External Seeking = Internal Loss
The new millennium gifted me with a child… a beautiful baby boy, it was a time, that society told me it should be a heart opening time, to be honest, those first few months left me feeling inadequate, lost and confused.
Who am I now? How do I protect this precious child to survive in the world + the weight I felt in the moments where I was desperate for freedom.
The chemical connection was strong; but just as strong were the demands I had placed upon myself as a woman and mother. We needed to buy a home, that I should have lost all of my baby weight ,that the women in those magazines I had a few minutes to view every now and then, had; so why was it so difficult for me? There must be something fundamentally wrong with me!
It took me a few months for this cloud of expectation to drop and I was able to feel a real connection with my precious baby boy. Ohhh how it has taken me a long time for the weight of this guilt to release its grip on me.
6 years later we were gifted with a precious daughter and a beautiful surprise 3 years later in another divine daughter.
I had always had a feeling that I was drawn to this work, but my self talk combined with the need I had to be loved + seen as worthy kept me in the guilt, not enough. I was lonely and my feminine spirit was almost extinct. This very reality was centred around abandonment issues, I had of not being good enough.
I had these fears that were causing me to panic, these fears centred around acceptance, worth, love + expression and this is exactly what led me to the concept of being with the discomfort. I had to try something different to the resistance I had spent many of my vital years pursuing.
My example of womanhood was to put everyone else’s needs before my own, that in order for me to be happy it was vital that others were to be happy first.
Boundaries were this strange feeling I got when someone did something I didn’t particularly like or approve of, but I had no idea or vocabulary on what this was. So I figured out the best way to handle these feelings was to minimise my exposure to them or to allow the other person to do what they wanted. This left me confused, alone and feeling shattered.
At the age of 35, I was shaken awake, and it is literally what it felt like! This moment was the beginning of my journey home, the pure spirit I was as a newborn.
I had to ‘be with’ these feelings that had everything to do with not being with them.
I had to learn what value there was in taking a step inward + allowing the truth of me, the space to be witnessed.
I began to have greater visibility of who I was and how I needed to be in the world. It was real, authentic, and expressive. The logic mind does not understand this the ways of the heart and we have to quiet the mind.
My Tips to quiet the mind:
- Be in nature – allow your essence to have a space in our life. Connect with the aspect of you that thrives on being
- Be curious about what is in the mind – being curious, is about leaning gently into those thoughts you are having. What are they about, when did they begin, what was happening at the time.
- Explore through journal, dance, art – expressing ourselves in any way we can , benefits us, it allows our emotions the space to move, it brings joy, it reminds our beautiful, plastic brains that there is another way.
Daring to be with that which is not comfortable, what I know for sure is that the more we push down what is true for us, the more we push down our joy, sadness, guilt, grief our curiosity and keep them small for what we believe to be a more comfortable state for us to be in, we are just dimming our own light. We are keeping ourselves small. Because what I know to be true is that these emotions are here as an expression of who we really are and only when we judge them do the limit us.
As a life journey coach and Kinesiologist, my own experiences of stuffing my emotions down and keeping them small. I learnt that this is where the gold is, the gold lies within the exploration of what it is we are trying to keep small. When we understand what we are trying to keep small, we are gifted with a beautiful opportunity to understand ourselves a little better. And when we understand ourselves better, we bring an awareness in that we simply cant ignore.
Before I woke up, I would say to our extremely anxious son, ‘oh that wont happen, there is no need to worry about that, I promise you that wont be your reality, try not to think about it’. Was the very moment I learned the skill of learning to be with and get curious about this very discomfort. This moment changed my life completely.
For those of you who know me, know that small talk or top level conversation is something Im not very strong with; these things I struggle with. I am all about depth; I am all about nurturing these emotions that keep us small. What I know to be true is that when we allow our feelings space we give ourselves a beautiful opportunity to discover something really important about ourselves.
I believe, a vital exploration for living the life of your dreams.
