How Would It Feel to Have More Ease, Joy and Flow in Your Life?

Image by Alex Hu from Pixabay

Last weekend a good family friend came to visit and it was the first time in many years I’ve felt at ease about such a thing. Free of all the familiar feelings of having someone else look over my shoulder, disapproving of the choices made about which activities we would do, when we would be back, how much money was spent, it was bliss to just go with the flow and not worry about anything.

As another good friend of mine said “That’s normal by the way, the way it should be”. I suspect for many, like me, it hasn’t been normal at all. Without good boundaries in place, and in relationships with people who do not consider my opinions or feelings important, be that personal or professional, I’ve experienced enough of a share of the opposite to know which feels better.

The contrasting good feelings of dancing to the beat of my own drum are very welcome, and they did not come about by accident. What I have learned is that passively waiting for someone else to show me courtesy, consideration or respect is fruitless, instead it is an inside out job.

As I wrote about in Who Are You Protecting? Why Telling Your Story Is Powerful, while I had two parents that loved me and what I’d describe as a normal childhood, nonetheless I became hyper-attuned to others, over-sensitive to criticism, and a perfectionist, particularly under stress. It led to all sorts of pain within relationships and, upon becoming parent, I could see I needed to address some things. I had little sense of self and had to learn about having and holding healthy boundaries.

Learning about who this self is, what my real needs, desires, opinions, talents, interests and so forth are has been a conscious effort. For so long my sense of self came from what was reflected back from those around me, which led to a lot of people pleasing behaviours and a massive amount of suppressing and bypassing my own true nature.

My nervous system recognised this as “normal” because it’s what I subconsciously did in childhood, but normal isn’t synonymous with healthy.

Now, with a good few of years of exploration, learning, help and a healthy change in circumstances, I’m starting to really feel into a whole new rhythm and way of being in the world – being me.

Being me doesn’t mean I can’t be in relationships with others, it means I only choose to be in healthy relationships with others; relationships where my needs and priorities are held in equal regard to the other’s, and vice versa. Or, as Teal Swan puts it, “and” relationships rather than “or” ones, where both yours and my needs are met.

I was doing an exercise earlier in the week with Briana MacWilliam, a creative arts therapist, and was asked to begin by scribbling using both hands simultaneously. As we got deeper into the exercise, what stood out for me as I was doing this was the rhythm my hands had gotten into. It felt almost like the soft swooshing of how I imagine it to be going down a gentle ski slope, or floating down a lazy river, first one way, then the other.

It was a calm, gentle flow and interestingly, although I’m right handed, my left want to take the lead.  It’s often said our left side represents the more feminine, intuitive and creative parts of ourselves, and certainly it felt that way, it was like an embodiment of the easeful way the weekend preceding it had felt.

As Briana took me further into the exercise, I could sense it was going to be a useful and easy way for me to tap into that feeling in future. A bit like when a smell can suddenly elicit a memory, when I lock something positive like this feeling into my body, it’s far healthier than the numerous stressful experiences that I now work at soothing and integrating.

I remembered a few years ago I did a Future Self meditation with Teal Swan, and I remembered the contrasting feeling within my body of a more relaxed future self compared to my then stressed comparison, where my nervous system felt constantly locked in a state of anxiety.

As I reflected back on this I could see that the fruits of my focus on developing and holding healthier boundaries are starting to ripen. And that feels good. It feels easeful, joyous and liberating.

Where in your life are you giving your power away and not showing up as your true self? How appealing would it be to feel more ease, more joy and more freedom in your own life? Are you ready to take the journey?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Do You Yearn for Better Outcomes? First Commit to Observing Your Reactions, Normal Is Dysfunctional That Is the Growth Opportunity, What Resentment, Frustration and Pain Have to Do With Your Boundaries, The Inevitable Pain of Returning to Love After Years of Abandoning Yourself and The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.