A friend of mine was relating what a beautiful New Year’s Eve she had had with a few special friends and they each chose a word for 2022, which got me thinking about my own word for 2022. Simplicity was the one I landed on, and it’s certainly come through as a theme this week in my life.

Many years ago, a mentor of mine talked about the need to make space and let go of things in order for the new to arise. I thought about this again when I read a recent observation from Teal Swan that most people are so overwhelmed and stressed out right now, managing the multitude of interconnected elements of their lives, that they are stretched to the limit.

It’s her view that a mass move towards simplification will happen naturally, out of sheer necessity, as people are pushed to the distress/overwhelm breaking point. She says “At its essence, to simplify is to strip away the nonessential; so as to be able to put your focus, time, energy and action on the things that matter the very most to you”.

Having had the last week of the year to myself, which is the most me-time I have had in years, I really got a definite sense of how burdened I can feel by my usual day-to-day responsibilities. Of course, being in the middle of a separation also brings its own complexities and thus opportunities to simplify, as well as the social restrictions imposed by governments and the opportunities to simplify that exist around that.

Certainly during lockdowns I have used the time to go through all my physical belongings and radically declutter, especially the boxes of stuff in my attic. I’m also looking forward to the split of households to let go of even more. I have found simplifying physical things to be cathartic and relatively straight forward, and therefore a good place to start.

But lockdowns have also given me the opportunity to get a felt sense of release from social obligations, and I have very clearly noticed the areas in my life where I was doing things out of a sense of duty only, and have begun to set healthier boundaries around these.

Teal’s advice is “In order to simplify, you have to be completely honest with yourself and others about your values and how they are prioritised. No person can tell you what your values should be because no one can tell you what should be most important to you.”

That said, I can – at times - find it tricky to distinguish what I do actually value from unhealthy embedded beliefs. Many unhelpful beliefs still lurk from childhood experiences that led to ingrained people pleasing behaviours, enmeshment trauma, codependent ways of relating and perfectionism to name a few.

Yet, as much as experiences with people can create complexity on many levels, I suspect is it only through interacting with people that I will also get more clarity on what else I have to simplify within me, and it would certainly be a lonely experience without other people in my life.

A friend of mine sent me a photo of something he had read which he thought would appeal to me, I think it’s from A Course in Miracles:

“To hold a grievance is to let the ego rule your mind. No one alone can judge the ego truly. Yet when two or more join together in searching for truth, the ego can no longer defend its lack of content. Our union is therefore the way to renounce the ego.”

As I said a few years ago in The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth: “It’s no coincidence that we form relationships with people who trigger us. We are drawn to people who are – in some way – a match to our own issues, and they both challenge us and help us heal and grow.”

So much of my personal growth has come from recognising the dysfunctional thoughts, beliefs and behaviours I had cultivated. And, as I have grown, my friendships and relationships have changed, attracting new challenges. I get a strong sense that there is still more to clear out.

Someone was telling me that one of the first things people learn in AA is “keep it simple”. We had been discussing various concepts and I jokingly said “why would I use 200 words when 2000 will do”, acknowledging I have a tendency to delve deep into things which can lose a lot of people.

Words have been my go-to for so long, keeping me safe in the same way a buffer of any kind creates space between me and being hurt, it’s a hard habit to break despite it fuelling a sense that I am too much for other people.

But words are just one facet of it, feelings and insecurities are another. I became conscious this week in dealing with a shy person that I have a propensity to overshare my own feelings in order to attempt to make them feel safer to express their own feelings. But if I’m honest with myself, I don’t give people enough space to actually do that, scared of the silence that brings an opportunity for rejection.

I also notice that when I share something with someone about my own feelings (when it’s actually their feelings I’m interested in) instead of asking them the question directly, it’s possibly because I am scared about seeming too needy. This is another dysfunctional pattern arising from old hurts and old habits.

The next lines in that excerpt from A Course in Miracles are quite beautiful, it says “The truth in both of us is beyond the ego. You believe that without the ego, all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that without the ego, all would be love”. In simple terms that translates to me as worrying about something makes it worse, trust is paramount.

So to simplify my life from an emotional standpoint, I have to continue to be radically honest with myself about my motives in the way I interact. I then have to learn new skills and practice them, which is likely to be kind of clunky at first. That creates another fear in itself, of looking stupid or inviting rejection. Rejection of a false self is one thing, rejection of my true self is quite another.

And yet, another possibility exists. That is the possibility that by simplifying on every level of my being, and by offering up my authentic self in each interaction, my true self will not only be accepted, it will be loved.

A simple truth occurs to me at this point, is it not better to lose those people who reject my authentic self than to continue to feed the illusion of the false self in order to not lose those people? This has come at a huge cost – my happiness. And, on the flip side, what would it feel like to attract into my life those who resonate with the true expression of who I am?

Yes simplicity on every level is the way to go in 2022 for me.

What would benefit from the process of simplifying in your life? Is it time to strip away the nonessential; so as to be able to put your focus, time, energy and action on the things that matter the very most to you, and to be accepted and loved for more of who you truly are?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How Do I Honour What I Believe and Care Less What You Think?, How to Receive and Be More Confident in Your Needs, Desires and Opinions, Embrace Your Authentic Self, Shed the Toxic People in Your Life and How Living Your Passions Fully Combats Feeling Lonely. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

A whole week to myself, I haven’t had so much me-time in over fifteen years, and it’s been an absolute tonic.

One of my friends asked, as we headed into 2022, what my objectives are. On the cusp of my fiftieth birthday, it really feels like I am stepping into the second part of my life which – in many ways – will be quite contrary to the first part. As much as the first half century amounted to giving away my personal power, the second half is about fully embodying and embracing my personal power and settling for nothing less than I deserve in all respects.

Those are some great words, but as another friend said in frustration of her own personal growth journey “how?”

Setting an intention is one thing but making it happen requires a mixture of new skills, awareness, patience and fortitude. I happened to be listening to a video from Brianna McWilliams, a therapist who specialises in helping those with insecure attachment styles, talking about three things needed to get the best from relationships of all kinds, from personal to professional.

She says that, particularly for people pleasers with an open heart attachment style, it’s about:

• Learning to receive (rather than just give)
• Learning to have and hold good boundaries
• Learning to self advocate (express my opinion and own the fullness of who I am)

She makes the point that “People pleasers don’t know how to receive because they don’t want to be burdensome or dependant on another person’s generosity; because generally that generosity has come at a cost in the past and makes us suspicious. So remaining in a giving position keeps us in control but also makes us thoroughly unavailable”.

In situations when others offer to do something for me and I say “It’s okay thanks, I’ve got it”, she says that it isn’t about whether I’m capable of the task, it’s about letting other people in to be able to show their appreciation and love.

“Okay” I thought, that’s one objective then. Certainly when I hear someone offering to do something for me, it might take quite a bit of practice to allow them to. Because also attached to this is the desire for perfection. Again, not because I personally value perfection – in fact I would argue there is no such thing – but because striving for it was always a way to get ahead of any critics.

As a wise friend said “strive for progression not perfection”. To progress, I recognise I am so independent that it would be wise to ask my closest confidants to help me become aware at times when I am shutting people out from opportunities to contribute to my life.

When it comes to boundaries, I’m already on the right track. That said, I hadn’t heard about having personal boundaries until fairly recently in the scheme of things, and I still have a way to go, especially on being really specific about what I want – I still have a tendency to be too vague and accommodating.

This is particularly true of people who tell me what they are going to do (rather than ask me) when it is something that involves me, which I still find a little jarring. The trick is, I believe, is to respond as if they had asked my opinion and be very specific in stating my own preferences. People who act like this, I’ve found, are generally as poor at knowing and stating their own boundaries as I am, but come at it from a position of entitlement rather than subservience.

“Boundaries are guidelines for how someone relates the self to the rest of the world. They are rules of conduct built out of a mix of beliefs, opinions, attitudes, past experiences and social learning. Personal boundaries operate in two directions, affecting both the incoming and outgoing interactions between people. Personal boundaries help to define an individual by outlining likes and dislikes and what is right for them personally or wrong for them personally. Defining these things helps us to know how we will and won’t allow ourselves to be treated by others”  - Teal Swan

There are some great resources out there for learning this skill, my go-to is Boundary Boss by Terri Cole, an amazing book, and this podcast is a fantastic introduction to the topic. There are many other resources, the inimitable Teal Swan has taught a lot about boundaries from a number of perspectives and is great to listen to or read, and Yvette Rose also has her own slant.

As an objective, while I have had a good introduction to this concept and some good practice, I still have a way to go in mastering this skill. Again, trusted confidants and mentors are those I rely upon with my vulnerabilities around this.

Lastly there is self advocacy, an interesting topic. One example Brianna gave was about expressing a personal opinion, particularly if it’s contrary to an expert or mainstream opinion. Anyone who knows me knows that I have little difficulty in doing this. However, what they may not know is the whole twisted inner landscape that goes with it.

As another friend, also a recovering people pleaser, said “That’s fecking hard to do without wondering if you’ll hurt someone or worrying about what people’s opinions are etc”. Indeed. Not caring what someone thinks or feels is not where I want to head, but I don’t want to abandon myself in the process of trying to fulfil others’ desires, that is the unhealthy part.

And of course self advocacy is also about putting oneself forward, something I have an opportunity to relook at right now as I orientate myself towards making an independent income again. I have had a bad habit of making myself seem smaller to avoid looking too big for my boots. In fact I’ve probably constricted so much I’ve been rattling around inside my proverbial boots, lost in the darkness for years.

In my alone time this week, my inner voice reminded me to breathe life into the fullness of who I am. I’m not just a writer, or a pursuer and facilitator of personal growth, or an all-things strategically people related business consultant I’m all those things and more.     

In fact, these beautiful words came to me:
“You are a life that has known itself in pieces, and the pain of holding those pieces apart from themselves, but at the same time you are the life of everything in synchronicity. There is only love and resistance to love, that is everything. If you let go - you will see that the pieces cannot do anything but integrate when in the flow, they only fracture in resistance”.

I recognise the truth of that in all of us. It relates directly to what 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?”

So when it comes to self advocacy, I think it’s as much about putting on my big girl pants and being brave as I go about breaking the old patterns of staying small. I believe we each have a lot to offer and it can be many things to many people. I certainly would like to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that, it keeps my life interesting and fulfilling.

As I was reminded this week, looking back on 2021, if all that happened was that I just feel a bit better about myself, or I became clearer about what I truly need to be happy and healthy or I uncovered some of the things that truly matter to me and have taken steps towards living according to them, then – as Teal Swan says - “Congratulations you have attuned yourself to the bigger picture”.

Evolution, growth and inner work are journeys that require time, commitment and effort. So as you step into 2022, in what ways can you learn how to receive more? And what steps can you take towards becoming more confident around asserting your own needs, desires and opinions? This world is not only waiting for you to step into the fullness of who you are, it needs us each to do this. Let us take small steps together.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How Do I Honour What I Believe and Care Less What You Think?. Your Mind Will Try to Protect You By Resisting Your Healthy Boundaries, Empower Yourself - When a Difficult Reaction Sends You Into a Tailspin, Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries? and How Living Your Passions Fully Combats Feeling Lonely. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I am alone on Christmas Day for the first time in my life, but I will say that I am not lonely.

Instead, I feel a strange sense of spending time with someone that I have felt awkward with for too long – me. It used to be that I could barely stand to spend any time with me; it was a concept so foreign that I would even say I was afraid to be alone.

Today as I sat on the beach by myself, I no longer feel that fear. A memory sprang up of sitting alone in a park in Sweden after a break up long ago. It was a beautiful summer’s day, and the park was busy with families and couples and people connecting. I sat in the grass among them feeling conspicuous, anxious, thinking “I could do this; I can be on my own”.

And for a while, a short while, I was. I had some time to connect in with myself, but I gave it up without having found any of the real answers I was looking for. There were possibilities laid at my door: join Al Gore’s ranks in Aussie, creating awareness about climate change; head to an African country to volunteer my services with an organisation I knew of through a leadership development programme I had worked with; or forego those and satisfy the internal clock that was ticking oh so loudly.

Making a conscious decision, I chose the opportunity to start a family. Not that it was easy, I had to earn an income and I had turned away from those other possibilities not yet knowing this me I had only just become aware of. At the time it was with a heavy heart that I turned back back to what had been tried and tested for me in a career sense.

And the starting a family part took a further three years, and two more miscarriages. But finally I satisfied that internal clock that had, in some ways, distracted me further from who I am. Because being codependent in my relationship style, knowing nothing else, I turned my back on that me I had a brief dalliance with.

I regret nothing though, it has been my honour to birth and raise such beautiful people into the world, and I enjoy seeing who they are becoming. And their birth was also my rebirth in many ways.

My closest friends called me a doormat in reference to what became in those years afterward. While that was rather jarring to hear, at one time I would have raged with indignation at such a statement, I am grateful to have such honest friends. “How did a strong, independent woman like me become a doormat?” I wondered. It is a long story and not one for the telling now, but as I slowly became reacquainted with the me that I am, being a doormat was never going to be sustainable.

I listened to Jim Carrey talk about his role playing Andy Kaufman in Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, and I was struck by his analogy between the way a pearl is formed and the way people take on a persona that is different to their inherent self.

He said that no matter what masterpiece we create to hide the parts of us we don’t feel are acceptable – in his case it was the comedic guise he took on - at some point we have to put the real us out there.
Otherwise, for him, it was an empty existence, all that fame and wealth meant nothing when hiding from himself.

I can understand that, I’ve longed to be seen and valued for so much of my life, yet I am the one who rejected parts of myself I didn’t feel were acceptable. Of course, a lot of this rejection was subconscious and part of the normal childhood adapting to fit in.

I certainly know who I had become. In the words of Lisa Romano, people who are codependent in their relationship style “feel better when rescuing, fixing and managing the poor choices of others”. And, she says “abandonment issues keep us stuck in the past, we worry, we are not true to ourselves because we are too busy trying to be what we think others need us to be and we often deny our needs for the sake of others and feel invisible in our relationships”.

To sum up the desires driving me, I wished for peace, fun, love, to feel enough and to feel seen.
But who is this me I so utterly rejected? That is who I completely lost sight of, the person my heart longed to be accepted.

As someone who loves to learn, to explore ideas, to be in my inner world and connect with others through emotional and spiritual awareness, it is bewildering to look back now and see just how much I had rejected those part of myself.

I bought into the idea that in order to be an acceptable daughter, employee, partner and mother I had to do it all or die trying. I would always do all the things I felt were expected of me and then – if there was time or (more importantly) energy - I could do the things I love.

My beliefs were also so compromised it’s ridiculous. Why should I have been afraid to explore that broader part of me that knows so much more than I ever learned from a school teacher, a doctor or a minister? Was I really so threatened by mainstream narrative and the narrow range of vision of those around me at times throughout my life?

I see now that it has often been from a very contained and restrained place of pleasing others I have looked out through eyes and into the world over the years.

I will be forever grateful for the blunt lessons that called me back from the fog. For no matter how well I kept the house, no matter how well I ran the finances, no matter how well I did in my career, no matter how well I looked after the kids and nurtured them through emotionally trying times, no matter how well I anticipated and took care of everyone’s needs, it was never enough.

There was always some criticism; the windows needed cleaning, or the way I had cooked the meal wasn’t right, or the meal itself wasn’t right, or the groceries I purchased weren’t right, or the hotel I had booked wasn’t good enough. The list was endless.

And should I take time to self care, that always attracted unwanted attention. Comments in a tone that were decidedly divisive and designed to ensure I knew that it was not acceptable for me to sit and read my book for half an hour, or go for walk along the beach in the middle of the day, or invite friends or family over or to stay for any length of time to name a few.

All of these things were absolute gifts, because they caused me to get angry and to stand up for myself, albeit carrying a great deal of grief at not feeling seen or valued for who I am. Well, now the constraints are gone. I am alone and I feel relief.

And a little awkwardness at denying and disowning the authentic parts of me, that would so fascinate me in others, for so long. As I have begun to know myself more, I say “Hello world, here I am” and it is on those terms you will meet me.

I have learned the valuable lesson that I can never be good enough to please other people all of the time. The number one person I need to respect is my self, a self that I am thoroughly enjoying getting reacquainted with and reclaiming.

Over this holiday season, are you able to take a little time to become aware of parts of yourself that you may be rejecting in order to feel accepted? In your heart, might you even want to become reacquainted with the you that you were born to be? After all, if we are not being ourselves then who is the person that is living your life other than an illusion?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Who Are You Protecting? Why Telling Your Story Is Powerful, Normal Is Dysfunctional That Is the Growth Opportunity, Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation and Resentment, the Family Business. Are You Willing to Let It Go? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I was sitting outside the theatre recently, unable to go in and watch my child perform due to the new restrictions here. I had sent a plea to the theatre owners as – under the new restrictions – they could have chosen to waive the requirement for a My Vaccine Pass but didn’t.

A friend in the same situation said “Shall we stage a protest?” My response, she decided, was pretty zen. I had decided to wait outside peacefully as I suspect the owners are more scared of the virus than the vaccination, and I am the opposite. And I didn’t think I was going to overcome their fears by further protesting, any more than they were overcoming mine through segregation and exclusion.

Honestly that response may have come from divine inspiration because all I feel is exhausted. It’s hard sometimes to avoid getting caught up in the constant bid for my attention that many things in daily life compete for.

We then sat talking about my separation and some issues going on at school for the kids. There is a lot going on. And yet, if I constantly allow myself to get dragged down rabbit holes, I am detracting from the bigger picture and just getting stuck longer and longer in a reality that is well past its expiry date. “What do I want my future to look like?” I wondered.

As I said in Be Purposeful in Your Focus - Your Glass Is Actually Still Half Full once I start contemplating and appreciating the things that are going well in my life, I get on a roll and realise that my glass is well and truly more full than empty. From there it is easier to get into visualising the future because my heart is more open.

So it is an ongoing practice, particularly at this time: to actively find things to appreciate in the present and get into visualising the future.

Luckily the weather had been great last week and I had managed a few walks at the beach. I sat imagining what kind of house I will have once I have finally sorted out the details of how to disentangle my assets. I’d love a little cottage, shabby chic furnishings, with just enough room inside for the kids and I to have our own spaces and enough garden around it that my neighbours can’t hear me sneeze.

Also, a sustainable lifestyle really appeals to me, particularly in terms of power, water and as many food products as I can manage. I have lived in a couple of houses where water was collected from the roof when it rained, and it provided all the water needs for the household, I’ve always thought that is far more sensible than a huge infrastructure that takes the water further from its natural state.

As I was sitting there contemplating and – frankly – delighting in the idea of creating a home space that reflects who I am, I noticed a lady walking her dog along the shore. The dog was having a fantastic time bounding in and out the waves, and eventually the lady walked over to say hello and we each recognised the Scottish accent we heard from the other.

There are more Scots out of Scotland than in, that is for sure, and I tend to find those of my native tongue very friendly; as was the case on this occasion too. And, as is often the way with me, within seconds we were connecting and sharing stories about what was going on for each of us at a deep heart level at this time.

We were both lamenting that, despite the current restrictions in New Zealand, we were experiencing something quite beautiful, and something that was not often available when we each lived in Scotland – warmth and sunshine on the beach beside a sparkling blue ocean.

When my mum died four years ago she said her one regret was that she wouldn’t feel the warmth of the sun on her back again as she sat on the beach, so every time I’m able to experience that I feel a huge sense of gratitude.

All of this contributed to an overwhelming sense of wellbeing that has carried on each time I manage to get back to the beach and my daydream picks up right where it left off, creating a new home and life where I am able to be more of who I am.

My big lesson right now is to see what I don’t want as a pivot point only, not to waste any more effort than necessary on spinning my wheels in the sinking sand. Fighting against something just gives it more energy and power, and fear is certainly not something I want to perpetuate.

With such extremes playing out both in my personal life and society at large, my focus and attention can go back and forth many times in each day. But always I am aware of bringing my focus back to the wanted rather than the unwanted. My dreams. Dreams are free, but they are also essential to making progress.

It’s my hope that you will each take a little time this holiday season to step away from the things that keep you spinning your wheels and revisit and cultivate your dreams. If there was ever a time this world needed dreamers, it’s now. It is time to create the kind of future we all deserve.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Could a Broader Perspective Benefit Us All Right Now?. Reclaim the Sweet Spot of Being in Your Element, What If The Thing You Dread Is Actually Your Dreams Trying to Unfold?, When Life Is Uncertain It Feels Good to Take a Positive Step, Ask No One to Be Different So That You Can Feel Good and Empower Yourself - When a Difficult Reaction Sends You Into a Tailspin. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I know it’s become a bit of a cliché, but I recognised this week just how much my attention has been focused on the things in my life that cause me pain. That causes me to feel stuck, which is simply frustrating and unhelpful.

Yet it’s not the whole picture. In New Zealand it’s the start of summer and the water is getting warmer, it really is quite beautiful. I went for a walk along the shore earlier and, as I was walking along with the waves lapping over my ankles contemplating what life has taught me this week, I thought about some of the things that had gone well for me.

Understand, probably like you, there are plenty of things in my week that drained my energy. Between navigating a long term relationship break up, and more government restrictions, I don’t think my life has ever been so challenging.

But as I walked along the shoreline appreciating the sun glinting on the water and the cobalt blue of the sky, my inner voice prompted me to dwell awhile in the things that are going just fine. When life is so challenging it makes the contrast between what is going well and what is not even stronger.

So I started to reflect back on my week, a week in which certain my attention had been diverted to one or two things that screamed loudly, and I realised in that moment with the waves lapping just how reassuring the timelessness of nature is. No matter what is going on in my life, the tide continues to come in and out, the sun continues to rise and the sand and sea continue to get warmer beneath my feet. 

And lucky me, it was the third time I had made it to the beach for a short walk, giving my nervous system a chance to find its equilibrium and my mind to let go of its worries and drift and contemplate, even if it was only for ten minutes.

I then purposefully thought back over the week. I thought about how much lighter I’d felt last weekend when my daughter’s party fell on a day that her dad was looking after her. For the first time, it wasn’t me who was wholly responsible for making her day special, it was liberating.

I’d been able to relax and enjoy catching up with some of the other parents as they came to collect their kids. In fact, because of another child’s party, I also spent a lovely late afternoon at the local park after school one day having a picnic and chatting with friends while the kids ran around playing their games. The weather had been perfect, warm and cloudy but with a gentle breeze.

Friends from far flung places checked in on me this week to see how I’m doing, letting me know they care, which was heart warming. I’d also had amazing support from other friends to help tackle the metaphorical fires that had consumed so much of my attention, which was worth its weight in gold.

Then when nipping to the shops before 3 December (when many businesses here became off limits to those without full vaccination certificates), I got great reductions on some gifts that were on my kids’ wish list; the sale happened to start that day.

I was even thrilled when, on one day that was forecast rain, it was instead warm, dry and windy at the outset and I managed to get three loads of washing out and dried before the heavens opened. And when I ordered our groceries this week, the supermarket send a surprise chiller bag full of goodies as a thank you for our custom.

Once I started contemplating the things that had gone well, and the ones I’ve shared here were only really a start, I got on a roll and realised that my glass is well and truly more full than empty. From there it was easy to get into visualising the future because my heart felt open and no longer stuck.
And that really was – and always is – the aim, particularly at this time: to stay out of fear and get into visualising the future.

So where is your focus? When you recognise where your mind is dwelling, can you purposefully switch focus to the think through the things that are going well for you to allow you to more clearly see there is a better future calling?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Reclaim the Sweet Spot of Being in Your Element, What If The Thing You Dread Is Actually Your Dreams Trying to Unfold?, When Life Is Uncertain It Feels Good to Take a Positive Step, Ask No One to Be Different So That You Can Feel Good and Empower Yourself - When a Difficult Reaction Sends You Into a Tailspin. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.​

As someone who sought approval as a way to feel safe, disagreement with others has always felt very unsafe to me. So getting comfortable with another person’s opinion that is contrary to mine – especially if it is about me – has been quite a journey.

Tony Robbins says “Whether we feel pain or love depends on three things: our story, our strategy and our state; and changing any one will change the other two”.

I had a big story going on about other people’s opinions and what they meant for me. A recent email from Lisa Romano really sums up the worst of the story, she said:

“If you are like most people, you've been pushed around by somebody who thought they had a right to control, manipulate, harass, devalue or minimize you. Perhaps this person was a parent, a sibling, a partner, a friend, or a boss you have known. Whatever your unique experience and circumstance, most likely having someone try to make you feel bad about yourself may have worked to some degree. 

Again, if you're like most people and you are not a raging narcissist, chances are when someone you knew pushed your buttons, for a moment you may have wondered if what this person was saying was true. If this person accused you of something you were not guilty of, or if they deliberately gaslit you, blameshifted, and messed with your head, there may have been a moment where you questioned your reality.”

Lisa is an expert on codependency and narcissistic abuse, so she is used to working with people who seem to attract experiences like this to the degree it’s a pattern in at least one their relationships; thus reinforcing a painful story.

She says “Many of us can get caught up trying to get an abusive person to admit what they've done, but it never works. All an abusive person will do is deny, pretend, and gaslight you even further...and if you don't quit trying to find resolution, an abusive person will discard you, or worse.”

This is precisely the sort of intensive personal growth bootcamp I have attracted into my life a few times, ultimately I believe to help me let go of the need for approval. And to allow others to have their own opinions – be what they may – without it taking up my whole time and attention.

Rebbeca Zung says that when she was dealing with two covert narcissists in her professional life, this is precisely how she felt. She says:

“It's a constant siege.  You're always feeling like you're under attack, always on the defensive, like you can never get ahead. They are always lining up the flying monkeys, not providing the documents they are supposed to, ignoring the court orders and getting away with it; lying, lying and more lying and everyone seems to be believing them.”

And now, on a more macro level, I find myself living in times where people are becoming more polarized. Those unvaccinated in New Zealand face a life of exclusion from the December third when the government begin a new system. A key part of this is the introduction of vaccine certificates which will be digitally recorded, stored and shared on a national system.

The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, when asked whether New Zealand would ever follow Austria's example of mandating the vaccination for everybody, was quoted in a national newspaper this week as saying " No. It is just not something we would do."

And yet, as part of the new vaccine certificate system, businesses are incentivized to deal only with vaccinated people in a very clear way. Businesses that choose to deal with unvaccinated people face restrictions in how they operate. Businesses will be also given verification apps to ensure that those people vaccinated have had both initial shots and 6 monthly booster shots in order to still qualify as “vaccinated”.

For those who haven’t got these, there will be access to groceries and emergency medical services, everything else will be either off the table or restricted depending on what alert level the country is in.

For example, the local swim school (at an outdoor pool) says people over the age of twelve must be double vaccinated and this, apparently, is across the board with all swim schools and teaching complexes in New Zealand. If the child is under the age of twelve and parents are not double vaccinated, then children must be dropped off and parents will not allowed to enter the premises.

A post I have previously mentioned came to mind again when I read this “Kind of weird I have to explain this, but taking things away from people until they agree to do what you say isn’t giving them a choice, it’s punishing them until they concede to your demands. Normally we would refer to this type of behaviour as manipulation and abuse”.

So on the macro level, choosing to remain unvaccinated at this stage may be the greatest challenge yet in integrating others’ opinions. Big story, feels painful right?

How do I change the story? In the context of the broader picture I understand there has to be division before there is unity, and all is well. In the words of Abraham Hicks “This isn’t about what you do or don’t do. You either line up with taking it and take it, or you line up with not taking it and don’t. Just don’t decide not to take it and push against – or decide to take it and push against – because it is the pushing against that takes your freedom and your wellbeing and your joy”

What feels right for me might change, at each decision point I’ll be leaning towards the path of least resistance. Each to their own without a need for assertion I say, some people are more afraid of the vaccine than the illness, others are the opposite, and others still are afraid of neither or both. Remember the old adage “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still”.

While it’s healthy to consider others’ feelings and circumstances, it is not healthy to consider them above my own. I was always abandoning myself to satisfy others until I finally learned about healthy boundaries and some strategies around implementing them.

I heard a snippet from Teal Swan this week that was examining the word healing, because by saying that something needs healed is to make it wrong, and therefore creates resistance to it. The key, she said, was integration.

I think this is the key when it comes to others’ opinions too.

As I said in How to Reclaim Your Freedom Instead of Feeling Trapped the commonality in this issue is freedom, which I discerned by zooming out of the issues and looking at people’s differing fears and motivations and taking a broader view.

Despite the emotional entanglement of my approval seeking habit, one positive was that it also taught me to reconcile contrasting views. Conflicting viewpoints drive me to go wide and deep to reconcile what I am hearing but doesn't resonate. The point of commonality is what I’m always looking for, what is in within what is being said or felt that I (inner me) can agree with? It taught me that – on one level - I am not you and you are not me and yet – on another level - we are one.

This is about integration, a good strategy. I can hold that your opinion is valid and – at the same time – mine is also. In the past I have always known this, but in the words of a friend of mine, the gold for them this week is knowing they can have a different point of view to another and not need to change it (or what they are doing) in order to please someone else.

All of this though is much easier when my state of being is in a place of love rather than pain as Tony put it. In Learning to Surrender, Sarah Blondin says “The more we constrict, the more worry and burden we pick up along the way. The denser we become, the more we sink like rocks to the bottom of our river. We then ground ourselves in the turbulent waters rather than allowing ourselves to be carried to the cool, calm waters”.

The words I hear when I tune in from a more relaxed state are “Let go”, and imagining myself being carried along in a stream helps to let go of worry, let go of others’ expectations, let go of others’ opinions and let go of seeking others’ approval.

In order to honour what you believe, what can you change right now about the story, strategy or your state of being in order to care less about what others think?
 
If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy What If The Thing You Dread Is Actually Your Dreams Trying to Unfold?, When Life Is Uncertain It Feels Good to Take a Positive Step, Ask No One to Be Different So That You Can Feel Good, What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)? 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.

I’ve been thinking a lot about freedom this week, and out of interest I asked my (soon to turn teen) niece what her definition of freedom was. She responded “the feeling of relief and the feeling that nothing is holding you back in life”.

I couldn’t have defined it better if I had tried. I have heard others define it by conditions that need to exist, rather than as a feeling. But I have read accounts of people who have lived in the absolute worst of human conditions – such as the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps - who still felt freer than others who would appear to be privileged and yet feel trapped.

Freedom has come up for me both on a micro and macro level, with global restrictions in place and whole swathes of people becoming polarized against one another. And I am pondering this on both levels.

When someone asked me recently about some undesirable conditions I had lived with in my life, and why I had put up with them for so long, I responded that once I became aware of my situation I had made a choice and – while staying within it for a certain amount of time – had chosen to focus on the positive aspects.

Yet, as I wrote about a few years ago in Why Does She Stay? … and What Makes You So Different?  it can so often be the case that people are unaware that they have a choice. Lack of confidence, shame, a misplaced sense of duty - all some version of fear – and all have a familiar resonance with feelings from childhood.

For me these feelings drew more experiences that led me to wonder thoughts like “perhaps what I seek is a fantasy, perhaps this is just what life is”. I wrote at the time:

“She stays because she’s rooted in fear, what is known seems safer somehow that what is unknown. The same as why the other s(he) is violent to begin with, or why you stay in that job you hate, or stick with that diet you loathe, or with that person you don’t love, it’s all rooted in fear. Life will often present you with BIG things, like near misses, disease or death, because it knows you need dislodged to get out your comfort zone and show you that you can do it…

So you can wait for the slam dunk, or you can start to see the fear for what it is. It’s a thought. And thoughts can be changed. You just need to start reaching for better feeling thoughts”

It’s fear that takes our sense of freedom.

Over the course of my life, any time I became aware that I was entrenched in circumstances that really weren’t serving me, I usually moved on. But after decades of repeating the same experiences –the same theme with variations on the story and people – I finally started seeing patterns.

This led me to look in the mirror and start to wonder who I was showing up as that kept attracting these same sorts of themes. In turn this led to a juicy and oftentimes uncomfortable perpetual journey of self reflection, awareness and growth.

And so it is I find myself in 2021 with all aspects of my life in movement. Some feel good, some feel not so good, but only in the moment; I feel strongly it’s all okay in the now and it’s all headed in the right direction. Some of it is within my control, some of it isn’t. My reaction to my changing circumstances though is completely within my control.

I was listening to the words of Abraham Hicks this week, who was speaking on Government Control (well worth a listen for anyone currently feeling somewhat constrained at the moment) but it spoke equally to me on the topic of feeling trapped in any way:

“You think nothing comes if you don’t fight for it and we say it comes in spite of your fighting for it. All individuals have the power to feel good and to be free. But when you turn your power over to anybody and say that they need to do something different before you can feel better, you are in trouble because you cannot control them. No one has the ability to take your freedom from you, and no one does when you know that. And until you do, a 2-year old can entrap you.”

Strong words.

In another response to someone, who was deliberating whether to have a vaccine, Abraham Hicks said:

“We are not saying to you that you can give away your freedoms and like it, we are saying to you that you are giving away your freedoms in ways you don’t even know.

This isn’t about what you do or don’t do. You either line up with taking it and take it, or you line up with not taking it and don’t. Just don’t decide not to take it and push against – or decide to take it and push against – because it is the pushing against that takes your freedom and your wellbeing and your joy.

Every time you push against anything you give away freedom and alignment with who you are. But there is so much more evolution and expansion than the decision you are making.”

This pondering has led me to realise that, despite some obvious disagreements over the issues of the COVID19 vaccines, on both sides of that argument people are seeking freedom.

Some, who have always placed their faith in the medical systems and never experienced anything negative as a result – or may in fact feel they owe their physical wellbeing entirely to medical interventions – have had no issues taking the recommended course of action from their governments.

Others, who have had negative experiences of pharmaceuticals and/or the medical system, are understandably wary – or in some cases downright fearful – of the recommended course of action and mandates.

I personally feel the same way about my body as I do about my levels of conscious awareness of my thoughts in recent years, in that I am far more attuned and aware of what my body wants and needs than I was in the past. It does not sit at all well with me that anyone except me should think they are qualified to tell me what my body wants and needs.

Talking with a friend of mine in another country this week about the mandates here in New Zealand for teachers and healthcare works to have had their first jab by 15 November, or not be allowed to continue in their roles, I mentioned a post I had seen which said “Kind of weird I have to explain this, but taking things away from people until they agree to do what you say isn’t giving them a choice, it’s punishing them until they concede to your demands. Normally we would refer to this type of behaviour as manipulation and abuse”.

He was telling me that – after having had a bad reaction to a flu vaccination many years ago – he personally would rather take his chances with his immune system. However, given restrictions on travel and a close family member’s deteriorating health (nothing to do with the virus), he felt he needed to go get the vaccine so he was in a position to get on a plane at a moment’s notice.

Now, while this is far from ideal in terms of “conditions” relating to personal freedoms, it’s an excellent example of what Abraham Hicks is pointing to; and indeed what my niece said so eloquently.

When faced with a choice, choose the one that gives you the most relief.

And for each person, that will result in different choices. Honour that. Some people will choose to vaccinate over losing their job, some will choose to walk away from their job. Others will choose to abstain from seeing their loved ones, while others will choose to vaccinate in order to travel or be allowed in care homes and so on.

And remember the statement from the Abraham Hicks’ excerpt on Government control “When you turn your power over to anybody and say that they need to do something different before you can feel better, you are in trouble because you cannot control them”.

I think that's the essence of our experience here perhaps, to know ourselves in this oppression so that we can come into the fullest expressions of ourselves. It seems to me, there has never before been a time when so many are governed by so few, and the desire for freedom, be it personal, social, racial, gender identity, economic, health, education or whatever, there is a rising desire for freedom world over.

Esther Hicks said, “My only hope is that ‘what is’ becomes so evident to people that it fuels their desire for freedom”. Ultimately I believe I can and will achieve freedom from the micro and macro situations in my life that oftentimes constrain me, but I’m human, and it’s fair to say I spend more time dwelling on and dissecting ‘what is’ instead of focusing on ‘what I want’ to be.

And that is okay. Even in my resistance, my fighting, ultimately what is so desired will come in spite of my fighting it.

As I was swimming up the lane on my back yesterday I looked at the cobalt blue sky and shining sun beyond the mass of grey and white clouds drifting past. And as I watched the sky I saw it as a beautiful metaphor for this thing called freedom.

Freedom is the basis of life, it is always there like the cobalt blue sky and shining sun, regardless of what is blocking it from view. I can fight against the clouds, or the tilt of the earth, but ultimately they will continue on as they always have, my situation in relation to those is only temporary.

And so that is how I choose to see any obstruction to my freedom.

“Those who feel all powerful, who think they can control the outcome of your experience and others, don’t and can’t” is the final Abraham Hicks quote I’ll share. I choose to see those people or institutions like clouds in the sky. And, just as I do in my meditation each day with my thoughts, I take my attention from those clouds and let them drift on by.

In what ways do you feel your freedom being taken right now? Are there alternative ways of looking at the situation, perhaps as clouds in the sky, which feel better to you? And in what other thoughts or decisions are you able to find relief?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy When Life Is Uncertain It Feels Good to Take a Positive Step, Ask No One to Be Different So That You Can Feel Good, What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)? 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.

Someone who knows me, and occasionally reads my articles, recently commented on her surprise at the vulnerability she reads within them and how much they resonate. She sees me as someone more settled in myself than she feels within herself.

While that may be true, I responded that I have a carefully cultivated armour and it’s one of the reasons I enjoy sharing my writing, it gives a glimpse of what is going on underneath. But it is a great reminder for me to relook at the way I present to the world, especially since the first thing anyone sees when they look at my website is the line “Living Life from the Inside Out”.

A therapist who once worked with me commented on how stoic I can often appear and yet I am deeply sensitive within. Of course, my posture depends on who and what I am dealing with. If I feel safe I can be open and highly responsive, but if I am feeling threatened my jaw will set and I become very unresponsive.

It comes from the need for stoicism as I was growing up. Childhood patterns get passed from generation to generation if left unchecked as I talked about a few years ago in Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation. So the need for me to delve within and figure out who I authentically am was palpable by the time I had my own children.

I read once that in adulthood we attract into our lives people who in some way mirror those early challenges, as a subconscious way of seeking a do-over. The problem with that is, by adulthood, much of those traits I’d subconsciously developed as a temporary defence had by then created well worn neural pathways in my body.

My reactions to similar circumstances were, in effect, automatically the same as in childhood. Only perhaps I felt able to express more of what I’d had to hold back as a youngster. In essence, I was stuck in some pretty dysfunctional patterns and stances.

And it has been quite a journey since, figuring that out and learning new skills to counter the effects of having become hyper attuned to how others feel, codependent in my relationships and constantly striving for perfection among other things. Learning healthy boundaries and how to hold them has become revolutionary for me.

Not knowing healthy boundaries as a child, I had no idea I was even entitled to them. My parents had a solid marriage and seemed to love and respect each other very much, and I always imagined that being in a relationship was the place to find that validation, love and respect I was seeking.

Unfortunately an early experience of heartbreak catapulted me into a new level of unworthiness, attracting a series of relationships that went from less-than-healthy to downright unhealthy over time. It wasn’t until confronted by an unhealthy professional relationship when my kids were only babies, together with the challenges of parenthood, that I finally became determined enough to relook at my whole way of thinking.

There is no doubt I have found it extremely challenging at various times in my life to live and work with people who see themselves, their contribution, their value, and their worth as greater than mine. If I’m honest, it’s was hard to comprehend actually, that anyone could feel and act that way towards another human being.

Almost as though that was a story that belonged to other times, not something in the modern day world among reasonable people, in a society that recognises the equality of human rights. And yet, patterns of superiority exist within many people as evidenced world over and are precisely what my own unhealthy patterns attracted at various times.

From my experience of living or working with people who like to make me feel small so that they can feel big, I have since realised it is within my power to shine brightly and not allow their thoughts and actions to dim that light.

In general I am conscious that I exude an air of confidence which reflects how I feel about life in the broader sense: that everything works out for the greater good eventually. I will only share my worries beyond my inner circle in hindsight, once any emotional charge has passed and I can comment on them from a place of insight and confidence.

The key I think is to have an inner circle, dependable people in my life that I can safely be vulnerable with. And even with those people it has taken a lot for me to share what may actually be going on in my life. Facing the truth of how I’ve allowed myself to be treated by different people at different times was a hard thing to do.

I always refuse to think of myself as a victim, as I imagine most people must, because it is no way to live. And the last thing I could think of as desirable is having people pity me, or try to convince me to do something I’m not ready to do.

When I have found myself living in circumstances that make me feel powerless and trapped, yet have felt - for whatever reason – I could not immediately change my circumstances, the only bearable option left was to change the way I thought about those circumstances in order to feel more empowered.

But with persistence and focus, I feel closer than ever to my authentic nature and not afraid to reveal it. Perhaps it is that I am now feeling more settled in myself that shows up, rather than the old armour, but it is certainly a great reminder to reveal what’s going on inside a bit more when I’m with other people.

So how do you show up in your life? Is what is revealed on the outside a reflection of your authentic inner world? Is it time for you to realise it is within your power to shine brightly? And, in fact, that is not only what you are destined to do but it is what the people and world around you will benefit from the most.
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If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Who Are You Protecting? Why Telling Your Story Is Powerful, What to Do if You Feel Trapped By Your Circumstances, Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation and Overcome the Greatest Human Fear – Be the True You. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Over the course of my life I noticed I had developed a habit of second guessing myself, I was also constantly ruminating over past conversations and trying to get ahead of any future conflict, as well as feeling like I had brain fog a lot of the time.

In short, I had allowed the essence of who I am to be slowly overshadowed because my attention was always way more focused on pleasing others and what other people thought of who I am.
I was doing an inner healing process this week that involved imagining taking out any hooks that people have into me. The hooks represent other people’s expectations, responsibilities laid at my door that were never my responsibilities to take.

The process starts with imagining one parent and then the other, giving back everything that is theirs, knowing they too don’t need to carry responsibilities that are not their own, they can give back whatever is not theirs too, and so on down through the generations like a ripple effect.

Then I imagined doing it with other people in my life, going back through those who put expectations and responsibilities on my shoulders that belonged to them, not me. Once I started this process is was very easy to feel from the weight of the memory just who had hooks in me and who didn’t.

While this sounds quite abstract, some tangible examples of how these hooks show up are: being constantly questioned in a disdainful tone on my expenditure while the questioner is off spending with little accountability; or having how I spend my time frequently remarked upon scornfully by someone who does as they please; or having my contribution continually belittled and dismissed by someone who is quick to build themselves up.

As I have started to see this more objectively, there is a grief within me that I have allowed others to treat me this way over the years. It’s not as though I was entirely submissive and allowed these sorts of things to go unchallenged, but more the feeling inside of wanting to be seen, to be recognised and accepted for the person that I am.

The sorts of adaptations I made in my life, to gain the love and approval of those who I was dependent on, were: becoming a perfectionist, anticipating others’ needs, and taking on too much of other people’s responsibilities to name a few.

But, as Terri Cole says, there is a fine line between being loving and generous versus giving/doing from a place of need to feel valued, recognised or loved. Over the years that approval seeking behaviour has caused me to align with others who are more narcissistic and demand approval, control and compliance. It’s like a subconscious do-over, repeating patterns from childhood in the hope of a different outcome.

Lisa Romano states this false premise well when talking about her own experiences:

“As an adult, this pattern remained active. I continued to automatically operate on the premise that in order to feel good enough, someone out there had to say so. My saviour was out there somewhere and – one day – if I could finally figure out how to change myself enough, I would feel good enough.”

Of course this can go on throughout life without any conscious awareness. But in my case I have become aware, acutely aware, and have been determined to take back my own power.

When I was picturing myself as a young child, I realised that this need to change myself in order to feel good enough was driven by that younger version of me; it was my child-self’s survival mechanism. Yet, if that were one of my own children I would be telling them, finding ways to show them, that they were born good enough, there’s nothing they need to say, do or be in order for them to receive my love.

Having kids has been a revelation of personal insights and growth. That they need not say, do or be anything different than who they are has been like a driving force in how I approach my role as a mother. I even have a sign on our wall saying “Simply Be Who You Are”. But I also know the many times in each day that I sail dangerously close to waters that speak the language of “in order for you to be accepted in this family/school/relationship you must do this”.

I have (and continue to) examine all my expectations of my kids, the expectations others have of them, and how these are conveyed, all through the lenses of “does this allow them to be who they are without causing harm to others”.  Even that, I know, is a restraining step beyond “simply being who you are”. What does harm look like?

Am I going to stand by and let one of my kids take a long turn on something I can see the other child is desperate to play with? Is that causing the other child harm? Frankly no, it’s teaching them boundaries and patience, but I had certainly been wired to share regardless of whether or not I had finished.

Am I going to stand by if one of my kids starts hitting the other? Or manipulating the other? No, physical, psychological and emotional abuse all cross the line and need me to step in and help them navigate.

Am I great at doing all these things on a consistent basis? Pretty good, and I’m getting better and better all the time. I put in conscious effort to turn the tide from my default responses. When the kids first started expressing themselves in ways that triggered me (and it’s fair to say that happened from the get-go, with nightly screaming from 7-11pm daily for months with my first child for no obvious reason) it was more than a little wearing.

Why make all this effort for my own kids and neglect that child within me? It didn’t make sense. And, besides, I realised it’s not just about who I am being towards my children, it’s about who I am being when I am around my children. For example, if I pass off controlling behaviour from other people towards me as normal in their presence, what silent messages are they taking in?

So defining my own boundaries and learning how to hold them with grace has been top of my agenda as they have grown, both with them and others around me. And by doing that, and learning that I am enough already, I don’t need to prove myself on that front, I am also honouring that younger me as the grown adult who can now take a different, healthier stance.

I also realise that there is nothing to fear except fear itself. My survival no longer depends on those around me. I am an adult who can choose a new mindset, a less encumbered mindset without the hooks of others.

If you are someone who second guesses themselves all the time, constantly feel like you have brain fog and ruminate over past conversations and try to get ahead of any future issues, perhaps it’s time to take a good hard look at who has what hooks in you? Remember, you were born good enough, be fearless, and let no one cast shadow on your light.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Embrace Your Authentic Self, Shed the Toxic People in Your Life, Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Empower Yourself - When a Difficult Reaction Sends You Into a Tailspin, Are You Overly Responsible? Actually Seeing Yourself Through Fresh Eyes, and Overcome the Greatest Human Fear – Be the True You. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

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.

A couple of months back my life was sent into a tailspin and I knew that in order to level out and keep moving forwards I had to deliberately focus on things that were going to help rather than hinder me. This is really no different than everyday life, but when something dramatically different happens it’s a lot easier to notice the dynamics at play because they are more exaggerated.

When I saw renowned author, coach and speaker Tony Robbins being interviewed last week, he described this really well.  “Whether we feel pain or love depends on three things: our state, our story and our strategy”:

• State is about my focus
• Story is about the meanings I attach to things
• Strategy is about the action I take

He makes the point that these are all decisions, things that we can control, but we each tend towards patterns which can be helpful or unhelpful. When asked which of the three would give the best returns, while acknowledging all three are interconnected and changing any one will change the other two, his choice would be changing our state of being, our focus.

“People have habitual patterns of focus. For example, do you look at what you have or what’s missing? Do you look at what you can, or can’t, control? Do you focus mainly on the past, the present or the future? Clearly when you focus on what you have, what you can control and the present those are more empowering choices than the alternatives.”

That is his key point, that we each have choices. I may have subconscious patterns, but as Tony says:
“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.

So as I was facing the end of my relationship, I knew I had to be careful about which parts of myself I put in charge. Especially since an issue I’d been contemplating for a long time, re-establishing my career, suddenly became more urgent.

What I’m here to do has been a nagging question in my life for as long as I can remember. In school and going to university, choosing which subjects to study, starting my career and looking for jobs, I just couldn’t see anything that felt like the right fit.

I distinctly remember when I immigrated to New Zealand in 2006, it was the year I saw the movie The Secret which helped me awaken to the power I had within me to change my life, but I still had no clue what I was meant to be doing with my life. All I knew was that I wanted to start a family and time was ticking.

So I made the best decision I could at that point and took a job which – while it didn’t light me up in the way I wanted – gave me some security while I set up home with my now ex-partner, and we started a family.

Having finally got the family I so desired, I found that juggling that and my work life was too much, and left the field of corporate change and transformation six years ago to take a more hands-on role with my kids. Bringing up my kids (with a strong desire for them to be an authentic expression of their best self), has proven to be a personal development bootcamp for me.

As Lisa Marchiano puts it “You’re going to project your stuff on your kids. There is no way that you are going to get through any amount of time with your children and not meet those parts of yourself you cut off and sent backstage”. So as I’ve undertaken the journey to me, this question of “what comes next?” has been ever present.

There is no doubt I’ve become extremely passionate about helping others undertake their own journey. Uncovering why I subconsciously chose certain patterns of state, story and strategy – and learning to make different choices – has been revolutionary for me.

As people have contacted me over the years to ask for my advice, I realised that helping others uncover their own blocks and make positive shifts in their lives would be really fulfilling. The question on my mind has been, how? Then last year someone said to me they could see hypnosis being a good healing modality for me to learn.

I wasn’t entirely convinced about the idea of practicing hypnosis. My connotation with it goes back to some sessions I had in my early twenties. I remember the lady having a falsely soothing voice, and I can recall falling asleep during the sessions; I didn’t consider them effective.

Then, when my attention was so abruptly returned to  this notion of “what next” in my career a couple of months ago, I knew it was a pivotal point that could see me sucked back down that same old corporate road if I didn’t choose a more self loving focus.  

There are a lot of feelings to process at the ending of a relationship, I couldn’t just shove them down and soldier on regardless. So I set to work in the same way I have over the last few years as I’ve processed grief from my childhood, grief from my mother passing and uncovering the patterns of beliefs and behaviours that no longer serve my highest interests.

I knew when it came to money, I had to go wider and focus more generally on abundance and its associated energies of love, compassion, joy, connection, adventure, play, laughter, invention and imagination as I wrote about in How Is Your Ability to Connect With Abundance Right Now?

Then, this week as I looked at a Diploma in Clinical Hypnosis with renewed interest, things finally clicked into place.

On my own journey to me, as I’ve so often written about, I’ve used various techniques to uncover and heal the emotional traumas that had remained stuck within me, long after the mental, physical, emotional events that had caused the trauma had ceased to be an issue.

It suddenly occurred to me that the common factor in the various techniques I use is this act of what I call going within which involves quieting the thinking mind and going into a state of deep relaxation where it feels safe to explore past issues, in other words, what I use is self hypnosis. It was a light bulb moment!

I’d gotten stuck with a story in my head about what hypnosis was, and – while acknowledging it as a powerful modality - was not completely aligned with the idea of using it to help others until I realised it is actually my own go-to medium all along. It’s no wonder someone suggested it to me as modality to use to help others.

As Tony said, change my state, story or strategy and the results start to change, everything has lined up.

I can see now why for so much of my life I just couldn’t see what I was meant to be doing; I was lined up with problem rather than the solution. And because I can see that is so normal in our world, and that there is a growing desire for change, this presents a huge opportunity to help others who are seeking that change in themselves.

It seems fortuitous that with the launch of We Rise Up (which I suspect will become another movie of its moment), the focus has moved in the last fifteen years from using personal empowerment for personal success to a redefining of what success looks like - creating new models and structures in society that work for all people, creatures and the planet.

Where in your life are you lined up with the problem rather than the solution? What parts of you are in the driving seat? Let’s find the most loving, courageous and compassionate parts of you and put them in charge of defining and driving success in your life and watch your deepest yearnings finally be fulfilled.

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Normal Is Dysfunctional That Is the Growth Opportunity, Reclaim the Sweet Spot of Being in Your Element, What If The Thing You Dread Is Actually Your Dreams Trying to Unfold? Clear the Fog of Trauma to See the Magnificence of Your Being, and What’s Your Relationship with Money? … And a simple technique to improve it. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I’ve been pondering this expression about being in my element. It’s something I would explain as a joyous state of being, and would describe someone in this way when I can see they are totally immersed in the moment and at peace with themselves, a real sweet spot to be in.

When reading a book with my kids about a club of young teenagers who always end up investigating and solving local mysteries, the main character was reflecting on her gymnastics class in this way. She had been nervous about her estranged father coming to watch her but got so caught up in the class that she forgot all about him being there until the end.

She observed that each of her friends had different things they were drawn to or did that they got totally immersed in and enjoyed to the same effect.

Being in my element is something I aspire to, but it’s also something I’m aware I’m not a lot of the time. When I am in that state of being, not only does it feel really energising and joyful, I hear myself better and all sorts of wonderfully wise insights op into my head. When I’m not in my element I usually find I’m worrying, planning or otherwise distracted.

I heard an excellent insight into these different aspects of myself when listening to Teal Swan talk about insomnia, she said:

“When you are living your waking life, you have two points of perspective.  You are your eternal self-essence, which many call the soul.  And you are also your temporal human self that you call by your name.  Your level of comfort in this life emotionally is all about the vibrational difference between these two perspectives.  The farther the vibrational difference is between these two perspectives, the less energy is actually available to your physical embodiment”. 

Interestingly, she said “In the moment of sleep, unconsciously your two points of perspective join so there is no vibrational difference between them.  There is no tug of war going on between them and thus, immediately, more energy is available to your physical body.  Most people experience sleep as refreshing because of that fact.  Technically, a person would not need to sleep if they could find a way to consciously prevent their two perspectives from splitting while they are awake.  This is why many yogis and meditation masters do not need sleep.  Alas, most people are not capable of that in waking life, so we experience a need for sleep.”

In essence then, I understand that when I can align these two perspectives I’m in my element. And I’ve been very aware of many messages this week prompting me to do just that. 

I’ve been following the We Rise Up online summit, which appealed to me after I watched a couple of short introductory videos with Tony Robbins and Alanis Morissette talking, and as Alberto Villoldo’s The Four Winds organisation seems to be the organiser, it felt like it could be an interesting mix of perspectives.

Tony was talking about self love and how to hard in this fear climate it can be for people to connect to our unique selves. He talked about immersing yourself in the experiences you want, since a belief is a poor substitute for an experience, so spending time with people who are connected to love, and doing acts of love to attract that.

Teal has been talking to this lately too. She says “The opposite of fear is love, so we cannot fear and love at the same time”. She suggests focusing on someone else’s problems out of love as an anecdote to fear, and says laughter is an expression of love and therefore also an anecdote to fear or even just appreciating the smell of coffee or flowers is an anecdote to fear.

Most critically she astutely pointed out “And in the absence of fear our world opens up to new possibilities; possibilities that did not exist while we were in the vibration of fear”.

She talks about taking ownership to love people, places and things as a part of ourselves. Encouraging me to think of myself as a steward since all the things I call mine will be left behind when I die anyway.

Not having huge chunks of time to be able to watch all the speakers in the We Rise Up Summit, I’ve been listening to short snippets of each once the kids are asleep, and finding the speakers I resonate with the most. It’s been great for discovering people I hadn’t come across before.

What I am finding is I’m feeling very drawn to those speakers who seem completely in their element while sharing their stories and experiences. On day one I was enthralled with Kyle Cease who exudes a kind of bizarre combination of easy going energy alongside being completely excited about life and how to get the best of it. He said, rather perceptively, “When you listen to your heart, your mind gets scared because it can only see what you’ll lose, it can’t see what you’ll gain”.

On day two I discovered Miki Agrawal and was captivated by her energy which again was this strange mix of comfortable in her own skin alongside an athlete’s energy of “let’s get out there and do this thing”.  And I was interested in her story of how she brought the period underwear concept to fruition, and her views on feminism.

I also listened to a podcast with Briana Saussy about The Sacred Arts and Raising a Star Child which was interesting especially since she talked about the elements of Capricorn in one of her stories, which is the sign I was born under. But what was I particularly struck with was her coining the phrase sacred arts to describe with appropriate reverence the ancient wisdom traditions that have too often been sidelined as woo woo and nonsense in the last couple of centuries.

Which takes me to another little corner of my life that I’ve been able to delve into a bit, a book about The Five Elements by Dondi Dahlin. I’d been relishing the thought of reading of this since I heard Donna Eden (Dondi’s mother) talk about how she had seen these five elements alive in people’s energy fields long before she had understood the ancient Chinese system.

Chinese physicians and scholars theorised that he universe is composed of forces represented by water, wood, fire, earth and metal. They proposed that human behaviour, emotions and health are influenced by these elements and people’s personalities can be distinguished by them.  

Having learned a myriad of systems to understand human behaviour over the last few decades, it’s fair to say I’m a bit over trying to dissect and categorise simplistically (or in the case of some of these archetypal systems not so simplistically), recognising what a unique cocktail each and every one of us are.  

However, I have enormous respect for Donna Eden’s capabilities to see energy flowing in and around people, creatures and things. There’s nothing I would love more than to have this type of vision for something I feel but mostly cannot see.

The exception to this is when the aforementioned two perspectives – the eternal self-essence and the temporal human self – are aligned and I’m in my element. If I set the intention I get glimpses of colour and movement in an extremely subtle and somewhat vague way, but it’s nowhere near the level of depth and clarity with which Donna sees.

So I was eager when the book finally arrived to see what new wisdom it would impart. I’m only part way through reading about the water element so far, but boy do I recognise a lot of myself in there:
“The rhythm of waters is slower paced than others; they need space and time to resonate with their own rhythm.”

“Doesn’t want to waste time talking about silly stuff or watching things on TV that don’t seem to have much meaning”

“Would rather not talk at all than make small talk. But share something meaningful, sincere and earnest and let her dive deep into your words so she can discover something new and you’ll have a friend for life.”

“Waters can get stuck in fear and limitations... If a Water person is fearful of stepping forwards as her best self, you can help her by simplifying the steps she needs to take and reminding her when she forgets.”

And I recognised in this all the messages life had been delivering to me about consciously making an effort to focus on love and not fear.

In fact, in her latest communications around powerlessness, Teal Swan hit the nail on the head with “When you’re the kind of person who is prone to worry, you try to prevent pain by trying to figure out everything in advance. But the problem with that is you can’t see most of the things that will be available to you at the future time you are worried about”.

And there can be a lot to get worried about. From the big stuff (overpopulation, pandemic disease, refugeeism and climate change) that I talked about in Why the Integration of Feelings and Logic Will Save the Human Race, to the active micro trauma I experience in day to day living, summarised in Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Is Your Responsibility.

In all of it, the thing I have control over is how I show up each and every moment of each and every day. My presence, my awareness, my attitude and my reactions determine whether I am in my element or I’m spiralling, triggered into trauma states.

So this idea of being in or out of my element has taken on new depth this week as I have actively sought to focus on being more present, more active in loving gestures and actions and more grateful for the things in my life that are going well, big and small.  I notice when I do this, life flows more easily and feels less heavy. I also have more to give others.

Now, more than ever, seems the time to focus on being in our element as much of our time as possible, whatever that means for each of us. Each moment of alignment with the love that we are radiates that out into our world; a world full of people, creatures and things that flourish with each kindness, each triumph and moments of unrestrained laughter, feeling seen, feeling a sense of belonging and ease to name just a few of the outpourings from the over-spilling cup you are when in your element.

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Your Soul Wants You to Soar, Let Yourself Fly, How Is Your Ability to Connect With Abundance Right Now? Empower Yourself - When a Difficult Reaction Sends You Into a Tailspin, Take Heart - It Takes Courage and Tenacity to Step Into Your Power, Are You Yearning to Be Accepted for the Truly Strange Person You Are? and Overcome the Greatest Human Fear – Be the True You. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

This week I have been clearing through boxes and boxes of old paperwork and sentimental things I’d had stored in the attic for – in some cases - decades. It’s been a journey that has been cathartic and very insightful.

It’s obvious to me that some of the criteria I had previously used in deciding whether to keep things related to the time and energy I had spent on them. Some of it was good energy, some not. Too much of the piles of things “I might need at some point” were about defending positions, decisions or actions should they ever be revisited, a real echo of the defensive child part of me within.  

While I haven’t watched or read a huge amount of Marie Kondō, I certainly heard her famous phrase ringing in my ears “Does this give me a spark of joy?”

This physical task and these physical boxes seem to me a good metaphor for all my life’s baggage, and the ways in which I’d been unintentionally buying into scarcity – a lack of faith in my right to make my own decisions and have my own opinions, that I’m not worthy somehow, that it’s not safe to let go of the defenses I’ve built around me to name a few.

When I hear the word abundance my mind automatically takes me to thoughts about money. And while money is certainly an indicator, I’ve had quite a few reminders lately that how money flows to and from me is just one part of a much bigger – and more meaningful – field of energy.

Rha Goddess, in her audio programme Making Money, Making Change, subtitled Build Your Business, Make a Profit and Serve the World, talks about the economies of Love, Truth and We. About a new level of generosity that is sourced from something different than obligation and pressure. She also cites the existing Economy of Scarcity “which invites this obligatory giving as a way to prove you’re a good person; which is painful”. I can attest to that.

For Rha it’s about how we attract, how we earn and how we spend.  She sees the opportunity to do that in ways that actually forward and further more love, generosity and communal wealth. Her priority is to contribute to economies that are life-giving, where people can thrive and prosper; economies that carry dignity, honour and respect at their centre.

“In the Economy of Love” Rha says, “I’m tapped into a more prosperous supply. When I’m giving from that place – a well sourced and well resourced place – I can be more generous. The giving contributes to my expansion as opposed to my contraction”.

“In the Economy of Truth, I’m accountable and responsible for the choices and decisions I make and the impact they have on me and others. I’m willing to see where I’m a part of the solution and where I’m part of the problem. I’m willing to be actively engaged around moving to places that enable me to be more a part of the solution than a part of the problem.”

“In the Economy of We, it’s a story of us. It’s the fact that we are not on an island unto ourselves. We have seven billion neighbours that we share space, air, water and energy with. How do we do this together so I’m not dominating, obliterating or subjugating you? How do I expand you? How do I contribute to you? How do I uplift you? How do we work in ways that make the pipe bigger and the world better, which we have all had a hand in and an active role to play?”

I love this way of looking at my life and the world I live in, it provides a compass for my personal and work existence. I can see clearly the areas where I’ve been acting out of obligation and in accordance with unhelpful beliefs that no longer serve me. I’ve been doing the work to build my self esteem and healthier boundaries and will continue to do so.

Dr Sue Morter agrees true abundance reveals itself through love, compassion, joy, connection, adventure, play, laughter, invention and imagination. She encourages her clients to reconnect with the memories of abundance in their life in order to stir up and reactivate those more positive and potent energies within.

Rha, who is a sought-after entrepreneurial soul couch, also recognises that people hold core beliefs that hold them back from abundance. Beliefs such as:

1. There is not enough to go around
2. I am not worthy, I don’t deserve it
3. It’s not safe for me to stand out
4. I am afraid of what it’s going to take, what am I going to have to trade?
5. I might become corrupted or changed or compromised
6. The moral dilemma of capitalism generally

In a podcast Making Money, Making Change, she talks about healing our relationship with capitalism by separating the culture of capitalism from the principles of economy. She also talks about healing the original experiences that created the other dysfunctional beliefs.

I read a clear example, written by Heather Shumaker, author of It’s OK not to share…And Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids, of how these types of beliefs come about and where we typically constrain abundance in our society. She says:

“I’m all for cultivating generosity in our kids. It’s our job to help our children deepen their care and awareness of others. But the way we generally approach sharing backfires…

Here’s a typical scenario involving preschoolers: One child is busily engaged with a toy when a new child comes up and wants it. A nearby adult says “Be nice and share your toys” or “Give Ella the pony. You’ve had it a long time”.

What happens? The child is forced to give something up and her play is interrupted. She learns that sharing feels bad. It’s the parent here who’s sharing, not the child.

Traditional sharing expects young kids to give up something the instant someone else demands it. Instead of you saying “Five more minutes and then its Ella’s turn” teach your kids to say “You can have it when I’m done”.

This teaches positive assertiveness. It helps kids stand up for themselves and learn to set boundaries with other kids. What a terrific life skill. How many of us adults have trouble saying “no”? The best part of all is when the first child willingly hands over the toy it’s a joyous moment for both kids. That’s the moment when your child experiences the rush of good feelings that comes from being kind to others. It’s true generosity.”

So, as I see it, there is this idea that the person we arrived as gets sort of parked, frozen, and layer upon layer of self limiting beliefs are added that we adopt in order to be accepted within our family, and our society.

But as Rha Goddess says “The question is, are those beliefs what you want to believe? As you sit in that belief, does it empower you?” And, most importantly “Would you be open to an upgrade (of these beliefs)?

Not to suggest that changing our beliefs is easy, but it can be done with awareness, practice and persistence.  Dr Morter believes “Those ideas of inadequacy and insufficiency were part of the plan, that you would then conquer them, rise above them, and remember the masterful being of abundance that you truly are”.

Rha asks “In your time to think (over the last eighteen months), have you recognised that you do have power? Have you recognised that there are things that are important to you? Have you recognised that you do matter? That the choices you make matter, that the decisions you operate from matter?”

And she continues…”That the things that have happened to you matter, and that it all shapes the way in which we see ourselves and the degree to which we believe anything is possible or not possible in our reality? Step one is to consider the possibility that you can actually do something about it. But if you really want to change the game, you must embrace the fact that you’re a creator.”

I also like Dr Sue Morter’s audio meditation on money miracles with Marci Shimoff, which is worth a listen. I enjoy bringing memories of abundance back into my awareness, memories of playing as a child out in the street where we lived, for example, where I was free to connect, laugh and imagine as I was climbing the street lights to cross over garage rooftops and find new hiding places.

It always resonates with me when Dr Morter then says in her lovely mellow voice:
“This life is mine; I am generating this entire experience so that I might fully reveal in my own true abundance. I reveal as love, compassion and joy. I reveal as connection and adventure, I reveal knowing that all I need is right here and will rise up to meet me the moment I engage, that everything is in my favour. This is the world of abundance.”

Is it time for you to clear out some of those old boxes of beliefs stored in the attic of your mind and create space for some new beliefs that serve you with abundance?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Clear the Fog of Trauma to See the Magnificence of Your Being, What’s Your Relationship with Money? … And a simple technique to improve it, Put Money in its Place, Autonomy – Break Free of Money Fears and How Dead Does the Horse Need to Be to Want to Get Off? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

With all the parenting advice I’ve read and heard, which has a wealth of information about understanding the different developments stages and what is needed at each, and how to manage my kids undesirable behaviour, there seems to be one huge piece missing and that is about how to manage myself.

No one forewarned me that, as Lisa Marchiano puts it “You’re going to project your stuff on your kids. There is no way that you are going to get through any amount of time with your children and not meet those parts of yourself you cut off and sent backstage (the aspects of yourself that are unconscious but we see in others, our blind spots)”. It just brings up so much discomfort and pain.

The inherited patterns of behaviour in parents that children react to, and unwittingly develop patterns in response to, are essential for survival in childhood but become unhealthy patterns later in life; and will certainly get passed on unless the cycle is broken.

The best description I’ve seen of these is in James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy, he describes four archetypes (on a scale of aggressive to passive) that are “control strategies we each develop in order to stop others’ draining our energy”. I summarised these more in Normal Is Dysfunctional - That Is the Growth Opportunity.

The thing is, normal developmental trauma arises from normal parenting and remains largely unseen precisely because it is deemed normal. Yet it creates power struggles and destruction; it creates disease, chronic pain and illness; and it stunts individual and collective abilities to address systemic issues within relationships and society.

That is the ultimate challenge of parenthood, the ultimate responsibility, to recognise and break the cycles of dysfunction that are still very much alive.

Amy McCready of Positive Parenting Solutions says “Children have two major needs: attention and power. And if they are not getting positive attention and positive opportunities to make their own choices they will settle for negative attention and ways to gain a feeling of personal power”.

Not only that, the lack of positive attention or opportunity to express personal needs and desires is precisely what leads to the kind of dysfunction that is prevalent in society today.

Yet we live in a society of distraction – parents distracted by devices and responsibilities. Not to mention the pass-the-parcel of before/after school care, split families/housing.  Men and women, whether parents or not, really struggle in relationships today with break ups rates higher than ever before. Where in all of that, I wonder, are we allowing for and compelling attention on our kids’ development?

Relationship expert Terry Real says that the traditional walls for men and women in a patriarchal culture are changing, but are far from changed – and those traditional walls preclude intimacy.  As Raine Eisler said “It’s an old fashioned word, but patriarchy really means dominion (power over) instead of power with.”

I was sent one of Constance Hall’s blog post’s this week that demonstrates how patriarchy is still very active and it really resonated for me. Her main point was that every consenting partnership should consist of two adults whose working hours are equal regardless of whether they are paid or unpaid work.

The original has a sort of angry rant feel to it, yet she makes some really good points, so here is a version with the emotional charge toned down a bit:

“The thing about not doing your share of house work or child rearing is that is more insidious than a simple “I can’t be bothered”; domestic responsibilities do not disappear.

Children do not raise themselves. Housework doesn’t do itself.
 
Every time you sit on the toilet, eat food from a clean plate, watch on with pride while your fed, educated children smile, it’s because someone has put in effort for you to receive that privilege. And if it wasn’t you, it was someone doing your share.

Remember that expecting someone else to do your workload is oppressive. It’s saying “you can have equal rights only when you’ve met the basic needs of others”.

Support each other because domestic duties are about so much more than clean sheets, it’s about respect and showing your kids what is and what isn’t a healthy way to care for themselves.”

I think that is a great message, but there is another side to it, which is the person who allows that to happen. I know because I am one of those people who has too often taken more than my fair share of responsibility and felt overwhelmed and overburdened and then resented the heck out of it.

This represents a typical narcissistic/codependent relationship, which is also typical of the type of normal dysfunction I refer to earlier in the piece. Trauma expert Pete Walker describes this as the most common relational hybrid. Terry Real describes the same blueprint as grandiosity versus inferiority/shame-based and is the most prevalent pattern he sees in relationships also.

“While women can show up as narcissistic”, he says “it is more common for men to be this way”.

Terry’s view is that we don’t value relational skills in a patriarchal culture. He goes on to say “We code relationship as feminine and we do to intimacy what we do to many things feminine: we idealise it in principle and we devalue it in fact”.

I know this reality well. Having worked since I was fifteen, first through school and university and then in a corporate career, I know what working long hours and having high levels of responsibility looks like.  What I didn’t know was what motherhood looked like.

At first I saw my corporate career as a welcome temporary escape from the monotony of those early childrearing years, but then it became clear that regardless of how I felt (which with a baby and toddler was starting to look more like burnout), my children needed me at home.

There was a piece I wrote describing a typical night after getting home from work, and one day I will publish it, because it heralded the start of this journey to me, but for now I’ll just share my concluding thoughts that night:

I know it’s too much. I know my child is telling me this. Yes, as exhausted as I am, as distracted by work, the long arduous and unfulfilling hours of work, it’s time. Time to uncover what the heart and soul desire, for all of us.

Six months on from that I published my first blog and have done so ever week since, recording the deliberate journey to a more authentic me, which included balking and rallying against this idea of my own feminine nature and role as a mother.

I was raised in an era where I was brought up to believe that women can do anything men do. But as a friend of mine said beautifully “that overlooks the essence of the feminine, the need to find her own rhythm and inner desires in her own time and in her own reflection”.

We had been having a discussion about the government’s financial support for parents with low income. I find it infuriating that - on one hand - our law (through Property Relationship law) recognizes that a stay-at-home parent is equal to a full time job, yet the government will not support a stay at home parent of school age kids unless they are at least in part time work.

When I recently tracked how many hours of my week are dedicated to childcare and domestic duties, it was seventy hours on a typical school week and ninety on a non school week. Bear in mind school weeks typically only represent 180 days (allowing for ten days where at least one child is sick), how many employers are happy with employees only working half the year?

Recognising that encouragement of women into the workforce was an attempt to stop the judgements of not only solo mothers but women in jobs, it was however done in the context of patriarchal structures.

Quite aside of keeping the toilets clean and putting food on the table, the job as taxi driver, chief attention giver, boundary holder and referee, the role and responsibility of a parent can be all consuming.

One night when my kids’ father and I were talking, our youngest daughter came into the room and asked for my help with something. I thought then that this is precisely what being a mum looks like, constantly being interrupted and on duty. And those interruptions can range from an innocuous “how do I spell...?” through to world-war-three erupting in the lounge.

In fact, I find distraction my biggest challenge in parenting. If I am distracted, there is no connection, and the constant pull on my attention triggers responses that are less than optimal for my kids.

As the primary caregiver, my attention being on the kids is just a part of the job when they are around, from the minute they wake up to the minute they go to sleep. Adapting that attention as they grow to help them towards independence is also part of the job, but that’s on a continuum; in development terms though kids are in their teens before they can healthily handle longer periods of more independence.

So while going to work as soon as kids are in school is encouraged, to me it’s not okay to be required to work on top of the typical seventy hours of attention required on the home and kids in order to receive financial help. 

Before the world of COVID19 restrictions we had been on a family holiday in Hawaii. In conversation with the retail assistants, hotel staff and restaurant workers, it became clear that working two jobs to support their families was necessary, and this was women who had partners who also worked.

What kind of quality parenting can people give in these scenarios?

Terry Real is quick to point out that both men and women are knocked out of real intimacy and connection with themselves and others from childhood. Citing the work of Jean Baker Miller and Carol Gilligan at the Stone Centre, he says:

• “Young women are knocked out of real, honest connection at the edge of womanhood. They stop telling the truth and instead they move into – as Carol Gilligan puts it - “the tyranny of the nice and kind”; they lose their voice. It’s changing but it still needs a lot of work”. And
• “Boys are knocked out of authentic connection much younger, by the time they enter kindergarten they’ve already internalised the code to be invulnerable. What research tells us is they are no less emotional or sensitive than girls at that age but they’re less expressive. They’ve learned to keep their mouths shut, to wall it off”.

The problem is, as author, research professor and social expert Brené Brown has taught us, we connect through vulnerability. Terry believes that “While Millennial’s (thankfully) are different, the rest of us are still suffering under the old codes. Leading men and women into real intimacy is synonymous with leading men out of patriarchy.”

In Why the Integration of Feelings and Logic Will Save the Human Race I quote Teal Swan as saying “The restoration of balance within the human race is not about decreasing masculine power while increasing feminine power...it is about both rising to power simultaneously”.

I particularly like the short article from psychologist Shari Derkson that explains the aspects of masculine and feminine and what integrating them within ourselves might look like.

She says “There is a movement towards inviting more feminine aspects into our lives, states of being, rather than doing; such as through stillness, meditation and tapping into our intuition and creative processes. Equally, it is important for both male and females to develop the more masculine qualities of rational and logical ability, clear non-attached thought and problem solving etc.”

James French, who works with rescue animals and cultivated The Trust Technique, demonstrates through his work how lack of connection in humans (and propensity towards dominion or power over instead of power with) shows up just the same in animals as it does in children.  

James says "Any animal displaying fear, aggression, anxiety etc is a sign of an over-thinking state, but when brought into a peaceful state you can connect through more positive imagining/feeling states instead”.  

What I love is his observation that sensitivity in animals or people doesn’t change, it just transforms from positive sensitivity (the feelings of connection, joy, love) to negative sensitivity (the feelings of fear, shame, guilt). This could equally be applied to children.

“As a child”, as Dr Gabor Maté explains, “we are born feeling our connection to our parents and we are reliant on them for survival. Being rejected by them in any way, big or small, is devastating. So when we are rejected, we have a choice, to reject them or reject ourselves (or more likely parts of ourselves). But we can’t reject them as our survival depends upon them.”

Luckily the skills needed for connection with children, and with each other, are skills that can be learned. Terry Real makes the point “There’s skills in learning to connect to yourself and others. There’s skill in learning to love yourself. There’s a skill in learning good boundaries. And there are skills in learning how to stand up for yourself with love and respond with generosity instead of defensiveness.”

Changing the way we see parenting is pivotal, but that requires first a change in who we are as individuals. To begin to recognise our dysfunctional stances and structures and perhaps to look at them through more integrated eyes that include more of the aspects of our true nature without the walls we have erected around us in response to our own childhoods.

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Clear the Fog of Trauma to See the Magnificence of Your Being, How Dead Does the Horse Need to Be to Want to Get Off?,  Womanhood: A Story of Our Time and Embracing the Feminine within All of Us. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

One of the biggest challenges for me in learning and maintaining healthy boundaries is letting other people own their own reactions, rather than taking them personally.

I was reading a booklet on managing separation for children, which sums this up nicely under a section on reassuring them. One of the key points is “Just listen, don’t feel you have to fix their feelings; it’s painful and you can’t change that”.

However well placed that advice is “don’t feel you have to fix their feelings” telling me (or anyone) not to feel something is not helpful. I feel what I feel. It has been more helpful to me to explore why I feel the need to fix other people’s feelings.

In particular, in the last few years I’ve become aware that my people pleasing tendencies have deep hooks. Usually the more critical a relationship is to me the more I’ll bend over backward to please, not just to be nice or considerate, but rather as a response rooted in trauma.

That said, I have also always had a critical mass where I eventually get fed up and blow up about injustice and exploitation, which Complex PTSD expert Pete Walker says is typical of people who have codependent relational tendencies.

Codependency is the continual state of being focused on the needs, wants and problems of others in order to gain approval and attempt to control outcomes. It's very intertwined with enmeshment trauma and people pleasing.

Enmeshment is when there is no real recognition of self in the family or relationship. The signs I have learned to recognise are when I find myself confusing my emotions with those of a person I have a relationship with, and the cost of individuality feels high.

This means that when someone who is important to my perceived survival (be it in personal or professional relationships) has a negative opinion of me or a negative reaction towards me it can elicit a trauma response within me.

Once I understood why I felt this way, which began in childhood as I explored in Are You Overly Responsible? Actually Seeing Yourself Through Fresh Eyes, then it was a matter of starting to recognise my reactions in the moment and changing my response.

None of this is comfortable, not by a long way. In Perpetua Neo’s article on Fawning: The Fourth Trauma Response After Fight, Flight, Freeze, she talks about stress responses and trauma responses. She says “These are ways the body automatically reacts to stress and danger, controlled by your brain's autonomic nervous system, part of the limbic system. Depending on our upbringing, we can sometimes learn to rely too heavily on one of these responses and this is where the trauma comes into play”.

A critical part of healing is learning to reset my limbic system to, as Perpetua puts it, “update the timekeeper in your brain to understand that then is not now”. This way old trauma can stop replaying in my body in the present.

It sounds simple, but rewiring my brain is a matter of consciously catching what’s going on in the moment and actively working to regulate the nervous system while changing how I react. This is no easy task when, by the very nature of these triggers, the frontal thinking part of the brain shuts down.

To give an illustration of just how challenging this can be in everyday life, I only have to look at what relationship expert Terry Real refers to as the Core Negative Image (CNI) we have of our partners. He says it’s an exaggerated version of our partner at their worst.

For example, Terry’s wife Belinda has a CNI of him as an irresponsible, selfish, undependable, charming boy. His CNI of her is a demanding, insatiable, critical, micromanaging witch.  As Terry says, it’s not their baseline, it’s certainly not their best, it’s not even an accurate description of them at their worst, it’s more like a caricature of them at their worst.

So, in action, Terry might leave the milk out of the refrigerator on the kitchen counter, just as he used to do years ago when their kids were growing up. This triggers Belinda’s CNI of Terry, so she starts talking to him like he’s an irresponsible child. This would trigger his CNI of her and he’d react saying something like “Oh come on it’s just a milk carton, don’t be such a witch” and so on it goes.

Most people react to the exaggeration and fight against it. To break this cycle, Terry says our CNI of our partner is something we want to learn take with a grain of salt. What we should really take notice of is our partner’s CNI of us.

Most people know exactly what this is without asking, because it’s the characteristics and behaviours that get thrown at us like bombs when the other person is triggered.

He says “The beauty of knowing their CNI of you is, instead of fighting, you can duck under. The more you push against it the tighter it gets, so move under or into it instead of opposing it. That would mean, instead of opposing Belinda’s opinion about him being irresponsible, he could own it and say “I know I can be like that at times, I just forgot sorry (and puts the milk away).”

I suspect anyone putting themselves in these shoes can appreciate how tricky it could be to do this without getting sucked into the CNI wrangle. While it is very disarming to know and own the CNI someone has of me, there’s still that deep tap root that feels owning something that is not only negative but perhaps untrue (or at least grossly over exaggerated) feels really unsafe in my body.

For this reason Terry recommends firstly having a modicum of self recovery around self esteem and good internal and external boundaries. Once good boundaries are developed a person is then better placed to observe and think “Mm, so this is what my partner is making up about me. This is their CNI of me, isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that important information about my partner?”

What I notice in going through a separation, if not careful, the predominant interactions can be a tango between each person’s Core Negative Image of the other, making all the sensible advice I was reading extremely challenging.

Even with something that doesn’t elicit a trauma response though, it can still be a challenge to let others have their own reactions. This week I was talking with a close friend who is going through what I can only describe as an existential crisis.

My heart aches for all the challenges life has thrown her way over the last few years, it’s been incredibly intense. My tendency is to want to find words to help, to at least sooth. Nothing I could think of felt adequate. Then I remembered some words I’d read in an email from Teal Swan about self love:

“When people tell you about themselves, receive them without trying to fix them or change their minds. Provide a safe apace to connect.”

So I focused on just that, stopped thinking about it and spoke from the heart instead just acknowledging where she was at and that it’s okay to be there. I just wanted her to feel seen and held.

Then I realised, that is my job, it’s not to fix anything, I simply want the people I love to feel seen and held (emotionally) by me. And, when dealing with negative reactions directed towards me, I want to feel seen and held – by me first and foremost. That is where my boundary work comes in.

There are lots of wonderful boundary statements I’ve read but I’ve found that, in that moment of fire when the frontal lobe of my brain closes up shop and ducks for cover, the only statement I’ve been capable of is the raw observation of the emotional reaction I’m witnessing.

But the great thing is, instead of getting stuck for words, pulled into the line of fire, pushing onward in frustration through the emotional blast determined to make my point, or exploding in fury, I reflect what I am observing and retreat with dignity.

While I’d love to do some deeper somatic work, I know that by calling out the reaction and retreating I’m rewiring my brain and retraining my body to feel more confident and less threatened in those situations. It just takes practice.

​Are you able to see how your nervous system reacts in response to someone else’s difficult emotional reactions? Ultimately becoming aware of why it is happening and when it is happening, then starting to change your reaction is the work to empower yourself instead of allowing it to throw you into a tailspin. 

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Resentment, the Family Business. Are You Willing to Let It Go?, Your Mind Will Try to Protect You By Resisting Your Healthy Boundaries, I Am a Recovering Approval Seeker and Control Freak 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.

Space to me feels like opening, expansiveness, finding my centre. But it can also be terrifying when the cosy world of my making seems suddenly blown apart and I find myself freefalling through the vast darkness of an unwelcome space.

My friend asked me to name the three biggest moments in my life when things felt out of control, she recognised my trauma and distress. It was hard to prioritise just three if I’m honest. 

There were the days, weeks, months and years that followed when the person I loved with all my heart told me our relationship was over; the same when I had my first experience of death and both my paternal grandparents died within a couple of months of each other. And there was the day I started at university, alone, and had to navigate my way to a lecture theatre holding three hundred students I didn’t know to study a subject I hadn’t a clue about (computer science), to name just a few.

Then there was, of course, the childhood memory of the day I accompanied my dad to the hospital when my brother was born, all excited, to be left on the stairwell alone while dad went to visit mum and new baby. Children were not allowed in the wards, so I waited unaccompanied, age three, and recall hearing every set of footsteps, watching the door open in hope, anxiously awaiting my dad’s return.

I remember thinking “What if he doesn’t return?”

Circumstances beyond my control that shake the foundations of the reality upon which I’m standing are not new to me. The feeling of being in freefall is not new to me. The fear of the huge space that opens up uninvited can be overwhelming, but I’ve been through this enough to know that the space which appears can also be my growth and expansion if I will befriend it.

As Sarah Blondin says “We walk invisibly cocooned with all the things we wish to control, we think that by keeping these things close that we will be able to manage them. If we keep our worries in plain sight we will have less of a chance of them coming true”.

I have always believed that, once children were involved in a relationship there is no backing out. Of course, that is my belief and a relationship consists of two people. Having had the experience of being jilted before, I was well aware that I actually have no control over whether the other person will stay in relationship with me.

So, since having children, it is fair to say that I have always harboured a fear about this. No more so than since leaving my career, and my financial independence, to be at home with my kids.

In Learning to Surrender, Sarah says “The more we constrict, the more worry and burden we pick up along the way. The denser we become, the more we sink like rocks to the bottom of our river. We then ground ourselves in the turbulent waters rather than allowing ourselves to be carried to the cool, calm waters”.

When I listen to Sarah’s captivating voice her words come from a place far beyond her lips and far beyond the reaches of my mind, the words carry truths that only my heart instantly recognises:

There will be moments in my life where all will seem in chaos and disharmony, and in those moments I must remember the universe is reordering my life to match more of what I am calling forth. Fear is useless in these times; trust – however - is paramount.

This is what I know above all else, I have known this with certainty for a long time.

So while I rage and feel helpless against this dramatic change in my circumstances, it is a dance of the mind versus the heart. My body, knowing this sense of abandonment, begins its trauma response.The mind, in trying to keep me safe, plays out all the “what if” scenarios and, meanwhile, my friend asks me to remember because – in remembering – I also remember the vital part: this too shall pass.

At some point I will stop freefalling through the empty black space and start to construct a different reality. In fact, I can see the glimmers of it now, the many positives that could exist on the other side of the many changes afoot for me and for our kids.

Some words Teal Swan wrote this week in relation to self love caught my interest. She said “The tension you experience is a sign you are giving away your power. It is calling your attention to the areas of your life where your free will is needed as a necessary agent for progress.”

Tension was the word that reeled me in, having chronic tense headaches, shoulders and neck. It will be no accident that in Learning to Surrender, Sarah Blondin also says “These places of tension are where you are holding a secret fear that you are not supported, you’ve been forgotten, that life does not love you, and that you are failing. Imagine cutting the ties to these tense places and allow yourself to be carried into the mysterious and rushing waters raging around you”.

She explains that this does not mean I stop trying to create my best life. It does not mean I give up in the face of stress or adversity. It simply means I let go of the hold it has on my physical body.

I can do this, I know I can, I just need constant reminders right now. And they come in many guises and forms, through the friends who love me, and the wise sharing of people like Teal and Sarah, whose work I love.

It occurs to me that the space that feels like freefalling through the vast darkness and the space that feels like opening, expansiveness and finding my centre, are one in the same. It’s all about perspective.

I hear Sarah’s words “You are being asked to surrender to the beauty trying to unfold, the beauty of that far off land of dreams you have been looking outside yourself for. Understand that it has been trying to take you there all along. Now get out of your own way and allow it to.”

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Even in Grief There Are lessons to Be Learned, What to Do if You Feel Trapped By Your Circumstances, In What Unseen Ways Are You Abandoning Your Own Free Will?, The Soul’s Yearning – How to Recognise Your Inner Work, 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.

In a podcast called Making Money, Making Change, Rha Goddess said “For a lot of us, we’ve been taught that we have to do certain things in order to get love, and that love is just not forthcoming, When we feel that anything we want to do, or feel passionate about, isn’t important or doesn’t deserve to be sustained, we are in the wounding of indoctrination”.

The wounding of indoctrination basically points to the way my inner world was shaped by my upbringing and the unhelpful beliefs I developed about myself and others along the way.

For example, Lisa Romano, who specialises in co-dependency and enmeshment trauma, makes the point “If a child does not know they have a self, how can that child love, honour, respect or care for the self it does not yet have conscious awareness of?”

Codependency is the continual state of being focused on the needs, wants and problems of others in order to gain approval and attempt to control outcomes. It's very intertwined with enmeshment trauma and people pleasing.

Typical codependency behaviours are compulsively wanting to fix others problems, perfectionism and doing for others things for that they should do for themselves. A great statement I read is "High functioning codependents may find themselves believing they are acting out of love, when in reality they are acting out of fear"

Enmeshment is when there is no real recognition of self in the family or relationship. The signs I learned to recognise are when I find myself confusing my emotions with those of a person I have a relationship with, and the cost of individuality feels high.

Lisa talks about common situations where this arises: if one parent is narcissistic, or one is self sacrificing, or parents live in denial, or addiction is the go-to, chaos is the norm, or poverty the reality.

She says “Yes, emotional, verbal and financial abuse all count; demeaning, devaluing and demonising a child counts; being conditioned to be your parent’s therapist, caretaker or pseudo partner counts; and being raised in any form of chaos, unpredictability and instability counts. Unless something changes within us, patterns continue to unfold outside of us”.

Rha, in the podcast, paints a beautiful picture of possibility when she says “There are, however, others who have been loved and love positively, especially in the formative years, who hold maybe a different belief system. They see love everywhere, they have no problem receiving love and participating in the laws of reciprocity, the giving and the receiving”.

For someone like me, who in Lisa’s terms suffers from codependency post traumatic stress syndrome, I aspire to see the world in this way. I can and do for short bursts, but I want to be able to sustain it, that is my work because I truly believe there is only love and resistance to love.

Lisa asks “Imagine if within every atom of your being you felt and believed you are enough and it’s your birthright to imagine the life you desire, in spite of any unwanted experiences?”

Yet those unwanted experiences can be traumatizing, bewildering and downright distracting. I’d go so far as to say they have completely consumed my existence for the most part of my life. In my relationships I’ve often attracted people who are very different to me, opposites in many ways: I find myself being the giver in relationships with a taker, the internaliser with the externaliser. Why does this happen?

“Understanding and changing is healing” Annette Noontil

If part of healing is understanding I am pretty sure I have that part down pat. While I’ve written in the past about What I Love About Being With Narcissistic People, I recently read a fictional novel by Santa Montefiore that helped me understand this dynamic more deeply from a soul perspective.
The Secrets of the Lighthouse is focused around a wife and mother who has died but, rather than following the light, she remains tethered to the earthly plane unseen by the people she has loved and lost.

In life she had constantly set her husband challenges to prove his love, and nothing he ever gave was enough, eventually he inevitably became weary and resentful. He had given her everything he had to give and still she wanted ever increasing devotion.

As she watches on she initially delights in her husband’s misery at her death but, eventually, she begins to see the light, and reflects:

“I know I have little love in my heart that is not tarnished by jealousy. I also know that light is love and it is strong enough to slay the snake. I realise then that I do have the power to raise my vibration, after all the only thing capable of transmuting negativity is love… I recognise that this pain that weakens my jealousy and fills me with guilt is compassion.

This new longing to take away his pain makes me feel strangely uplifted. How odd it is to feel pleasure in this way. I have only ever thought of myself. My love was a selfish love and therefore not love at all, but neediness. I realise now my whole life was driven by this desperate need – and my death a result of it.

I wanted more and more and went to terrible lengths to get it. I never felt loved enough. If only I had thought of what I could give and not of how much I could be given, I would have been happy. If only I had shown him love, I would have felt loved enough, that’s the irony of it.

I am not as powerless as I had previously thought; I am powerful if my actions are motivated by true love. Why does it take so much unhappiness to make us realise there is nothing of value in our lives but love? … It is all that I am, I just never knew it.”

Having given everything I had to give in my relationships, I could identify with the widower. While it was useful to see a possible return to love from the other perspective, it was also a useful message in the futility of hanging on in the hopes someone will change and validate and love me by just doing more of the same things.  

So identifying the parts of me that were self sacrificing and over giving, and why, has been a huge part of the journey. As has recognizing that these are not patterns I’d want to perpetuate in my own children.

Changing is the harder part, and for that I have worked consciously to define and start to hold my boundaries and to ask myself in more situations “What would someone who loves themselves do in this situation?”

To end on another quote of Rha’s “We do have to, on some level, make peace with the fact we are here to grow. Sometimes those lessons feel yummy and sometimes they feel lousy. But if we can get the insight, if we can pay enough attention to get the gift of the lesson, we do become more of who we are meant to be. This work is all about the invitation to become more of who you really are, then you are free.”

Do you yet recognise your inner work?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Resentment, the Family Business. Are You Willing to Let It Go?, Your Mind Will Try to Protect You By Resisting Your Healthy Boundaries, I Am a Recovering Approval Seeker and Control Freak 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.

When I was growing up, I tried to minimise the exposure I had to any kind of negative emotional reactions towards me, having been at the sharp end of many of those from my mother. I did this by trying to be good, and thinking ahead about the consequences of my actions on her emotional state.

How that has translated to my adult life is an over developed sense of responsibility towards the way other people feel. It is one thing for me to be considerate, another to lose myself in the process. This of course points to learning about having and communicating healthy boundaries, something that was a foreign concept to me until the last year or two.

I was under the impression that being in relationship meant doing things I wasn’t actually all that comfortable doing in order to make other people happy, and them doing things for me in return. Making sure other people were not unhappy with me is what felt safe for me within my body, when they were unhappy it made me feel anxious and out-of-kilter.

While I have a huge capacity to do a lot for others, and a high tolerance in not necessarily receiving much gratitude, there has always been a limit to my martyrdom. Inside, I’m sure my soul has been screaming, and when this limit had been reached – albeit when I’m way beyond an already unhealthy threshold – that expresses through me in anger and resentment.

Then I read Annette Noontil’s life lessons and I had lots of ah-ha moments. Annette Noontil was involved in looking after others for a large part of her life, first in caring for her father, then in nursing before having a family. Later she took what she had learned about healing and, with more research and determination, she began to share the wisdom she had gained, summed up as “your attitude is reflected in your body”.

This resulted in one of my favourite do-it-yourself books The Body is the Barometer of the Soul 2 which helps people recognise the concepts that limit them, how they show up in the body and how to look within for answers and activate change. In her very Aussie ‘to-the-point’ way of describing things, here is what jumped out at me initially:

• We only see what we need to see and grow from, so what we see in others we have in ourselves. If it aggravates you, you have that attitude or concept quite badly. “Wow, that takes a lot of swallowing” I thought, “but it kind of rings true”.
• Treat others as your equal, we all have good points. Take note of everything positive in people as they reflect you also. “That also takes a bit of swallowing, but if it’s true of the bad stuff then it makes sense it’s true of the good stuff too right?”
• You attract what you need to learn. “I’m starting to get it”
• We have all come here to learn from each other. “Okay, it makes sense”
• Respect people for where they are at and accept them when they challenge your patience. Notice their good qualities and just get on with your life. Nobody needs to be saved. “Really? This is kind of taking away my excuses to be mad at people.”
• Understanding and changing is healing. “Gotcha!”

Then there were the parts that popped out and helped straighten my thinking around this issue of responsibility:

• We love to be of service but nobody loves being a servant. “You got that sister!” I thought
• It is best not to do more than 50% for people because you take away their opportunity to learn and grow. “Um, yes, okay that makes sense, oops!”
• If you have to do for others make sure you learn something for yourself from what you have done and then you will not be drained. “Drained, yes, that is how I feel”
• Ask for what you want instead of waiting for permission. “Really? But shouldn’t people who truly love me know what I want?” Uncomfortable realising dawning...
• Your life is your business and you have to take responsibility for it. “Oh crap, I’ve been too busy taking care of everyone else’s business.”
• If you are about to do for others, make sure they have asked for your help. “Really but am I not just being nice? Mm, light bulb moment, on occasions when others do do something for me I can feel like they think I’m inadequate. Drats!”
• By doing for others what they could be doing for themselves you are taking away their opportunity to grow. “Oh, I didn’t think of it that way.”
• Learn to receive as well as to give. “Receive? How?”

This was a bit of a wakeup call. While I didn’t have a name for it then, she also said a lot about boundaries:

• You need to be caring for yourself then those others will begin to respect you because you will have respect for yourself. “I didn’t think of it that way before but it makes sense.”
• Beingness is using all your inner power to be yourself and in your own energy, no matter what negativity is around you. It is living in your feelings and letting others do the same. When you are in control of your power you do not want to control others. “But I often don’t know how I feel until I get mad.”
• The compassion you seek is mostly for yourself, so when you learn to show it to yourself, you will then show it to others and more loving relationships flow. “That sounds good, but how?”
• You need strong boundaries to practice detachment, but life is so much more relaxed when you do. “Strong boundaries sound exhausting” was my first thought.
• Be married to the process of looking inside yourself for answers and divorced from the result – what people do with your information is none of your business. “Mm, I might have to work on my delivery then..and what if they still get mad? Oh, how they react is not my business. Lightbulb moment!”

From there I started to read a lot more about boundaries, Evette Rose’s Healing Your Boundaries book was great for helping me define my boundaries, and Terri Cole’s book Boundary Boss for giving me tools and words to help communicate my boundaries and hold them in difficult situations.

This hasn’t been a linear learning path, it’s been more like one step forward, two to the side, five back and finally another leap forward again. A lot of my old stuff got dragged up out of the murky waters and continues to as I react to situations, reflect and relearn.

In my experience it’s often the very thing I try to avoid, or to resist, that needs to be faced in order for me to grow and fulfil my potential. Relationships that aren’t working, or jobs that are miserable, I plough on in a state of discontent, fear and anxiety. That is what it comes down to, a deep seated fear that the real me, my real needs and desires won’t be accepted. I’m trying to avoid rejection. And yet,in the process I’m rejecting myself.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility.  For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”

When I was taking responsibility for other people who gladly let me, I used to think of this quote smugly. But now I realise I was a co-conspirator in that and the quote applies equally to me.

Ironically for someone with an over-developed sense of responsibility (towards others), it’s actually taking responsibility for me that matters most. Each time I come back to myself after taking responsibility for what I really need and asserting my boundaries, I wonder why I hadn’t done it so much sooner.

Have you caught a glimpse of yourself anew in reading this? Are you ready to take a helicopter ride high above the canopy and see yourself from a different perspective? To see that all you desire awaits
if only you can take more responsibility for your own needs? Are you ready to face your fears?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Resentment, the Family Business. Are You Willing to Let It Go?, Your Mind Will Try to Protect You By Resisting Your Healthy Boundaries, I Am a Recovering Approval Seeker and Control Freak 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.

I was listening to relationship expert Terry Real recount a conversation with a client whose partner had really changed his ways. He had become a nice, thoughtful, connected guy; having previously been a “prize jerk”. Despite this, his client was still stuck in resentment, what he calls “her dysfunctional stance”.

So Terry asks his client who the resentful one was in her family growing up, where did she learn this from? He knows that his clients are either reacting to this, or learning to repeat it, or some combination of the two.

She responds “My mom, she was resentful for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She hated my dad and made it perfectly clear”. Rather than enlisting her daughter as a co-conspirator against her father (one possibility), she had instead been very narcissistic and had little connection with her daughter. So the client’s stance in resentment was actually a way to be close to a parent who did not want to be close to her at all.

He observes “So resentment is the family business. You are in union with your mother by sharing a vision of what a relationship looks like. If you let this new man in, you’re going to be leaving your mother.”

In short, she unleashed a lot of grief as she let go of the last vestige of unity with her mother and embraced her husband. And, so far at least, the resentment hasn’t resurfaced.

While I didn’t have that same dynamic growing up, I recognise the ugly truth of resentment in my life.
I grew up with a mother whom I felt resented having to take care of me. She was often tense and overwhelmed, especially when on her own with my brother and I (which, since she was the primary caregiver was often). And if we “weren’t being good” it would throw her into fits of rage.

In short, I grew up feeling that my needs and desires were secondary to ensuring that my mum’s emotional landscape was smooth and even, and I was responsible for that. This developed into a pattern of being a co-dependent people pleaser with no idea about boundaries and – as I grew – I resented my mother for putting all that on me as a young child.

In How to Let Go of Resentment Teal Swan defines resentment as “a state of being in pain as a result of perceiving you have been treated wrongly, unfairly and unjustly”.

She makes the following key points:

• Whether something is right, fair or just is subjective
• Whether circumstances were such that a person was or was not treated fairly, either way resentment can be present
• Resentment is one of the strongest hooks that anchors a person to the past
• Resentment immediately converts itself to distrust (when you feel you’ve been treated wrongly you cannot rely on the person to care for your best interests)
• Resentment is almost always fuelled by years’ worth of earlier experiences of being treated unfairly
• Letting go (or forgiving) can give people the feeling that they have to let go of the unmet need to be treated fairly and justly, and so to honour this need they will not forgive
• Resentment may be kept as both a boundary and a personal reminder as if to say “no one will ever do this to me again”
• The ego can feel a sense of itself being right and good when it is in the victim role with someone else in the perpetrator role
• In close relationships being the one who was wronged puts the other person in a role where they have to “make it up to you”, creating a power imbalance
• Resentment kills relationships but it is not a monster or enemy, just the natural by-product of a lack of resolution.

I can attest to all of that. Resentment is the toxic by-product of the unhealthy cycle my children’s father and I were stuck in for years. Coming into the relationship we were two people seeking to find ourselves and to have a family. Both those things happened, and both are true blessings. But they happened painfully because we were both unconsciously stuck in unhealthy patterns of behaviour and unable to express our personal truths.

We were two symbiotic dysfunctional beings, one accustomed to taking on too much responsibility (especially for others), the other accustomed to having others take responsibility for them. Putting this another way, I felt safe and like I was fulfilling my duty to love by doing for him things he was capable of doing for himself. He felt safe and entitled to those things in a love relationship. Yet both of us were resentful.

Annette Noontil says “By doing for others what they could be doing for themselves you are taking away their opportunity to grow.” Both souls were calling out for a healthy balance, replaying ingrained patterns in hope of a resolution.

From a broader perspective I definitely feel happy to have arrived at a point of being able to express my truths, and he his. But – as with all growth – I often shake my head in wonder at why it took so long and had to be so painful.

Terry Real says “What we long for is the divine... the gods and goddesses that are going to complete us...and what we’re stuck with is an imperfect being. What we’ve lost in our culture is that it’s exactly the collision of your particular imperfections with mine (and how we manage that together) which is the stuff of intimacy...that’s what drives us deep”.

In her article (which is also available as a video) How to Let Go of Resentment Teal gives a wealth of information which she then sums up as “Focus directly on resolution and the by-products of non-resolution – including resentment – will cease to exist.”

So what remains unresolved in your life? Where do you still feel pain as a result of perceiving you have been treated wrongly, unfairly and unjustly? Has resentment become your family business? And what are you willing to do to let it go?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Take Heart - It Takes Courage and Tenacity to Step Into Your Power, Your Mind Will Try to Protect You By Resisting Your Healthy Boundaries, Are You Aching to Be Accepted By Someone Who Doesn’t See You?, Normal Is Dysfunctional That Is the Growth Opportunity and Why the Integration of Feelings and Logic Will Save the Human Race. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Shame, pain and guilt have a lot to answer for. I remember thinking that a while back when I heard of someone who had committed suicide and his family hadn’t known what had driven him to it because, on the face of it, nothing was amiss. There seems to be so much we humans keep hidden because of shame, pain and guilt.

V (formerly known as Eve Ensler), who wrote The Vagina Monologues, an episodic play that began in the 1990’s and speaks in many voices and in many ways about violence against women, said recently:  

“If something doesn’t exist you can do anything to it. If something only exists in the dark you can rape it, colonise it, own it and destroy it. Once you declare Vagina Monologues you’re saying vaginas have voices, they can speak, they can be seen, and they can be visible.”

Her feeling is that making the invisible visible is a very scary thing, especially in a time when people wanted women to be controlled. As a child she suffered violence, sexual abuse and humiliation at the hands of her father. As an adult she is determined and says “I’m not going to have shame, I’m going to be powerful, funny, I’m going to own it”.

In a world where movements like Black Lives Matter and Ni Una Menos are gaining traction, there continues to be a lot of big-T trauma being outed so to speak. Yet, in tracking the human rights movement back to Cyrus the Great, who freed all slaves in Babylon and declared in 539 BC that people should choose their own religion, it becomes painfully obvious that we humans are not quick learners.

I suspect that is because behind all big-T trauma lies little-t trauma. I’m talking about the kind of trauma that derives from the more insidious kinds of behaviours that result in adults who feel the need to take power from others (by projecting and deflecting their own pain) in order to feel worthy in themselves.

I call it insidious because I think we each have our own little stories, which seem so benign in the face of the stories of the horrific big-T trauma we hear about every day, yet shapes lives nonetheless.

Although I grew up with two parents who loved me and wanted me, I felt loved conditionally. As I said in Normal Is Dysfunctional That Is the Growth Opportunity, for a long time the predominant theme of child rearing has been about teaching children to be good and fit in.
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So growing up conditioned to “be good and do not upset my parents” seems a typical experience. Certainly I didn’t feel like I was in any better or any worse a position than any of the other kids I grew up with. Grooming us kids to fit in and be good members of society was where it was at. 

However, in terms of the development of the human psyche, growing loving and connected adults first requires kids who have a healthy sense of self and safety.

It’s not the forced sleeping and eating schedules I remember, though I suspect my body does, it’s the anxiety I felt being around my mother (who was the one at home looking after us most of the time). When I read Dr Maté’s words “it’s not our children’s behaviour but the anxiety it elicits within us that we have to learn how to manage” I knew I’d finally found an explanation for what I sensed my whole childhood.

Left on her own with us kids, my mum was always hyper-tense, it was like entering an alternate reality as she wasn’t like that around others. I learned to anticipate how things might play out and to be as perfect as I could to stay out of trouble. Looking back through adult eyes I can connect the dots to her own childhood, something I only really learned about when she was dying.

Although I had always sensed my mum’s dislike of her father (who had died when she was seven), she never told me anything specific until just before she died, when she said “I remember sitting on the floor drawing, and hearing the crack behind me, and seeing your gran go from one side of my peripheral vision to the other”.

Trauma begets trauma. I know because when I had my own kids and they needed my positive attention all the time, I came unwound. I found myself getting angry at them, yelling at them and wandering around chuntering the same way my mother used to chunter – even using some of the same words.

That “oh my, I’ve become my mother” moment was a wakeup call. Instead of putting it all on my kids, as I’d had done to me, I decided to take full ownership of my behaviour before it became ingrained and marked the pattern of another childhood.

Basically, I had to reparent myself. If I caught myself reacting, I’d stop mid-yell, apologise for yelling and actively work to calm my triggered nervous system. I explained to my kids what I was doing. They may have experienced schizophrenic behaviour but I figured that it was better than experiencing me putting it all on them.

I also made myself a chart and got my kids to decide whether I got a tick for talking to them respectfully. They still had boundaries, but I was getting better at holding them in a healthy way. In short, I made the invisible visible.

When my youngest daughter had a bout of meltdowns recently and started lashing out, I was inspired by a story I’d heard from relationship expert Terry Real, I said:

“Hey, you’re my daughter, I love you and I’m always going to love you. But it’s not ever going to be okay for you to yell and scream and lash out at us like this. You know dad and I grew up with too much yelling and screaming and we work hard to make this a better environment, what do you need right now to help you calm down?”

We are committed to breaking the chain of pain, but it’s not always easy. I don’t know about you, but my litmus test has always been who I am at home, that is where any mask I’ve been subconsciously wearing falls.

It is easy to blame other people and circumstances, but most of the time I’m emotionally charged it’s because I’ve triggered the little child inside who is subconsciously trying to be good to appease her inner parents.

“When we give ourselves permission to stop being the obedient daughter, we become the responsible adult.” Glennon Doyle

I suspect that is the case for most people when they are emotionally charged and it’s out of kilter with the actual circumstances. Well, either being obedient towards or rebelling against the inner parent.

When I look through my adult eyes, once the emotional charge has passed, I find I’ve either not had or I’m not holding a healthy boundary and I’ve over reacted towards the person or circumstances.

For example, when I had to catch a return flight home the other day, I was in a pretty triggered state because of the time constraints involved. As I child I was always being hurried along by mum, who used to speed walk everywhere with us, and was always anxious in case we were late.

I even have recurring dreams about not being able to get packed in time to catch a flight. So when my partner saw me having trouble packing the cases and said “you’re shaking”, I was aware that I was in a traumatised state, my body remembering.

While we caught our taxi and go to the airport in plenty of time, my nervous system was still on high alert, anticipating getting through check in and safely home (flying not being a favourite thing of mine at the best of times).

When one of our bags registered slightly overweight – and the others being underweight - I will confess I had a momentary meltdown. The airline we were flying with is really pedantic about the 23kg limit, and the choice is to repack your bag there on the check in floor or pay an $80 excess fee.

Having felt like I’d just survived something in getting the bag packed in the first place, there was a moment when I had to shift gear to get the job done. That moment felt like a slow motion freefall, and the airline worker’s calm but directive voice cut through to restart my system. She said “it’s okay; it’s only a kilo or so, find a couple of books or toiletry bag and put them in your other bag.”

Part of me wanted to scream “it’s not okay!” but another part of me knew the futility of my resistance so I obeyed and moved past the moment. After the emotional charge had calmed I was extremely grateful I hadn’t completely humiliated myself by expressing the full blown tantrum I’d wanted to have.

But it also made me realise I hadn’t actually catered to my needs by organising the help I needed to pack and get us back to the airport, instead I’d just taken it all on my shoulders, and I then wanted to lay that anger and resentment at the feet of those I travelled with. I became aware that, on the inside, I was waiting for my hard work to be noticed, resentful it wasn’t an old well worn pattern.

Lesson learned, I resolved to organise things quite differently the next time we took a trip, having each person pack and unpack their own case instead of playing the martyr.

This is the essence of small-t trauma. It lives within, invisible, reigniting the well worn thought patterns and pathways in my nervous system. But by making the invisible visible, becoming conscious of what is really at play, and learning how to react differently, I can create newer, healthier reactions that empower and serve me - and those around me - much better.

What is within you that would benefit from being brought into the light?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Clear the Fog of Trauma to See the Magnificence of Your Being, Normal Is Dysfunctional That Is the Growth Opportunity, You Don’t Need to Be Perfect to Make a Breakthrough, Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Is Your Responsibility and Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.