I have a friend who is contending with a lot right now, and feeling that the ground beneath her feet has become rather shaky with COVID19 restrictions intensifying. Amid all of life’s uncertainties, she took a positive step and her face beamed as she told me about it.

The step she took had nothing to do with the circumstances that have been derailing her, it was unrelated, but the point is she had done something positive for herself and it was a massive boost to her morale.

Taking a leaf from her book, I decided it was time for me too to take positive steps towards my own future and started to crystallise my thoughts about how I want my life to look moving forward. I don’t mean what it will look like in two years or five years or ten, I’m good at that sort of vision, but what I want to happen next has been less defined.

My life has been in a state of limbo for too long, and I’ve been allowing it to be determined by others and circumstances so it is time for me to take hold of what tomorrow looks like.

It brings to mind the beautiful lyrics from The Next Right Thing sung by Kristen Bell when she sings “Take a step, step again, it is all that I can do...the next right thing” and “when you are lost, hope is gone, but you must go on...and do the next right thing”.

Life has many uncertainties, from my home life to the life that now consists of numerous COVID19 restrictions, and many things in between. Taking a positive step – any positive step – feels good. Like when I booked myself on a course I’ve been contemplating for a while, or when I decided to get some help to understand my rights.

And richest of all, is taking steps to heal emotionally.

As Teal Swan says “Don’t chase happiness, chase relief”. She explains:

“When you are feeling stuck in a negative emotion, you do not have access to purely positive states like happiness. That seems so far away and unreachable, and only serves to remind you how unhappy you are.

Yet no matter where you are emotionally, you always have access to relief. For example, when you are feeling disempowered, thinking about something that causes you to express anger will cause you to release your attachment to disempowerment and thus you will feel a sensation of release in the body.”

Not that I am aiming for anger, but the grief process tends to go back and forth between different emotional states that all the while slowly start to move to a more neutral point. And I go much faster through these states when I deliberately take steps to see, feel and heal them.

For much of my life I buried pain and anger, soldiering on when I was hurt. But now I have learned that – while I have kids to look after and responsibilities I must meet - I have a responsibility to myself first. So, as positive a step as it is to book myself on a course, it’s a richer step to sit with my pain and see it, and try to understand it, and help it heal.

There are lots of ways to emotionally heal, but they all seem to involve allowing myself to first fully feel the pain instead of pushing it away. I can pretend that it’s okay I didn’t get to take my kids to go visit my dad last year in the UK because of lockdown, for example, but it’s not okay, we are still no closer to getting to visit now. In fact we are further from it as I no longer have the finances to jump on a plane if I could.

Sure, I’m pragmatic about it, there’s nothing I can do about it, and I’m not wallowing in self pity, but I am feeling the pain of it. So I have to turn towards that pain and acknowledge it instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. I have to take myself – or have someone else guide me – through a process to help me name that pain.

Does it make me feel utterly disempowered? Am I feeling anxious about it? Am I furious? Or am I just feeling disappointed? To be fair, how I feel can change, but by always turning towards the feeling rather than turning my back on it, I have a chance of shifting it towards something that feels better; preferably something more neutral.

All of these things are positive steps when life is uncertain.

What are the circumstances in your life that feel uncertain? How do you feel about them? What positive steps can you take today to help you feel better?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Heal Your Past Hurts To Help You Fulfill Your Potential, Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Take Your Broken Pieces and Make a Beautiful Life, How Living Your Passions Fully Combats Feeling Lonely  and How to Heal the Past so You Can Live Your Best Present. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I’ve always believed in the inherent goodness of people and, although I learned about different personality types and behavioural styles in my early adulthood, I always assumed people were generally fair minded and want to do the right thing by others.

I knew there were exceptions of course, when I studied psychology we learned about mental illnesses and behavioural disorders and I sort of assigned any mal-intent to that minority. Many years ago when I heard someone say “People don’t do things to you, they do things for themselves” it rang true.

As a result, when I’ve been hurt I have tried not to take it too personally, choosing instead to seek to understand what pain might be driving that poor behaviour, and excused too much of it as a result. In close relationships I would see a person’s true potential, believe I could help them reach it, and want to help fix the problems.

The issue with that is it assumes that person can also see just how encumbered they are with unhelpful beliefs (that drive some gnarly behavioural patterns causing problems in their life), and wants to embark on a journey to reach their potential. Frankly, who needs that uninvited though? It’s like saying “you are not good enough as you are”.

I’ve learned that kind of journey needs to be entirely self motivated. It’s not my business to try to help anyone who hasn’t asked for help. But, I also don’t need to put up with poor behaviours just because I might understand where they are driven from. And, believe me, I’ve put up with a lot of poor behaviours from others in my life.

I clearly had my own journey to go on and my focus shifted years ago from blaming others and circumstances for any unhappiness, to looking within to my beliefs, behaviours and what I’m allowing from others.

This week I have been listening to a series of experts being interviewed on the topic of toxic relationships, a term I haven’t particularly thought much about until this point. But it’s added another layer of realisation in terms of how I allow others to treat me.

Therapist Briana MacWilliam explains that a toxic relationship is one where “a person discounts the other person as autonomous from themselves and treats them as poorly as they treat themselves on the inside”. She goes on to explain this can mean dismissing someone’s feelings and degrading their character – the key being that it is a pattern of behaviour not just a one-off.

When she talked about different forms of relationship attachment styles, the one she described as an “anxious attachment” (or an open heart) rang true for the me I was before I started my inner work:

• I have been accustomed to a lack of love in my romantic relationships and fallen into people-pleasing mode.
• I have tended to give too much, and wait around too long for the reciprocation of loving feelings.
• I have taken on more than the Lion's Share of the responsibility, guilt, and blame in any relationship because I think if I am responsible for something going wrong, it must be within my power to fix it.
• I have had low self-esteem and struggled with feelings of unworthiness.
• Deep down, I have believed I have to earn love and approval and so have been drawn to partners that are “challenging” or “edgy,” that make me work for it.
• By being over-helpful, I have perhaps subconsciously tried to make myself indispensable to partners, the underlying invisible premise being “If they need me, they won’t leave me”. But this is a double edged sword; working so hard, I then question whether or not they really love me for me…(and struggled with knowing who the “real” me was too).
•  I have tended to get lost in the potential of the relationship, rather than the reality of it.

• But the hardest thing is I’ve usually attracted others with insecure attachment styles, who don’t appreciate me and take my generosity for granted.

Many of the discussions in the conference centred on narcissistic behaviours, certainly one I’ve had the misfortune of encountering a number of times. I used to hear the term narcissist and think of it rather like a cliché, but as I have lived through various toxic relationships I’ve begun to recognise just how common this is – and how ill equipped I was to recognise and deal with narcissistic behaviours.

Dr Les Carter is quick to point out narcissistic behaviours can be plotted on a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum there is healthy narcissism, a positive sense of self that is in alignment with the greater good. At the other end of the spectrum there is more destructive narcissism characterised by a consistent pattern of grandiose attitudes and behaviours.

As Dr Carter mentions, it is perfectly normal for people to display thoughtless, selfish behaviour once in a while, it’s the recurring pattern of that behaviour that causes toxic relationships. If someone acts that way, say, twenty percent of the time, that’s obviously quite different from someone who acts that way eighty percent of the time.

He says “Narcissists bring out the worst in us, wearing you down over time. Their desire to be in control puts you in the inferior position and you’re on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, gas lighting (denial, lies, smoke and mirrors), second guessing and –over time – a building sense of frustration, tension and confusion”.

He goes on to explain “You want collaboration in a relationship, they see it as a competition to stay superior. They need to be admired; other people are their potential supply to build up their fragile egos. They whittle away at your dignity, your reasoning and mock your emotions. They want to eliminate your free will.”

Now all this kind of talk sounded much too fantastical to me because it elicits a picture in my head of a person sitting in a room strategising all the ways in which they could consciously entrap me. Whereas in reality I’ve found it’s more a set of subconscious behaviours driven by deep insecurities and shame. And people with these behavioural patterns are not interested in anything but their own truth.

I can see the wasted hours and energy I have spent trying to get other people (who seem bound and determined to dismiss, demean and belittle me) to try to see my perspective. When Dr Carter said “Don’t even attempt to make them think differently, there is only one opinion that matters and it isn’t yours” I realised just how true that is. 

Other tell-tale signs Dr Carter cited that I recognise from experience:

• No empathy – narcissists don’t identify with the feelings or emotions of others, so they don’t care who they hurt to get what they need
• A sense of entitlement – narcissists and other toxic personalities have a sense of entitlement when it comes to their needs always coming first
• Walking on eggshells –erratic behaviours and responses; not knowing from day to day what their mood will be or what you will need to do to appease them.

Then Lisa Romano talked about another common red flag, a pattern of someone getting enraged when you try to raise an issue with them in a civil manner. I have experienced this frequently; there is simply no space for considering another’s opinion, whereas in a healthy relationship there is give and take and mutual respect.

I first came across Lisa last year when I read her story in The Road Back to Me and My Road Beyond the Codependent Divorce. Her story is very compelling as it charts her childhood experiences through to her adult relationships, where cause and effect can clearly be seen.

Circling back to Briana MacWilliam’s definition of a toxic relationship, about treating others “as poorly as they treat themselves on the inside”, Lisa’s story demonstrates exactly how the way a person treats themselves on the inside comes about in those early childhood and adolescent years.

When I read Lisa’s story, I felt grateful I hadn’t had her experiences. Yet when I reflected on my own childhood experiences, I realised that other people heard my story and thought in the same terms (grateful they hadn’t led my life).

My experiences have led me to some very unhealthy entanglements as an adult. I have been in at least two so-called romantic relationships like this, and also had a toxic relationship with a work colleague which fell into this category.

I am realizing that I kept making the same mistakes over and over, excusing poor behaviour towards myself and to others, trying to get them to see me, trying to get them to acknowledge my intentions and contributions, trying to get them to accept that I am entitled to an opinion that differs from theirs and trying to even just get them to care.

Because I could see those people so clearly, I wanted them to see me. But now I know they were not capable (without awareness and desire to change) of seeing me as anything other than a source to feed their own fragile ego.

While there has been a silver lining in my relationships with people who display these toxic characteristics, I often tried to stick with them in the hope they would see the light and change and finally give me the respect and/or love I deserved to feel (or at least respect my right to my own opinions). Meanwhile my own confidence and self esteem would get eroded and I would begin to question my own validity.

The silver lining for me is the intensity to which I’ve experienced these things was what prodded me into taking my own journey to self healing. Here are the things I’ve learned I needed to do to detoxify and rebuild my sense of self worth and self esteem:

1. Self Care – Michelle Farris said “if someone is not ready to leave a toxic relationship, at least try to get them to focus on self care. A good night’s sleep, exercise, seeing friends and having fun”. There are many aspects of self care that I have had to stand up for in toxic relationships, even though it makes me feel like a twisted car wreck inside. It sounds ridiculous to some people to have arguments about spending an extra $4 on a free range chicken as opposed to a factory farmed one, or taking care of my body by seeing a health practitioner, or receiving bitter complaints about friends or family members visiting (and making the atmosphere more than a little awkward when they do). And while experiencing intensive disdain towards my healthy choices, I have been more than accommodating of their choices that I would personally consider unhealthy and damaging. The respect went one way, but I saw that hypocrisy for what it was and stood determined to take care of myself despite the emotional backlash that ensued.
2. Healthy Boundaries – If, like me until a year or so ago, you don’t even really know what this term means, that is a big red flag to go check it out. There were a lot of speakers at the conference talking on this topic, but I personally got a lot of out of Terri Cole’s book Boundary Boss. All three of these points interlink, and I have become much more adept at self care by learning better boundaries and by learning to become less reactive.
3. Become Non-Reactive – As Dr Carter said, the behaviour of toxic people is wearing and it leads to a lot of anger and resentment among other strong emotions. Plus there is that persistent desire to try to convince someone who is being toxic towards me that I deserve fairness, that I am a good person and so on. He recommends “no pleading, no coaxing and no convincing, it’s going into their territory, this person is not interested in anything but their own truth”. Instead he recommends taking a stance of “I understand our opinions differ, none the less that s what I am going to do anyway” Lisa Romano pointed out that “you can’t have something different until l you do something different”. As I said, I had a lot of experience of trying to convince others of my good intentions and trying to get them to see my viewpoint. An old colleague took exception to me and would regularly challenge and belittle my opinions in meetings, and just as regularly I would take her aside for a discussion afterwards. We would get locked in conversations for hours and it became utterly exhausting. In hindsight I can see how fruitless that was, my attention and energy would have benefitted by being directed elsewhere and dealing with her in a more direct way.

​And the absolute worst thing about toxic relationships I’ve found is they are hard to recognise when in them. It’s so confusing because the other person is always deflecting blame.

But it’s simple really, with that person do you mostly feel good or bad, love or fear (p.s. I would never admit to being afraid, but my body said otherwise with my nervous system on constant high alert and my tummy constantly churning)? You deserve respectful communication, to feel seen and heard, to have give/take. You can forgive one-off transgressions but not a pattern. Go detoxify, you deserve it.
​
If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Your Mind Will Try to Protect You By Resisting Your Healthy Boundaries, Empower Yourself - When a Difficult Reaction Sends You Into a Tailspin, Are You Overly Responsible? Actually Seeing Yourself Through Fresh Eyes, Overcome the Greatest Human Fear – Be the True You and What I Love About Being With Narcissistic People. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

An old feeling crept upon me this week; in short I’d call it stress, which Eckhart Tolle defines as being here while wanting to be there.

There are so many aspects of my life right now that contribute to the feeling, ranging from the birthday party I organised for my daughter to the growing restrictions on my freedom in this society and many things in between, including navigating a separation.

I fall into bed exhausted at night and then awake in the small hours with a tight balled-up feeling in my tummy, and proceed to ruminate for hours on all manner of things, from the steps I’ll need to take to create a cake that is shaped like the Mad Hatter’s hat to fears about the future; then back again to organising play dates and activities for the school holidays.

This is a pattern that last stood out in the year in which my mum was diagnosed with cancer and slowly slipped beyond our grasp, it’s the same pattern I recognise from the days of working in a corporate career with a toddler and baby at home, and the many other high intensity moments in my life.

I have resilience, when the going gets tough I step up to the plate and I work through it.
But this time, I don’t want to just plough on ticking all the right boxes except one. The one I’ve always missed in the past is being present with me.

In fact I’ve been so busy, so distracted I asked one of my good friends, “What’s my lesson this week?” as I can’t see the wood from the trees and was wondering what to write about. She suggested “The importance of making cake (metaphor for memories)” and “Being comfortable with the uncomfortable” both great topics for me right now.

Then the dots started joining, I remembered reading an email from Teal Swan about distraction, lack of fulfilment and going to safe and loving place to discover and look at my resistance. She said something that really struck me:

“Even though distraction is less painful in the moment, it further enhances the feeling of inertia within you. It feeds a lack of fulfilment.”

Immediately I recalled the times in my career where I’d be so busy working and multitasking, especially in the evening putting the kids to bed and sitting on the couch in front of the TV while my then partner watched and I responded to emails and follow up actions I had from meetings.

He would switch off the TV and say “Time for bed?” then head upstairs, I would linger in that moment of silence that followed and briefly acknowledge the tugging sensation in my gut. I now know that sensation was my inner frustration at the inertia and lack of fulfilment.

I was busy, extremely productive, but producing little of value to the soul within that travels in this body and wanted me to step back from all of that and hear myself.

What Teal went on to say about lack of fulfilment was very similar to Eckhart’s definition of stress, she said “This means there is a link in your mind between wanting and opposition to the wanting, being prevented from getting what you want.”

And then came the reminder that the way to break that cycle of simultaneous wanting and resistance, and the horrid feelings and patterns of stress that accompany it, is to make the space to be with myself in a meditative state where I can take a better look at that resistance.

If I have enough space around me I am able to go within and lead myself on inner journeys, but right now that is proving difficult. So I decided to listen to one of Teal’s guided meditations and spent some time looking at that tight knot on my tummy, realizing it stems from a much earlier pain that signified my feelings of a lack of self worth, so I spent some time releasing it in my imagination and creating something different that filled my heart.

This led to a much better night’s sleep and, when I awoke the next morning, my daughter and I claimed triumph as we stacked the layers of her Alice in Wonderland cake together. Making cake wouldn’t generally be on my list of things I love to do, but helping my daughter make her dreams come true, absolutely.

Seeing the beautiful things we envisioned and created together come to fruition, and the joy she had in sharing that with her friends as they celebrated the day she arrived here in this life was fulfilling. My friend is right, it is important to make these memories.

These are the kinds of memories that will live in my heart forever, whereas much of the other noise that has been living in my head will be forgotten – unless I let it store its heavy baggage in my being by not taking the time to see, feel and release it.

In fact, experience tells me that forgotten baggage does not like to stay forgotten, it seems to magnetize itself to new experiences that then create a whole other story of pain and more baggage. I figure I may as well be proactive and retrieve it and take a good look at it in the full light of day. I intend to look after my wellbeing now, I don’t need weighed down with any more baggage.

I have a friend who always says she doesn’t want to go near her baggage, or as she says “the skeletons” in her cupboard. Ironically I’ve found my skeletons only have power over me when I refuse to acknowledge how their presence is showing up in my life today. When I do acknowledge those skeletons the ugly takes on a more benign, if not beautiful, form.

What is your stress – beyond the obvious - pointing to right now? Are you willing to give yourself the gift of presence to uncover what wants to be released?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How Living Your Passions Fully Combats Feeling Lonely, The Soul’s Yearning – How to Recognise Your Inner Work, How Is Your Ability to Connect With Abundance Right Now? and Reclaim the Sweet Spot of Being in Your Element. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

This is the story of my childhood and the inadvertent trauma I experienced that wove its way into the fabric of who I became in ways that were not always helpful - as published on TinyBuddha.com. Click here to read 

Every now and then I hear something that feels like a fundamental truth about how life works. When I hear it, there is an internal shift, a feeling that something has just clicked into place.

One of the most pivotal things I’ve heard in my life, were these words:

“YOU are the only one who creates your reality. If you knew your potential to feel good, you would ask no one to be different so that you could feel good. You would free yourself of the cumbersome impossibility of needing to control people and circumstances.”

Cumbersome impossibility, those words felt richly mined from the depths of my experiences. At the time I heard them, back in 2006, I was reflecting on every relationship with every person I had ever had to that point. I could see the countless times I had not just tried to persuade people to my way of thinking on any number of things, but literally believing my way was the right way.

And over the years that followed I observed it both within myself and among others. Those words have remained with me like a rod that will not be broken, pointing to a true north it cannot deny. Over the years I have slowly broken old habits and softened my stances and now generally stand in an attitude of live and let live much more of the time.

There are a collection of those kinds of beliefs within me, some that are harder to articulate because I haven’t yet perhaps taken them out into the light, dusted them off and been awed with how they shimmer and gleam. But one I have always felt within me as a truth is “Everything works out for the greater good”.

I mean this in a broader, collective sense. Words that speak to this, and come to mind, were written in one of Belinda Alexandra’s novels, reflected by one of the main characters:

“All honourable causes eventually succeed even if at first they fail. The spirits of good people – even if they die in defeat, return in future generations to continue moving the human race forwards to higher and better things.”

The same character also reflected that “Out of darkness and suffering can come hope, joy and progress”.

I was asking my almost-teen niece this week what she thinks the most important thing is right now for people in the world to consider.

She mentioned both that COVID19 isn’t yet gone and, separately, how she is seeing anger getting played out in ways that aren’t getting the attention needed to resolve the issues. One of the examples she gave was a 13-year old who was stabbed by a so called friend, and she was trying to fathom how a 13-year old had enough anger that he could actually kill his classmate.

I could relate to this as I can recall being shocked when two boys at my own school got into a fight and one stabbed the other. As I’ve learned more about childhood trauma I’ve learned that anger is an emotional reaction that occurs when boundaries have been overstepped. And often that anger gets misdirected at someone whose actions were simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I have often wondered, looking back on that fight at my school, what sort of emotional or otherwise abuse was going on at home for both the kids involved.

I agree with my niece that waking up to that is important in our society. Becoming consciously aware of the narratives in my head, and what narratives I’m passing onto my kids either intentionally or unintentionally, has been life transforming for me as I explained in Normal Is Dysfunctional That Is the Growth Opportunity.

But I feel this lack of general awareness and intentionality is actually tied to the other issue my niece mentioned, that COVID19 hasn’t gone away. How many kids around the world right now are hearing a narrative in their homes about COVID19, its effects and government restrictions? And what sort of impact is it having on them I wonder? Are these narratives ones that are making them feel empowered or disempowered? Fearful or safe? Angry or apathetic?

The arguments appear to becoming more polarised and fear driven. In particular the central, single most damaging theme – in my opinion – is a narrative that says “my safety and freedom depends on your actions”.

These are the very antithesis of those words I heard back in 2006, that feel to me like a fundamental truth:

“YOU are the only one who creates your reality. If you knew your potential to feel good, you would ask no one to be different so that you could feel good. You would free yourself of the cumbersome impossibility of needing to control people and circumstances.”

I can’t help compare that with political statements and media campaigns I’m seeing at this time in our society. Trying to persuade people that one way is right and another wrong is what has started every human conflict on the face of the planet.

Going back to that same novel of Belinda Alexandra’s, which was set in the era of the Second World War, the character reflected further:

“While most had not wanted war, they had chosen a path of greed and pride and the result had been war. For where else does violence begin but within each individual human heart? It started with violence of thought and action, jealousy of others and loathing of oneself.

It had its beginning in the daily choices one made. Including indifference to others’ suffering and oppression. From there it escalated into a collective competitiveness, selfishness, pettiness, spite and greed. Violence of even the seemingly innocuous kind begets more violence. That was the origin of war.”

While I can readily sense the violence of the 13-year old my niece mentioned, I can sense it just as much in trying to force people to do something they don’t want to. And I mean this in both senses when it comes to choosing a course of action for each individual.

I have seen those who have chosen to accept a vaccine come under as much pressure from well-intentioned family members as those who don’t. “My safety and freedom depends on your actions” is the narrative I am hearing from our government. I am seeing anything that speaks against this narrative – or which even questions it – being torn to shreds, censored and outright vilified.

But what about having the freedom of choice I wonder? Of having sovereignty over my own body? Has that been lost in the fog? Have people been beaten down by the endless lockdowns and loss of other freedoms? The lack of connection with loved ones?

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said “No price is too high for the privilege of owning yourself”.
And what is the price in this case I wonder? These issues are not going away.

Final reflections from the character in Belinda’s novel might add some insight into my own way forward as I navigate these times:

“Peace on a worldwide scale is determined by each of us creating peace in our own hearts and minds first, and doing our best to live in harmony with people and other living creatures around us. When we can do that, I believe we will become a force powerful enough to create positive change on a scale never before conceived.”

I believe this too. But it was so much easier in easier times. Now is among the worst of times, and it may get even worse before it gets better.

The most important task for me has been creating peace in my own heart and mind. And to stick to what I felt true, and still do - to ask no one to be different (or do differently) so that I can feel good. I didn’t feel it as a fundamental truth and now think “ah yes, well COVID19 will be the exception”. No, what is happening right now is not the exception; it’s simply an extreme circumstance to which the same truth applies.

“Live and let live” isn’t something I aspired to in the best of times and am now going to ditch. The privilege of owning myself is one that is not always comfortable. The external world can force itself physically, but it cannot change my mind, my beliefs or my values – and the more force it applies the more it exposes its true nature.

Going back to what I said in Why the Integration of Feelings and Logic Will Save the Human Race, the current world view – Materialism – is based on physical objects as the stuff of creation and yet reality remains inexplicable.

In that article I shared that Deepak Chopra cites our most urgent problems as overpopulation, pandemic disease, refugeeism and climate change and says “you may hope and pray that science and technology (which have been the most urgent things in the age of materialism) will come to the rescue, but the chances are tenuous without a huge change in how we think”. All of this leads him to conclude that the change necessary is a change in self awareness.

I also recall a talk by Eckhart Tolle talking frankly about the human need to be right, and the shift in self awareness required to see our thoughts as nothing more than subjective opinions.  And what has been thought of collectively as “good and true” among us simply marks a point in time.

Remember the widespread belief that all computers and electronics would crash as the clock struck midnight heralding the year 2000? I was even paid to do training with companies to protect them against the so-called Millennium Bug. Remember the panic in the 1970’s that oil was going to run out within 30 years? And the panic was purely consumer driven; there was zero thought about what we were doing to the eco-system. Remember the belief that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling nuclear weapons which launched a war killing tens of thousands of people?

This list could go on and on and without even including the vastly differing beliefs of people in societies depending on who is in rule and which dogmas are in place at the time, and without even pointing to some of the fundamental shifts in beliefs that civil rights movements have driven. It is inconceivable to many people now that humans were thought of as unequal just because of their gender or race, and yet that oppression existed and stay plays out today in many ways seen and unseen.

Therefore challenging and compelling people to change their beliefs or their actions does to me feel like a cumbersome impossibility. What if, instead, I just trust my own inner knowing about what is best for me? And trust that others can do the same for themselves? And to trust in the overall direction of life, that the human race is – even if in a snake-and-ladder type fashion at any point in time – moving forwards to higher and better things.

Are you able to ask no one to be different, or take different action, at this time so that you can feel good? What would it take for you to create peace in your own heart and mind right now? Which narratives would feel more empowering?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Do YOUR Research! Strengthen Your Character to Stop Getting Triggered by Wild Beliefs, How to Appreciate Our Differences Enough to Admire and Want to Embrace Them, Empower Yourself - When a Difficult Reaction Sends You Into a Tailspin and Make the Invisible Visible - Celebrate the Gold in Your Emotional Reactions. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Knowing I’ve been going through a separation, I was asked whether I feel lonely which caused me to stop and think. My immediate reaction was “Not any more than I did before”. Sure, there are times I feel lonely, this is a natural by product of letting go of the old, there’s a space that opens up for the new, without that space the new cannot arise.

The very definition of being lonely though is about feeling disconnected. I can be alone or I can be surrounded by other people and still feel lonely. Conversely I can be on my own or with others and feel connected, content, alive, or maybe even joyful.

When I feel lonely, it’s a strong indicator to me that there is something within me – usually thoughts that have been subconsciously circling around – not serving me well. As I was talking to a good friend of mine I realised this is one of the biggest shifts in awareness I’ve long since made in my life. There was a time when I would have looked outside of myself to fill the emptiness within.

In fact there was a pivotal moment, almost two decades ago now, when a partner of mine decided he was going to commit to a new hobby, which meant I would be alone in the house every Sunday night. I literally couldn’t stand the feelings it evoked within me, I felt totally abandoned. Having said goodbye at the front door that first evening, I turned around, closed it, slid to the floor and sat there and sobbed for a good half hour.

I also felt a good deal of self loathing for feeling so needy. It was at that point in my life I started to face the pain that being alone meant I could no longer ignore. Sure, I could have watched more TV, socialised with girlfriends or taken up a hobby of my own, but I didn’t feel drawn to any of those options; I just felt a heavy grey cloud within me.

Most of the time I was too busy working or giving my attention to the person I lived with, or my family, to pay any heed to the nondescript heavy weight inside that was stopping me from fully connecting with life. “Maybe it’s time to face it” I thought.

That is the point in my life I started doing emotional journey work. A friend of mine introduced me to a process developed by Brandon Bays, and I used it to bring some awareness to what was going on inside me. It was the beginning of the journey to me, as I started to unravel this identity called Shona, and uncover the layers that defined it: including feelings about a lack of self worth, a sense of not belonging, about not being important, and the source of those feelings.

It wasn’t a one hit wonder, it was a moment in time where I started the journey and began to look forward to my Sunday night solitude. This led to me making big changes in my life, and moving to the other side of the world.

As I described in Are the Most Loving, Courageous and Compassionate Parts of You in the Driving Seat? I still wasn’t clear on what my role in life was at that point, though I felt strongly there was one, and I entered another phase of life in which I had little solitude for a number of years.

Then in 2014, struggling with the duality of motherhood and career responsibilities, I took my exit from the corporate world with a fierce determination to continue this inner journey I had begun the decade before. Motherhood has been an invitation to strip away those layers of unhelpful beliefs like no other.

I sort of picture this a bit like having been wrapped in layers and layers of soft gauze over the years and then the kids come along, with all their big untamed energy and self-centred desires, and start tearing the gauze to shreds.

Each time this happens I have a choice:

• I can use dominance and control to defend and reinforce my comfy gauze/beliefs (and thus further entrench myself and them in a world where others needs are more important, and I feel obligated to certain things even though I would rather poke out my eyes with a pin); this has been the norm for generations
• Or I can look at the raw wound and start to heal it; which also means learning new skills in managing my reactions, developing healthy boundaries and communicating those in a peaceful, honest and direct way (thus teaching the children healthier choices by example).

I have chosen the latter. But what does this have do with living my passion? Never has this been so clear to me than hearing these questions posed by Janet Attwood, author of The Passion Test:

• How clear are you on your top 5 passions in life?
• Do you make decisions based on what will help you live those passions most fully?
• Do you spend your days doing things you love surrounded by people you love?

What I realised in undertaking the journey to me, is I have a real passion for authenticity. So I set about defining my top five passions:

1. Being the full authentic expression of myself; and helping others discover their own unique authentic expression
2. Being with my children in full authentic connection and being a space in which they can express their authentic selves
3. Recognising the body as a litmus test of how close or how far to that authentic expression I am  and the patterns, illness and disease that show up within it when I’m not
4. Creating structures in society that thrive on and enhance people being their full authentic expressions of themselves
5. The inherent connection I have to all of life, and the idea of thriving on that and enhancing others and things because of that connection.

Janet’s observations nailed it “You have been torn between the desire to follow your heart and your beliefs about what you think you have to do. You may have felt you can’t do what you love because you have responsibilities, or others who need your help, or because you need money. They are all beliefs that keep you separated from joy and fulfillment”.

Something else I heard Tony Robbins speak about recently then came to mind, about immersing myself in things and around people who are aligned with my own aspirations. I began to see that while I’ve been living my first three passions to a large extent for a few years now, there is a huge opportunity gap to make decisions going forwards that align with all of those passions and to seek out more people who feel the same way.

I recognise that if I make decisions that allow me to live my passions most fully, then feeling lonely would be nothing more than a memory.

As Janet Atwood puts it “When you do what is best for you, you’re simultaneously doing what is best for others. When you clarify the things that mean the most to you in your life, and then make choices based on what will allow you to align your life with those things, then you will not only enjoy your life more, but others will also enjoy being around you”.

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Change the World One Day at a Time, Put Money in its Place, What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)?, Want to Make the World a Better Place? Tune In, and Profit, Purpose and Personal Fulfillment Can Thrive Together - A Remarkable New Organisational Construct. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.