What Parts of YourSelf Are You Hiding From?
We can surround ourselves with distractions, busy-ness, projects, projects, projects. One of the easiest ways I have to hide from what's going on beneath the surface is to immerse myself in work because I adore what I do.
In early July I took on a new role in a coaching project and it has been intensive to say the least and I can easily spend 10-12 hours a day in that realm. Some days I have. But my creative and less linear Self has been calling me and I realized over the weekend that I haven't been paying attention. When that happens, the brilliance of my being knows how to begin gently pulling strings to increase the call to pay attention, until it becomes impossible to ignore, screaming PAY FUCKING ATTENTION!
Last week I responded to that part of mySelf with a “Shut The Fuck Up, I don’t have time for this right now!” and boy was that the wrong response! Things just got louder!
To be perfectly honest, I’ve been resisting paying attention right now. I work with a lot of Americans and when I do pause to pay attention, the flood of discord in the world smashes down like a tsunami; systemic racism, people being murdered for the colour of their skin, communities being dismantled by policies and systems that serve an ideal created to oppress, oppress, oppress, and it’s happening on both sides of the border.
WTF is going on?
How are humans so fucking horrible to each other?
And the aching of my heart is peanuts compared to the reality of those experiencing this firsthand. As an action-oriented person, the level of powerlessness I feel looking at all of this can be overwhelming. I just want to fix it all…
And I can’t, so sit down Type-A, that’s not actually your job.
When it becomes too much, I bring myself back to the work I do, my purpose, which is to help people heal through empowerment and acknowledgement of emotional pain & trauma, not to make them go away, but to integrate and welcome them into our beings as a whole. Piecing the fragmentation back together.
Humans are meant to experience a range of emotions, not just the rainbows, moonbeams and butterflies. The shadows and the darkness we each having within us is not meant to be covered more despite the inclination to do so. The more we try to cover it up, the bigger it gets.
Shining light upon it, acknowledging it so we can get into the thick of it, detangling the knots in our minds and souls so that we can see it’s not impossible, as long as we do so with compassion towards ourselves.
Self-compassion - isn’t that just the hardest?
Isn’t it interesting how much easier it seems to be to mentally whip ourselves into submission rather than sit with whatever darkness we’re experiencing and offer it compassion, embrace it with open arms. To shift this takes conscious effort, diligent self-care and self love.
When you’ve experienced deep trauma, these things don’t come easily. The achiever part knows that pushing, pushing, achieving, achieving can be a perfect drug until that emotional exhaustion sets in. You can’t achieve or push yourSelf into that place of acceptance, rather you have to set the standard to meet yourself in the messy places, to get honest with yourSelf even if that honesty means acknowledging you’ve been hiding from yourSelf for a bit.
What parts of yourSelf have you been hiding from lately? Are you willing to to sit in stillness with them? Are you willing and able to offer them compassion? If the prospect of this seems daunting, know you’re not alone in it; this I the work I do with my clients.
XO Jessica