version of this. In fact, I would bet that beneath the mask of history’s most vile monsters and egotistical maniacs is a small boy or girl who is hurt.

What makes this time in history different, I believe, is that many people are becoming aware of the roots of our shame and insecurities. This is a time in which I am free to explore taking different roads of action in my closest relationships.

Learning to feel safe and curious is a process. Certainly my kids don’t shy away from blaming me for everything in their life they are unhappy about, and I often feel my partner is not far behind them. At what point did I become an emotional dumping ground I wonder? This too is an unhealthy pattern pointing to a need for healing within me.

While I’ve discovered The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth, I also find that most people are still quick to blame others if they are unhappy; few seem to take responsibility for their own growth. It does seem a tad unfair that I’m taking responsibility for my own thoughts and feelings, rather than blaming others, and at the same time having others blame me for their woes.

However, playing boo hoo is not going to serve me nor help me move forwards. As I wrote about in Whose Energy Is This Anyway? Stop Taking on Board How Others Are Feeling I am learning to notice when I’m taking on others’ negative energy, and ways in which to deflect their own feelings back to them. My old patterns won’t die overnight, but they are getting more recognizable.

Knowing these for what they are gives me a greater sense of safety, and being interested in what others are thinking and how they are feeling, creates a sense of compassion for them as I gain more clarity on their deeper issues and realise we’re all tussling with the same things.

That does not mean I have to accept blame from others. As Buddha said, if you give me a gift and I don’t accept it, it is still yours. Therefore, if you are angry, resentful or frustrated at me, it really is up to me to decide whether or not to get insulted and angry in return.

In fact the gift I recognise is that on some level I am still blaming myself as I did when I was a child, creating this constant need to be perfect and not elicit any criticism. I am quick to defend externally and quick to accept internally.

So I have to look at each thing directed at me and be curious about whether this is something I need to take accountability for, or is this something that is about me learning to love myself more, to have self compassion.

If we can each begin to recognise our patterns of thought and behaviour and regard them with curiosity and self compassion, we will slowly start to change the patterns of behaviour we reflect into the world. Won’t it be fabulous to hear far more compelling tales of compassion from our species than violence, and see many more examples of creativity than destruction? Now that is a world we can thrive in.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy What Do You Want The Prevailing Global Culture to Look Like?, We Can Live in Harmony. How Can I Create a Better World?and Be an Evolutionary (Rather Than a Revolutionary). To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I had been watching a video on the topic of people pleasing last week, and having healthy boundaries, and was thinking I was less of a people pleaser (in the sense of saying yes to them when I really want to say no) and more of an approval seeker.

Although I will make the decision to say yes to me, I often explain my rationale, I want people to approve my right to make my own decision, whether they agree with the actual decision or not is unimportant. I’m like a dog with a bone. In fact I recall someone describing my use of words as both a gift and curse. She likened me using explanations like using a drug, and feeding others on that drug. 

I have a clear understanding of where this comes from. As a child I, like most people, was taught that what I wanted was less important than what others wanted for or from me. There were punishments for disobeying or misbehaving, and so – being strong willed and persistent - the coping mechanism I developed was to try to persuade (generally my parents, then later teachers, coaches, employers and partners) through logical argument.

This need for approval could also be called a need for validation. After pondering this I serendipitously got sent a short video called Validation. It’s quite cool, a great little pick me up and reminder that we each have amazing and unique qualities that we would do well to focus on. It does, however, perpetuate this idea of other people validating us before we can be happy.

As I said in The Magic of Those Who Believe in You, those people who have and do lift me up in life are truly magical; I need the cheerleaders for sure. But what about those others, the ones I love and who love me, who may want the best for me, but are limited by their own horizons?

Marlena Tillhon-Haslam says “The way you treat yourself and how you let others treat you shows how much or how little you really value yourself. So notice the standards you set. Notice what you tolerate. This will tell you whether or not you value yourself.”

I notice. As someone who firmly believes that there is no one right way for everyone, that we all have our own opinions and priorities, I long to have my own beliefs and priorities respected. But I have tolerated too much.

From those closest to me, I have tolerated my beliefs about healthcare being derided; I have tolerated my prioritised spending on self care appointments being resented and vilified; I have tolerated my parenting being heavily criticized; I have tolerated demeaning (so called) jokes. I could go on. These are the things that send me into approval seeking mode.

The initial phases of recognition and recovery are clunky. I blurt things out, I talk too much, I feel tears coming and I feel totally vulnerable. But I reclaim the ground my soul is calling me to stand upon.

I have not been perfect either. Dorothy Law Nolte said a child who is constantly criticised learns to condemn, and it’s a habit I notice I step into when I’m feeling resentful, underappreciated and/or overwhelmed; I want to step away from doing it.  I have also done a lot of work on learning from my anger as I wrote about Let Anger Be Your Teacher While Learning to Become Its Master.

But one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is in trying to save others from themselves. Even though I know I can’t, and should not, I’m adept at seeing ten steps ahead and emotionally attuned to others.
As a result I often try to smooth the way as much as possible, which can backfire, leaving those I’m trying to help feel resentful and me feeling underappreciated for my effort when I should have left well alone in the first place.

While I’ve generally backed away from doing this with other people, certainly around my kids I’m still in that mode. Their tired, emotional meltdowns feel emotionally unsafe because they reverberate with the meltdowns I experienced from adults around me growing up.

Just this morning my youngest daughter, who hasn’t been sleeping well (she is a bit anxious about returning to school), told me she didn’t want to go anywhere today because she is too tired. Ten minutes later she had a big meltdown because I said she couldn’t go on a long bike ride with her dad in a forest that is quite some distance from here.

I knew my partner could really do with a big ride on his own to relax which she is not capable of doing at her age. Based on my experience, I imagined by the time they arrived at the forest after the long drive she wouldn’t even want to actually ride, which would frustrate the heck out of her dad.

Anyway, he had said yes to her, so I wondered why I was even standing in the way of this valuable experience for both of them.  Sure, tomorrow when I’m trying to get her back to school after the long summer break, her tired state will undoubtedly add to the intensity, but tomorrow is another day. She is better being in the forest riding with her dad than here fighting with her sister.

Rather than anticipating others’ needs and trying to smooth the way, I know it is better for me to step the heck out of the way and allow them to learn from their own experience.

But I also honour and recognise the child in me who, as one friend says, needed to ensure they weren’t swallowed up by a world that pressed in on them too much. There is a deep need to belong and be seen and yet a deep fear of belonging and being seen also.

I started to write these articles almost five years age in an attempt to gain clarity and confidence about who I am, and it has given me that. But there was also a part of me using them initially as a way to seek approval for the things I believe in.

Over time it has made it easier to speak my truth, because I now have more clarity and confidence in what that actually is rather than just feeling muddled. Nowadays writing these has become a disciplined way for me to reflect on what life is teaching me in the moment.

As Eckhart Tolle says, “For presence to become deeply rooted, it must be tested in the fire of relationships.” As I continue I create stronger boundaries and slowly start to see changes in how those around me treat me, and how I treat them, I know how perfectly on point these lessons are.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy What Happens When You Accept Yourself And Stop Seeking Approval? And My Needs versus Yours. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.