When the Thing That Binds You is the Road to Freedom

Image by Alberto Barco Figari from Pixabay

A wise lady recently told me something I’ve heard many times, that the first law of the universe is to put myself first. “Though” she acknowledged, “your children are not quite at the age yet where you can”.

This cleared up a question that had been sitting with me for quite some time.

Over the years I’ve heard and read a lot in the personal growth field about putting myself first. On the whole, I really get it, in order to take care of anyone else I have to take care of my own needs first so I’m in better shape to help others.

Being someone who had very poor personal boundaries, I’ve often dwelled on the irony of coming to know myself and my boundaries (my wants, needs and desires; the things that define the edges of where I end and others begin) at precisely the time in my life where I have children to raise.

It’s been an interesting journey trying to figure out how to reclaim the sovereignty of my soul while simultaneously helping each of my children on their journeys.

It is fair to say that, when I first had kids, a huge part of me relished handing them over to someone else for most of the day while I dashed off to live the piece of my life that I felt most productive in. That said, I had become increasingly frustrated (over the latter years of my corporate career) that what I was doing lacked meaning for me, still, it was more tangible than my newfound role as a mother.

Sitting for endless hours while a fledgling suckled at my breast, trying to figure out why this tiny fragile person seemed so restless and discontent. I always imagined a baby would feed, need winded, perhaps relieve itself and need a nappy change, and then would nap; and this cycle would repeat maybe half a dozen times in a day. But no, it was more like a half dozen times in a hour.

There never seemed to be time to take care of even the most basic things, like going to the loo, preparing and eating my own food, taking a shower and getting dressed, or cleaning and tidying the house. Far less anything more productive that would require use of the well honed skills and experience I had come to be prized for outside the home.

So, yes, there was a large part of me that was very glad we couldn’t afford for me not go back to work at the time.

Fast forward three years, with another addition to our family in the picture, trying to work full time in a role that carried a lot of responsibility, expectation and reward, yet missed the mark entirely in terms of filling my heart, things looked a little different.

My children were on the move and able to express themselves so much more clearly. I mean, it wasn’t like they were able to say “hey, we need more attention from you, and we would really like to be in our own home each day”, but it was pretty clear they were deeply in need of these things despite the wonderful care they received outside their home.

As I would walk in the door, the kids would melt down, all their pent up emotion spouting forth like a cap popping off a shaken up bottle of soda. This would go on for hours and when, at last, their little bodies would give in to exhaustion and fall asleep, it was short lived, with both awakening multiple times through the night wanting the mummy time they missed during the day.

Suffice to say, things had to change and they did. Making changes in our location and lifestyle, I took on the role I dreaded, being home more with the children. I really felt I had no choice, I simply could no longer cope physically or emotionally trying to keep a foot in both worlds, both of which I was resisting in some way.

The thing I quickly realised was the world I had left behind no longer held any appeal. After a short spell consulting, I knew without a doubt that I was not going to find what I was looking for in the same kind of roles I had been doing. It didn’t take a genius to understand that corporations were never going to transform and change unless the people leading them changed.

And I knew I needed to change too, to go inward and start to live my life from the inside out, more attuned to who I authentically am.

I also started to see more clearly the effects on my kids of my not being there early on, the degree  of attunement and attachment they wanted and needed in those first moments of life had led to anxiety and anger, it took a few years to disentangle much of that.

Each step of this journey has been a challenge. I started as an adult who had really developed a complex, multi-layered persona in reaction to the way I had been parented and brought up, much like most people I guess. But life in our home forced me to look at all that with entirely new eyes, I started to view it as a mirror showing me where my learned behaviours were at battle with my true nature.

In being there to allow for more attachment and attunement to my kids, it’s allowed me to attune to myself and create a more healthy attachment style. I started to realise that, while the domestic duties that go with having family are not my thing, it was exploring the emotional aspects of child rearing that really helped me to find my way back to my own authenticity.

And while I have embraced that, I have also continued in many ways to resist my role, seeing it as something that is keeping me bound uncomfortably. Inside me is a desire, an insatiable wanderlust for exploration to worlds unseen (inside and out). While, at this point in my life, my main focus has to be on the children, it plays an endless tug of war with my desire to let my attention wander as it begs to be. 

As we approach the end of the school year here which, with lockdown measures, was already somewhat shorter than most years, my kids have been at home not feeling great. This was the last full week where I – in theory – would have had several hours in a day that my attention would not be split across three people.

In the past, the need to be fully present at home and waylay my own plans would have twisted me inwardly, like a self torture chamber. Wanting to there as opposed to here creates too much inner tension and resistance, too much stress, and my life is far easier in the moments when I surrender to just being here; even if it means I can’t do the thing I seem to be wired for. That is precisely the tactic I took this week.

I am a phosphorus constitution, my homeopath reminded me. Like my elemental namesake, if left to my own devices, I would consume all the oxygen quickly and – though my light would burn brightly – it would burn out quickly. What a gift to be brought back down to Earth, to be present with the children then, it keeps me from obsessively pursuing my explorations and burning out.

I’ve realised, amid the feeling of being in a tug of war for my attention - a cocoon that has bound me tightly to its child rearing purpose - a metamorphosis has occurred. My change and transformation skills have been applied inwardly, and I’ve shared those lessons in my articles as they have been learned. I now have a vast understanding and awareness of many techniques and resources centred on how to come home to ourselves.

For all its perceived bonds, it has in other ways been a beautifully unencumbered journey. Having been a child of a society that wants scientific proof before anything can be believed, and having followed the traditional path through higher education, it has been so freeing to follow nothing but my own intuition.

I do not require a piece of paper to qualify me to become myself.

Wading into the waters of the metaphysical and the mystical along with the latest scientific understanding has been liberating. What I’ve discovered along the route using these many woven strands has been enlightening. The convergences are many and often, we are truly evolving to a place where science is beginning to understand the nature of consciousness and many other things long ago deemed sorcery.

Despite the perceived limitations of the cocoon, my explorations have been wide and deep. My current intrigue lies with a deeper dive into work on trauma using somatic therapy, but this is one strand among many.

While I have been bound to this life I thought of as highly dissatisfying in many ways, I’ve simultaneously learned so much about the art and science of personal transformation, of becoming the fullest expression of who I intended to be; reawakening.

Forced to kneel at the doorway of my heart, or continue to suffer, this year I’ve stepped across the threshold and now stand in the entranceway and hear myself yell “hello, the house”... I’ve come home to myself at last.

Are you resisting the thing that binds you? What about its bonds could be pointing you straight in the direction of your true freedom?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy What to Do if You Feel Trapped By Your Circumstances, Start From Where You Are, Now Go and Be Great, Life Really Does Support Your Deepest Desires and You Don’t Need to Be Perfect to Make a Breakthrough. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.