truth – Page 2 – Soul Reflection

Not Wrong, Just Different.

I have previously touched on the principle of requiring a circle, or village, of relationships to fulfil our needs. The idea that just one or two people should or are able to hold and carry the multifarious requirements of one full lifetime of human experience is perhaps the crux of many problems.

In fact this principle has become such an obsession that the trend on social forums is to instruct each other on how to respond or be responsive towards each other. There are plentiful descriptions about ‘how to be a good friend/partner/parent/boss’ with minute instructions on what makes you good or bad; pass or fail….

But what this neglects to take into account is the principle of difference. That we are all wonderfully, uniquely varied in our gifts, attributes, strengths and, naturally, weaknesses and flaws too.

One of the most resonate compliments that my husband gives to me is that I am someone who always believes there is a way through; that there is a solution somewhere, somehow. And I do. I really believe nothing is insolvable, more deeply on an emotional level but practically too! So whilst I have realised that rescuing and saving people is dis-empowering (okay, I still do it as a sideline occasionally!), I am a great person to come to if you need some ideas, some guidance about what options might be out there to help you on your journey. If you don’t want any of that, if you want just to be heard in total silence and reverence… I might not be the best fit for the job. But here’s the critical point… that doesn’t make me wrong. I am not going to be Jack of all Trades, good at everything, nor do I want to be. I want to be really good at things that come naturally and instinctively to me, I want to hone my skills and work towards mastery.

So what happens if you are in need of someone who is not going to even think of voicing a solution but is killing the strong and silent thang… then find that person.

Create the circle, create your own village.

I have one friend who talks nineteen to the dozen, I can barely get a word in edgewise and she is not someone that I am going to go to when I really need and want to be heard about soulful shit! But I adore her company, she is light and engaging and kind and funny and zingy and all sorts of wondrousness…… she is very much a part of my circle and I need that energy in my life. Imagine if everyone in my life was an intense as me?! Insanity!

Now imagine if I made her wrong for being that way… imagine if I said to her ‘you never really listen to me’, ‘I don’t think you are being sensitive to my needs’, ‘please could you reflect back to me my words so that I really know you have heard me’…. I believe it would crush her and it would certainly crush our friendship. I would be trying to mould her into something that really doesn’t fit in her skin, trying to create her into something else whereas I could simply be accepting and enjoying all the gifts that she does bring.

Of course this doesn’t mean we can’t ask for what we need, consider each other’s perspectives and feelings and reflect on our own behaviour, but within that there is a place to see whether our specific needs of the moment are going to be best met and by whom. I once asked a friend, who had gone silent on my for 6 weeks, that if next time she was pissed with me she could just tell me about it rather than hit the mute button; she told me in no uncertain terms that I shouldn’t ask her to change or be different. Fair enough, she was not going to meet my needs or requirements in that side of our friendship. That was actually a deal breaker for me, I do need my circle to be upfront and clear about when I’ve done something to upset them, and I chose to walk away from that friendship for that reason, but that wasn’t about making either of us wrong, just that we weren’t a good fit.

I used to ask too much of my husband (perhaps still do!) under this principle of ‘he who must be able to support every which side of me’… until I realised what absurdity this truly was. I started to widen my circle and increase the array and variety of friendships, mentors and crazys who help all my facets sparkle as I hope I do in return. And with this choice, there is the potential to free my husband from feeling like somehow he is failing me, or not enough for me, and instead allows his own highlights to shimmer.

I would love to see this embracing of each other’s gifts and strengths replacing the homogenising pressure that social media is trying to instil through shame directed memes and articles. Yes, walk away from those who don’t support you, whilst being careful not to dismiss those that might not be what you need for right now yet their gifts and skills might be everything to you come tomorrow, the new moon or the new decade. We are all personally responsible for seeking out our own joy, friendship and healing rather than insisting it is performed for us by the demands we set on others. Let each of us shine and glorify each other and celebrate the magical complexities of human nature. We are not wrong, we are just different.

The Voice of Reason

In a recent discussion with a therapist it was suggested that I was, at times, too reasonable(!). Not only that, but by being too reasonable I was actually hurting myself.

My husband raised his eyebrows when I told him this, clearly he did not agree!

But I have been sitting with it; churning it over in my mind and of course as a result I have had the most unreasonable couple of weeks I could ever have imagined.

Everyone and everything has felt desperately unreasonable.

One days notice from a teacher at school that the cake ingredients rules have changed as I prepare for my child’s birthday. Unreasonable.

Car insurers wanting me to provide information that they know better than me. Unreasonable.

My child wetting the bed twice in one night. Unreasonable.

My babysitter cancelling a two month standing booking less than a week before. Unreasonable.

The resident permit zone being arbitrarily changed so that our property is no longer granted a permit. Un-bloody-reasonable.

And then there’s the bigger stuff…

the school mum throwing her unmet needs in my face
my husband having a ‘moment’ and wondering if I’m really the right one (yes that happened!)
my mother refusing to take any accountability for her behaviour

These are the bigger life hurdles when someone else’s choices can feel so utterly and desperately unreasonable and yet I am very good at making them reasonable. I am very good at looking behind the gauze and finding the reasons, the pain, the whys and the because; and understanding why everyone’s behaviour or choices are the way they are.

A good skill? Compassionate? Able to hold the bigger picture?

I need to segue a moment… when my friend Kim was dying, we talked about the emotional trauma that may have contributed to her illness. Kim was utterly reasonable. She always found a way to walk on a higher plain, she didn’t want to stoop to the level of those who had wounded her so deeply. And that is so honourable and so ‘right’, right? Except that all that justifiable anger and pain stayed inside and perhaps it is what killed her…

So I have sat with my flair of fire, this rage of witnessing the unreasonable and I have held it in conflict with my desire to be so thoughtful and measured and kind.

And then I exploded.

My husband lit the touch paper and I vomited out my rage at all the holding I do for everyone else’s ‘unreasonable’ choices.

And he held me there.

He held me there when I poured out my anger, my grief and my own unreasonable demands.

And he listened, and he heard me. And for the very first time, I felt safe.

It is the hardest thing in the world to hold someone in their pain, just hold them, not fix them, not wrong them, not right them or join them. But just to listen and be with that flow of emotions. And I love him more than ever for being courageous enough to do so.

Because sometimes the emotionally healthy thing to be is utterly unreasonable.

I needed that exorcism as part of my own healing and now I am calm again and able to bear the weight of all of life’s reasons….

Every Possibility

Social Media is both friend and foe; I love the connection I can maintain with International and long-ago friendships and I don’t love the constant barrage of thoughts, opinions and information that fill me up with a mixture of curiosity and confusion.

What is fascinating about it, and also a little frightening, is the window into the trends and views of society on a global scale. Despite my childhood not being that long ago… it was a different place of understanding then. My world was much smaller.

One of the gifts that this explosion of world-wide connection brings is that the doors of taboo discussions have been flung off their hinges. Everything is on the table, there is every possibility laid bare.

And with that comes a curious place that I observe, that of fundamental disempowerment. This overwhelming irony that these global conversations ‘should’ offer a space of empowerment for everyone to speak their truth with validation (and criticism!), linking support networks for minority groups and bringing them to the front stage.

Yet what I am witnessing is the ‘never enough’ response. Seemingly no matter how big the platform or how vocal the support, the complaints of mistreatment and disrespect are only escalating on an exponential level. In this place of demand for equality (even though the world is not equal and never shall be), parity and even positive discrimination, compassion, understanding and forgiveness have been left far behind.

So what I see from this is that it is not the world, or the corporations, or the communities holding anyone back, it is ourselves. In a place where every possibility has become acceptable, it is finally the inner shadows that can no longer hide behind the walls of unfairness or injustice, what is left are the core beliefs of the individuals who are unable to empower themselves. The constant striving for the next righteous march or debate is an internal striving for a feeling of wholeness and self belief; for when we hold ourselves with absolute knowing and integrity there is nothing that can stand in our way of simply being our very best selves. It is not the ‘troll’ on twitter that inhibits a person’s happiness or life choice; it is not the governments’ discrimination that stops anyone claiming their passionate life, it is only ourselves and our woundings that may have broken our spirit.

It is time now to pull back from externalising our shadows, from blaming everyone and everything. There is now every possibility offered in the world; to heal, to work, to explore, to expand, to become, to be. Take it. Take what you need to shine your best self, to model totality and to bring the tranquillity of self knowing. Everyone’s opinion is their own, hold yours for yourself, I will hold mine for myself and let everyone just be.

Know Thyself

I have just finished the first series of ‘The Sinner’ staring Jessica Biel and I was utterly triggered, re-traumatised and mesmerised by the storyline and intense portrayal by Biel. Her portrait of a young woman, innocent to the manipulations of darkness and yet cognizant of the power of her sexuality, resonated deeply with me and, with it, compassion, shame and sadness for my own young woman.

The story is multi layered with the explorations of characters swinging across the pendulum of shadow life, but to me there was one powerful theme that struck home hard.

Know Thyself.

Side stepping for a moment, there is a phrase I use with my kids frequently when they are struggling with hearing another persons perspective on their own story. I remind them to ‘know your own truth’. In their terms this often relates to incidents where their friends have colourful versions of events perhaps placing blame in unfair quarters, this is the phrase I whisper to them as they struggle with their righteous anger when their characters are being maligned.

It has felt important to me to equip them with this knowledge; that we cannot control another person’s opinion or perception but can only remind ourselves of what is true to us and our own soul and values.

Watching ‘The Sinner’ I saw with perfect clarity how Biel’s character became entangled in a deeply toxic relationship from that simple place of unknowing. She did not know who she was, or even who she wanted to be, she was wide open to another’s interpretation of her and followed blindly down a path of self destruction based on the power of someone else’s opinion.

I remember that vulnerability so clearly. Flashbacks of short lived love affairs and countless first dates. As a most innocent example, I recall being obsessed with one man when I was 17 who finally finally finally asked me out and then I had absolutely nothing to offer him in conversation because I had no value in my own story. It is an excruciating memory and a salutary lesson.

The more painful picture was that I was easily able to capture a partner by primal sexual fever but I could not sustain a relationship because I offered only a veneer of personality entirely created by what I thought they wanted. There was no part of me that believed my true self had anything to offer and worse than that I didn’t even know what my true self was. Was I witty, sassy, smart, ditzy, fierce, gentle, interesting, boring? A bit of everything?

Julia Robert’s in Runaway Bride was a more lighthearted versions of Biel’s trauma; but she too evolved through her partners rather than herself, at the end making eggs numerous different ways to see what was her true favourite, previously being whatever her partner’s was.

At the darkest edge of this all is the possibility of where one might be led. I was taken to places by family, friends and lovers that deeply hurt my soul and spirit, that have left scars and also golden lessons, but that I don’t wish for anyone else to experience. I have believed the truth of myself that has come from other’s mouths and I have thought myself to be the worst type of human, the most unworthy and the most unlovable. It has taken decades to unravel my truth from theirs.

I am writing this from the female perspective but, in this time of gender dysphoria, this is truly an issue that is gender neutral. It is of critical importance for every human to be in deep and loving connection with their own soul.

If we don’t know our own truth then we leave the door wide open for someone to create that ‘truth’ for us and whether that comes from an energy of love or darkness, the end is nearly inevitably despair.

Whether we are gifted it from a healthy childhood or have to spend the rest of our life exploring it, knowing ourselves is the key to our personal treasure box of happiness and a vital piece of our healing.

The Phoenix Decade

It has started. The Phoenix Decade.

Our 40’s are a time typified by the clichéd ‘midlife crisis’: fast cars, affairs, career change, divorce and unexpected death.

Sadly, our society seems to sneer and judge a lot of these changes rather than embrace this as a natural life transition and of course that judgement comes from the fear of ‘us’ and ‘them’, separating the shadow and placing it in someone else’s court. But the truth is, our 40’s are the time for our spiritual renaissance.

Biologically, most of us will be coming to the end of the early years of parenting, the dance of mating and conception taking up so much of our 20’s and 30’s. And with those elements ‘in the bag’, there opens up a space in our lives to observe ourselves in greater depth. Our children and loved ones will be offering mirrors to the darkest parts of our souls through their triggers and button pushing and it is here that we have the greatest opportunity to dig out the roots of our deepest wounds and raise them up into the light.

This is the decade of philosophical thinking, of reflecting back on our own upbringing, how we might do things similarly or differently; exploring the aggrievements that have entrenched reactions and personality traits that may no longer serve us into true maturity and adulthood. It is the golden ticket for change and transformation, to allow your past to die and your renewed and invigorated self to rise from the ashes.

As I look around my peers, I am seeing sickness that is shaking souls to their very cores – cancers, strokes, depression; I am seeing relationships flounder and stumble with what appear to be unbridgeable chasms of disconnect; I am seeing denial where materialistic choices are covering the voids of love and connection. For me these are all symbolic gifts to face the Phoenix.

For myself I know I was close to great sickness. The levels of stress and discordance that I was carrying in relation to my mother were putting a burden upon my system that was unsustainable. Despite my healthy lifestyle, organic nutrition and conscious living, I could still feel the poison of unhappiness in my body. I had early warning signs singing through my nervous system, twinges, aches, pains, exhaustion. That was why it was so necessary for me to face that relationship head on and take the space I needed from it. I could have sat in the dynamic continuing our mutual unspoken discomfort and pain, I could have pretended it didn’t really exist, it wasn’t surely that important, but I didn’t want to die. And that was what that choice felt to me, that my body could no longer carry such a consistently high level of stress, something would eventually crumble.

So I am walking into this decade of the Phoenix with my eyes wide open. I want to face the shadows that will twist and turn out of the ashes; I want to address what needs to be explored. My husband and I will look into the fragile places of our love and relationship and dig out the dirt and attempt to replace it with light. I will stare into the mirror of my children and try my best to listen to their messages of reflection, to own what is mine and to return what is theirs. I don’t imagine that this decade is going to be my easiest, moreover because I am also having to witness my dear friends as they uncover their own phoenixes and the joy and suffering that that can bring. But I am also full of the excitement and possibility that this decade of renewal offers. I am excited to release the shackles of my past and to step fully present (with the best of my intention) into the second half of my life.

I will rise out of the ashes and I will soar.

I believe…

I watched my daughter fly into a fury the other day and, from that simple but emotional outburst, I have witnessed my own, deeply held & damaging, belief unravel.

She came to me with a problem between herself and a playmate; she shared her story to which her playmate immediately denied and refuted (standard), but what happened next was that the playmate’s parent spoke quickly and clearly stating that their child was not a liar. I believe they were just trying to be positive to their own child, showing support for their own upset, and I do understand that, but from my daughter’s perspective she heard ‘the playmate is not a liar and therefore you must be, as your stories are different’ and she raged and screamed. In observing that clearly, I realised that had happened a few times to her in different guises, that a comment, innocent or otherwise, had left her to feel that she was not believed.

In this understanding of her, this rage coming from lack of validation externally but more importantly, internally, not being able to hold her truth without fear of it being stripped away, I saw myself.

Those moments in films where flashback pictures litter the screen, running through countless memories to create the story that is now; that was me. My life rewound as I watched myself try and validate my values, thoughts and ideas via external sources; sharing books, memes, research, videos, anything and anyone else’s perspective to show another that my own thought might have value. And I do all of that because my belief in myself, in my own voice and opinion has not been strong enough. How different it would feel if I could speak my truth and leave it on the table of discussion, just leave it there, to be exactly what it is, my own; to no longer feel the need to explain it away or tie myself in knots to convince someone else to listen and validate me. To know that my worth is enough to stand alone, to be taken, received or rejected and still be OK.

And as I wonder how best to help my daughter, who has absorbed that sensitivity from me, I know that the only way forward is for me to have the courage to leave my opinions on the table and walk away, to take a deep breath, trust in my own wisdom and no longer seek the validation from outside.

It is time to step up and into My Self and hold my own truth securely within my soul, so that my daughter can also hold hers.