My true nature. I have no blueprint for this. So I am starting afresh.

I like to sit in the silence to simply feel my feelings. But they are uncomfortable and I want to distract myself.

I like to read but I can’t get into it, I’m restless.

I like to walk on the beach, so I do, but when I am there I remember the years I have walked the beach alone and having to justify why I even go there at all.

I like to swim but when I do my brain gets preoccupied with thoughts, replaying things from the past and thinking through future “what ifs”. I look at the sun shimmering on the bottom of the pool and I feel present for a second and then my mind gets lost in the swirl again.

I am agitated. My nervous system doesn’t know what to do with itself, it is still on alert. It is still trying to protect me from the onslaught of criticism, the insufferable entitlement of someone else who thinks they have a right to approve or disapprove my every decision.

That was my truth. I’m in recovery but it’s an ongoing process. I’m grieving the years I allowed myself to be subject to such nonsense, and forgiving myself because I was doing the best I could with what I believed to be true at the time.

A family member once said “He doesn’t try to control you does he?” It was a rhetorical question, them thinking I did as I pleased without any pushback. And yet one of those moments where – if I had been mid-drink – I’d have coughed and spluttered with the choke. They knew us both, how could they not see the level of control going on?

It was likely because I had created a mist or a veil of sorts around our life, I looked like I had it all together and was endlessly patient and understanding.

Growing up I had developed a strong and confident persona. It was one borne out of both rebellion to control and in defiance of people who did not believe in me – the “I’ll show you” kind. I was disciplined; I swam competitively and did well in both my education and my sport. I did well in my relationships at first and I did well in my career.

I pivoted in my relationships in my twenties when losing someone I thought was “the one”. My self esteem spiraled. In retrospect, in order to feel more in control, I labeled myself as wrong in some ways i.e. too needy, too serious, too this, too that, not enough this, not enough that. In actual fact I further abandoned my true nature at this point, and my relationships went from slightly misaligned to completely incompatible over the years.

That is how I found myself in a relationship with someone who lacked a fundamental respect for my true nature because, actually, so did I. It took that being mirrored back to me in relationships for me to begin fighting for it again.
The thing is, as an adult, there is no need to fight, only to reclaim. I am no longer a dependent child and if I made myself a dependant adult then that was on me, I’d given my power away.

Dr Les Carter says “People who generally use tactics like berating and belittling those who choose not to comply with their agenda, unable to engage in constructive dialogue, consciously or subconsciously have the goal of elevating themselves while diminishing others. They lack a fundamental respect for your distinctiveness”.

And “Even when they have their moments of pleasantness and cooperation, it cannot be fully trusted since it is only a matter of time for the narcissistic pattern to take over again, they can’t stop themselves”.  

I can attest to this. My choices, the things that make me uniquely me, and the things that were different to their preferences, were all deemed unacceptable. Everything from my preference to go to sleep later, reading rather than watching TV, eliminating refined sugars from my diet, through to the time I would choose to invest in myself studying, taking care of my wellbeing or wanting to travel to see friends and family – all were all subject to ongoing covert and overt disapproval in one form or another.   

And when I stopped working in order to take care of my children, money was then most often the focus of resentment and, ultimately, control. When I had been earning money independently I had felt able to protect my independence better. When I relinquished that for what I saw as my duty at the time, since my children clearly needed more focus and attention, I felt trapped.

It took a long time, but I slowly learned healthy boundaries and I am now learning how to hold them in the face of the crazy-making pattern I had got locked into where someone could lack a fundamental respect for my distinctiveness and yet still presume I should remain loyal and subservient towards them even after they left the relationship.

Dr Les Carter says “This pattern of berating then requiring loyalty is completely nonsensical, to the point of absurdity, yet it is very common. When you are on the receiving end of such treatment, your challenge is to extract yourself from the crazy-making pattern and, instead, choose to chart a different, healthier course”. Indeed.

So now the things I did for myself in defiance of criticism, I get to choose from a place of inner peace. The years of meditation practice I’ve done have proven so useful in this, because that is also about learning to observe (rather than be totally identified with and get swept away by) my thoughts and feelings.

The restlessness, the anxiety I feel comes from a nervous system that hasn’t felt safe to make those choices to be in alignment with my true nature without being on high alert. To choose from a place of inner peace I have to retrain and regulate my nervous system, it’s a conscious process of recognizing when I’m triggered into a fight or flight pattern and becoming the observer rather than the reactor.

I choose to sit in the compelling agony of wanting to take action and yet not taking action, or sitting with a mind that has gone into a freeze state and allowing myself to observe and stay there until I start to come back into my body and thaw.

It is past time, I now consciously walk off the battlefield and leave others to fight their own demons. It is time to chart my own course and give myself permission to live in alignment with my true nature. It is time to wake up and wonder “who do I want to be and what do I want to do today?”

So what about you, are you living life in alignment with your true nature?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Introducing the Authentic You, Take a Small Break from Your Life to Restart from Your Authentic Core, Leverage Your Feelings to Find Your Authentic Self, Want Better Health? Be Shrewd About Stress, Change Unhealthy Reactions, Meditation – the Cornerstone to Your Success and Do You Always Express Your True Feelings? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Non-binary means not relating to, or composed of, or involving just two things. While the term is becoming popularised though those who do not identify with the male or female gender, I am really excited about what it is signalling for our human growth potential.

When someone close recently identified as non-binary, it made absolute sense to me. I believe we are all a mix of masculine and feminine traits and – like everything else – it’s easier to think of people on a spectrum in terms of their sexuality rather one of a definitive two things.

I thought the same thing this week when I saw a post from an old friend supporting a guy they knew who had donated money to a political party, and some followers of his music were outraged, threatening to sabotage his musical career because they didn’t like his choices.

As Morgan Freeman said “Just because I disagree with you does not mean I hate you. We need to relearn that in our society”.  

For a long time we have been living in a black and white world. One that denotes something as good or bad, true or false, male or female and so on. This kind of polarisation has been no more obvious than in the recent pandemic where governments and the media did their utmost to promote fear and polarisation over the choice of a vaccine.

Families have been torn apart by this idea that you need to do something in order to keep everyone else safe, and if you don’t you are not only irresponsible but a bad person. As I said in Ask No One to Be Different So That You Can Feel Good I feel an inherent truth in those words, not the ones I heard espoused by politicians.

Brianna McWilliams explains how it is that some of us come to appreciate a broader, subtler palette of thoughts and emotions than others. Brianna specialises in the area of attachment theory and how it affects our relationships as adults. She notes that those with a disorganised attachment, also known as fearful-avoidant attachment, are particularly prone to black and white thinking.

This arises, she says, because as children we learn to understand our feelings through our caregivers tuning in and reflecting back to us what we are experiencing which builds our vocabulary and understanding beyond the binary “It feels good” or it feels bad”. If our caregivers don’t or cannot reflect back more understanding than that, we then lack the same.

Worse, in the era of behaviourist parenting – still the predominant style – there is a tendency to translate behaviour into beliefs that the behaviour itself defines the person as inherently good or bad, introducing the eternally damaging dynamic of shame into the equation along with guilt.

I like to challenge myself in recent years to consciously look at things in a broader context than right or wrong, which my parents had strong ideas about. Instead of looking through a lens of or, I look through the lens of and. This leads me to see the many ways in which things can be both right and wrong.

For example, although there were many ways in which I could demonstrate I have been victimised in certain relationships, there has always been learning and personal growth in such circumstances.

What if there’s an inherent juxtaposition in everything because – instead of a binary world – we live in a world of contrast, a contrast that allows me to figure out my own unique true north instead of being taught it by someone else?
And what if every day that changes on some level? The person known as Shona Keachie is a collection of trillions of cells, a collection of emotions, experiences, multiple psyches, skills, opinions and on and on.

I first felt this acutely when – in my twenties – I did a lot of personal development work. I remember listening to Florence Littauer talk on stage about four distinct personality profiles and – as hugely entertaining and insightful as it was – I knew life is more complex. It can be helpful to see patterns, but it is also true that I can show up differently in a work situation than a personal relationship and differently again in a friendship, and different in all of those depending on the people within them.

As Tony Robbins said “Inside of you, there are parts of you that are incredibly gracious and generous, but there is also a part that is selfish. We all have loving parts and not so loving parts, playful parts and boring parts, courageous parts and fearful parts”.

Then he said, poignantly, “The real question is not Who are you? The real question is Which part of you is in charge right now?” In fact, Tony firmly believes he doesn’t change people; he just gets them to put another part of themselves in charge.

I believe that applies to all the various parts of us, the tangible and intangible. The mind, body and emotions can be complex and ever-changing. To me the LGBTQIA2S+ community are on the leading edge of a new kind of – and kinder - approach to the human experience on Earth.

Who we are is not so simple, it’s shaped by many things. To try and make anything from our sexuality to our cereal preferences and any other minor or major life choices a straightforward binary equation is far too limiting, it stymies our growth as individuals and as a society. Is it time to embrace the full spectrum from shades of grey to the rainbow of choices that define our uniqueness in every way?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Don’t Tell Me What to Believe - Help Me Find What I Already Know, Are the Most Loving, Courageous and Compassionate Parts of You in the Driving Seat? The Inevitable Pain of Returning to Love After Years of Abandoning Yourself, How Do I Honour What I Believe and Care Less What You Think? and Shine Your Inner Light - Let No One Keep You Down . To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Image by Ri Butov from Pixabay

A friend of mine sent me a link to a Luke Chlebowicz video to cheer me up one day. Luke is a life coach and posts all sorts of empowering material, but this one was of him dancing around his lounge with a huge smile on his face, which made me laugh. To make my friend smile, I decided to reciprocate with a video of some “no cares” dancing around my own lounge. It was such fun.

It reminded me of another post I’d seen on Happiness Chemicals – And How to Hack Them. This appears to be a common image in various guises online, though it’s unclear who the original schematic should be attributed to. But it lays out the four main happiness chemicals:

• Dopamine – the reward chemical
• Oxytocin – the love hormone
• Serotonin – the mood stabilizer
• Endorphin – the painkiller

And gives examples of things people can do naturally to boost their mood. According to the British Science Association, dance has been scientifically proven to reduce levels of cortisol caused by chronic stress. It also causes the brain to release dopamine and endorphins. So although it might seem counter intuitive this kind of activity can help with relaxation as well as being a great mood booster.

It certainly works for me; I’ve been dancing around my lounge since I was a teen watching playbacks of Flashdance over and over. But if dancing isn’t your thing, any exercise or just listening to feel good music, or watching rousing movies can really help.

Even catching up on clips from the Jubilee Concert in the UK last weekend was fun. Adam Lambert opened with Queen, taking me back to seeing them play live back in 2013 and how the atmosphere of a crowd like that is nothing short of pure elation.

I’ve certainly been more mindful of taking care of myself as I have navigated some tough times over the last year. Amid a constant barrage of unreasonable demands, false accusations and gaslighting it can be easy to lose sight of the good things in life. Being more intentional about all the things that keep me sane and stable has been a must for me: regularly meditating, taking beach walks, swimming and making time for friends.

It would be easy to look to others to fill the gaps inside, but that is a temporary fix, and has often led to me giving away too much of my own power and settling for less than I deserve. At this point in my life it is my priority to feel like I’m standing on solid ground.

Another way of releasing frustration can be to scream my lungs out when driving along rural highways. To be fair, the scream can be let loose anywhere, but if I did that at home at least four or five neighbours would investigate so it’s much more liberating when no one can hear. Rae Oliver writes a good article on Scream Therapy but I can attest to the benefits of discharging my nervous system in this cathartic way.

In fact I encourage my kids to do the same, not in reaction to one another in the moment, which can be addictive and unhelpful, but in a more of a controlled release as we are driving.

There is another component that has come into life lately though, that old saying about “dance as if no one is watching and sing as though no one is listening” hits the nail on the head. I had a friend from the UK who video called one morning. I was sitting in my dressing gown, hadn’t yet had a showered and declined the call sending him a text “Can’t possibly answer a video call right now, I’m sitting in bed with greasy hair etc”.

Then I thought “Mm, what does it matter?” and so I called him back and we had a good old catch up and laughed about my hair. Being authentic is important to me, having bent my shape to fit others for a lot of my life and reaped the (painful) consequences of abandoning myself, so extending it to my appearance is a bold step, backed by an inner self confidence.

The journey to me has been an inside out job, it has involved identifying what’s triggering me in the moment, and going back to the roots of a trigger when I have spotted unhealthy patterns. It has involved cutting ties and learning new habits, and healthier, more self caring ways of being authentic. And it’s not a journey at its end, but it’s a journey that has put me on a path that feels more akin to one I intended for this life.

Inevitably though there are moments when life seems heavy, and it’s down to me to lift myself up.  When life is getting you down, what are the ways in which you lift yourself up?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Meditation – the Cornerstone to Your Success, Want Better Health? Be Shrewd About Stress, I Am a Recovering Approval Seeker and Control Freak, Whose Energy Is This Anyway? Stop Taking on Board How Others Are Feeling and Loneliness – Meet the Most Important Person in Your Life. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

My friend remarked to me this week, when I mentioned I just had to learn how to deal with being hated by a particular person, that they probably didn’t hate me at all. That is true, they may not, that is more my evaluation of their actions. They may in fact be resentful, jealous, guilty, or any number of things, but the bottom line is they don’t treat me well.

There is that famous saying “Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth” and yet…

When those people out there who had a nice secure attachment bond growing up, or those who learned to project their pain on others, then have a habit of saying unhelpful things like “Just ignore them” or “Who cares what people think?” or “Learn not to give any fks” people like me want to scream.

Being brought up in a world where it felt like my quality of life very much depended on being liked, and being “good”, I became hyper attuned to others. What people thought of me – to my nervous system – felt like a matter of life and death, it’s hard wired in my body and mind to care. 

When I sense someone not liking something I’ve said or done, I go into this mode of “well, clearly there is a misunderstanding because I bear this person no ill intention”. More than that though, my body goes into a flight/fight/freeze reaction and I can ruminate for days, weeks, months – even years depending on the person and situation, always searching for a way to make it safe.

I saw a post this week that really resonated “Know this: You can’t control the versions of you that exist in other people’s minds”. It reminded me of another popular one I had seen a while back from Kira J that read:

“You have to become okay with not being liked. No matter how loving or kind you are, you will never people please your way into collective acceptance. You could be a whole ray of sunshine and people will hate you because they are used to rain. Be okay with shining regardless”.

There’s no escaping the truth of this, I’m totally on board with it, but it just doesn’t feel safe within my body to be disliked so I have too often given away my power in order to keep the peace.

Then one of my kids had been getting taunted by a classmate and – for fear of losing her temper and the consequences that would bring – she had been avoiding the situation. Clearly my child couldn’t avoid school forever; this is something she needed to learn how to deal with.

So as I looked around for some age-appropriate inspiration, I came across a short video by psychologist Liz Laugeson on Comebacks for Being Teased that hit the nail on the head. The more I’ve thought about it, her advice works for everything from school bullying to living with someone with raging narcissistic tendencies.

Her statement “We all get teased at some point, but it’s how we react to it that often determines how often or how severely it happens” caught my attention. She comments on how the advice adolescents are usually given is to either to walk away, ignore, or tell an adult/authority which often doesn’t work.

It’s only when “They act like what the person said didn’t bother them and, in fact, what they said was kind of lame” that the teasing/taunting/bullying ceases. That’s because the instigator is trying to get a reaction, it makes them feel powerful, and if one isn’t forthcoming it’s not worth the effort. And while most people prefer positive reactions, negative reactions are better than nothing.

Attorney Rebecca Zung agrees, she teaches widely on negotiating with people with narcissistic traits and has guided many adults through separation and divorce. She calls the positive reactions – like praise, admiration and adulation – top shelf narcissistic supply. But says people with those traits will absolutely settle for bottom shelf reactions like anger, fear, or any other negative emotion.

It’s the emotional reaction – whether negative or positive – that feeds the need for dominance and control. That is because, as is also the case in schoolyard teasing, what lies beneath that need is a deeply insecure person.

Having been at the receiving end myself, I also know what it’s like when those around me then try to place a "reasonable person" lens on their advice, advising to just sit down and talk things through, getting frustrated at the prolonged nature of negotiations and angst on my behalf.

Not that their advice is incorrect, that is of course what I had attempted; it is sound advice if negotiating with a reasonable and cooperative person. However, if the other person’s energy literally feeds from taking power, it feeds from the fight itself.

I’ve learned that people with narcissistic traits are never going to sit down and state what they want like a reasonable person. Win-win is not in their psyche, it's win-lose they feed from. They stage war, but they don't want to win the war without having many drawn out battles along the way. Every battle is a chance to win power over the other; it's how they get their energy, and their very sense of self.

It is why, Rebecca Zung says, that “just giving them what they want doesn’t work. They will find a way to drag things out, twist your words and continue to try to provoke a reaction”. The only way to deal with it is by not giving them the satisfaction of an emotional response.

It's not any different than the taunting my daughter was subject to. When she reacts emotionally and says "Stop! Why are you doing this?" That's the reaction right there that makes the provoker feel powerful because they've made the other person feel powerless. It’s when you can give off the impression you don’t care that takes the steam out their pistons.

It was of course hard keeping my centre and personal power in the face of multitudes of spurious accusations in relation to those people and things closest to me. The temptation to respond to even the smallest and most ridiculous of barbs is always there, my inner child’s voice still says “there must be some misunderstanding, let me explain…”.

But the bottom line is, if that person doesn't treat me well, if their communication is devoid of basic respect, then it's designed to provoke. It's certainly not in the realms of fair and reasonable, it's more in the realm of street fighting.  And the situations I’ve been through have been so extreme it’s taught me life lessons that will serve me well going forward.

This desire to explain, to educate the other person that my intentions are good, it’s a fools desire when over and over for many years that other person has chosen to ignore the countless kind and thoughtful things I’ve done, the thousands of reasoned explanations and evidence of my inherent goodness.

Like Kira J says, I can’t people please my way into acceptance, I need to accept myself and accept that the other person – for whatever reason – is simply not going to see my sun as shining and hold some strong and healthy boundaries around that. What is the old saying “When the horse is dead, get off”, yes indeed, I reckon that horse was already a pile of bones many times over in my life, and I’ve looked at it seeing the potential it could have with some life breathed into it. Huge painful wasted energy.

No more giving away my power, end of story. Nor is the answer in taking from others, however, even when they are goading and pushing and trying to get a reaction, win-win is always the way to go. The satisfaction of revenge and retorts are temporary and only fuel the flames, they too are an emotional reaction. I want to keep integrity and walk away with my head held high.

To end I will quote another post I saw this week from Sasha Tozzi, wise words indeed. She says “Choose people who:

• Choose you
  
• Ask how you are
  
• See you
  
• Let you be you
  
• Feel good to your nervous system
  
• You can breathe easily around
  
• You don’t need to perform for
  
• Are good for your mental health\Want to see you win
  
• Don’t try to control you”
  

Amen to that.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How to Make Your Communication Clean, Open and Honest and Get What You Want, Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Do You Always Express Your True Feelings? Get out of Your Head and into Your Heart, Change Unhealthy Reactions, Base Your Actions on Love Not Fear and Why You Should Consciously Engage in Body Talk. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.