Tag: self-discovery

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What do you need to discover within silence?

Unexpected circumstances led to my son returning to live with me two weeks ago, accompanied by his puppy. Koa is a year and a half, we believe a full blood Australian Shepherd, and attached to Bodie’s hip. Seriously. She follows him everywhere and only now, two weeks in, do I see her entertaining the idea that I may not be a threat. Yesterday, she remained on the ottoman with my feet long after Bodie made his way upstairs. Win.

What lies in the silence?

I’m no canine expert, in fact only within the past few years have I completely overcome my intense fear of dogs. The multiple dog bites of my youth cemented that. But what strikes me about Koa is her silence. Rarely does she bark, I can’t recall hearing her whine – even when patiently sitting next to me while I prepare dinner using her mind melting skills…drop.the.carrot. She’s sweet as can be, but she’s also timid and shy. Less so as she warms up to me, but she hasn’t let down her guard yet.

As I’ve been observing her, coupled with Bodie’s belief that she was abused based on her behavior (he’s had her 2 months), I wonder about the life she lived with her prior owner. A life which resulted in her shying away, approaching you with her head down, responding in a non-correlative way to correction…far more reactive than the rebuke she’s given.

Unlocking your inner-self

My heart wishes that she could tell me what her soul feels. What is locked inside from her life experiences so that we could help heal her with our love.

It’s the same thing I want for myself. The same thing I want for you.

Literally zero people escaped their childhood without scars which impact how we interact with our selves, other people and the world around us. Zero. Do not try to tell me you’re the one because I’d be happy to dig into it with you. It doesn’t have to be catastrophic to be impactful. In fact, most of the time, it’s the day to day way you adapted to your circumstances that leave lasting imprints.

Armed with our unique lens, we land in the middle of life. Often ill equipped to maneuver our way through relationships with ourselves or others, we may remain silent. We may not have been taught the tools to talk about how we feel, what we’re experiencing, what we desire. Those were certainly not part of the parent manual I received. What to Expect when you’re Expecting told me what would happen to my body, how large the baby was, basically how to keep them alive once they were born. I do not remember one word about developing emotional literacy or talking about hard things.

We all need practice

Lacking the tools, we don’t express our hearts, what we’re feeling, what is happening within us. And within our inner silence, we know there’s more. We can sense it, feel it, taste it. But it’s just outside our grasp. We may be afraid of what’s happening in that inner space and falsely believe no one would love us if they really knew. Knew the thoughts we had, or our true desires. We’d be too much, we wouldn’t be meeting their expectations, we’d disappoint them.

Maybe.

Step into your full self

But at the end of the day, I’m starting to believe it doesn’t matter. We must cultivate our own story, put words to our experiences, discover what lies within our silence and allow ourselves to be seen and heard. Without our cover story. Simply as we are. Because we’re allowed to act differently, think differently, express ourselves differently. And when we don’t? We may as well be Koa, trapped within herself, silent…not able to express that she’s afraid, scared, nervous, or whatever it is she might be feeling based on her life thus far.

We have a choice. To step out of our own silence and into the light where we let people see who we are. Unafraid. Heads held high. I see you and am with you my friend. Be brave.

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Lessons learned after a month of self-compassion

Within the so called ‘month of love,’ my wholehearted journey led me down a path I’d heard of, taken classes on, but avoided. Self-compassion, which is a type of self-love. Think of it like a hiking path that you see climbing the side of what appears to be a gentle, sloping hill. Around what feels like halfway up, you glance back to your progress, only to realize you’ve barely left the parking lot. And the hill gets steeper, pebbles and rocks threaten to trip you, sending you tumbling down, bruised in body and pride.

All that and more was the month of focusing on self-compassion. I’ve written about it in prior weeks, but as I near the end of the month, as you would with any project, I’m taking stock the distance traveled on the path. When you tune in and listen to your natural thought patterns about yourself, it can be astonishing. In a million years you would never utter the words to another human which you speak to yourself.

Why is that? Perhaps that no one hears it but us? It’s not an isolated problem. To the degree that you can find coffee cups and pictures with the phrase “talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love.” With certainly I can assure you Etsy could deliver you the object of your choice with the phrase, if you so desire. The negative chatter in our heads is incessant. I spent time getting curious about it this month and flipping the equation to look at what self-compassion would say. The negative talk? That’s generally perfectionism related and likely tied to comparison.

Ain’t nobody got time for that (or Ain’t nobody got thyme for that – if you’re follow my new kitchen towel – small pleasures friends).

Seriously, comparison is nobody’s friend. Self-compassion is kindness. Compassion and perfectionism tear us down. When we pay attention, we can catch ourselves in the act and switch to self-compassion. I did, all month, mostly consistently, and learned a few things.

Lesson 1

  • Listen to your body – The last few years, ok, more than the last few, but let’s not get distracted, specifically, the last few years, I’ve beat myself up because my body decided to drum up an autoimmune disorder. And sleep apnea – yes, I’m looking sexy in my CPAP each night. I’m now that person. Doctors can tell you only so much. What self-compassion told me is, “of course your tired, that’s part of the condition.” And when I offered self-compassion, my body whispered, “you can trust me.” That’s the element many of us miss. We can trust our own bodies. They know how to heal themselves and when they don’t? They let you know. And they also know when you’re throwing down buckets of negativity, and guess what, they don’t like it, and they get your attention. Self-compassion is being soft with yourself.

Lesson 2

  • Healing takes time – Physically and emotionally. Emotional wounds didn’t get there overnight and they’re not going away that quickly. My podiatrist told me the other day as I lamented about the continual discomfort in my foot… if you’d broken your foot, six weeks later you’d be healed. Soft tissue takes longer. And so do your emotions. Self-compassion is giving yourself space to heal. Knowing that your healing path may not look like someone else’s. Which is probably good because you don’t need to heal from their wounds.

Lesson 3

  • You can trust yourself – Perfectionism constantly looks for the ways you’re failing. A crack in the armor to seep in and crumble you. Self-compassion reminds you that there is no right or wrong way to approach your life. You can trust the path you’re on, and still, they’ll be mistakes. That’s normal. Everyone makes mistakes. Mistakes don’t mean you can’t trust yourself. You can. Mistakes mean you’re human.

Lesson 4

  • It’s ok to not have all the answers – Earlier in the month, I would have responded “are you sure?” Having answers for each possible contingency seems logical. Wise even. It allows you to reduce risk. But self-compassion reminds us that it’s ok not to have all the answers. The answers may come in giving yourself time and grace to discover it. It doesn’t make us weak, or less not to have answers. It’s another way we’re human.

Cumulatively, the lessons from self-compassion make me think about Brené Brown’s quote, “Strong back, soft front, wild heart.” She talks about it related to getting close up with people, being civil but speaking truth to BS, and holding hands with strangers. I’d extend these principles to yourself. Your self-compassion allows you to get up close, to speak truth to the lies you’ve told your heart and mind and hold hands with yourself – because we can be a stranger to ourselves.

Consider your own self-compassion journey this month. Perhaps you’ve followed along with mine, and if so, I hope you’ve been reflecting on what you’ve learned. We’ll shift next month, but we’re always on the journey together. Be brave my friends.

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Discovering my favorite things

Know what you desireAs much as I’d like to break into a rendition of “These are of few of my favorite things…” from The Sound of Music, that’s not what’s on my mind today – although – maybe it is now because that tune has now firmly taken up residence via my inner voice (insert face palm here). Instead, the idea of favorite things has been rolling around in my head since I went to a friend’s birthday party the other night.

The party centered around all her favorite things – from food, to music, a raffle around her favorites – and she must have listed about 100 – and people, those she wanted to spend time with. I discovered that some of her favorite things are mine as well. But I couldn’t help wondering if I could name my favorites, and that’s stuck with me since.

I come from a family steeped in tradition and one of the phrases I hear nearly every time we’re planning a dinner is, “We’ll have [insert food item here], everyone loves it.” Sometimes I think to myself, “I don’t love it,” but at the same time, I don’t dislike it either. I go with the flow. If asked, I probably couldn’t name what I’d want instead anyways.

And there’s the rub. The fact that I know I have a tough time naming what I truly like is unsettling to me. At the same time, having an understanding of how I’m wired gives me a leg up on the ‘why’ behind it. I’m an Enneagram 9, which is likely not news to you if you’ve read my blog for any length of time. And as a 9, go with the flow is my middle name. I want peace, no conflict, to have harmony. Declaring what I actually want is honestly a bit terrifying. What if others don’t like it, or agree? What if I rock the

boat? I’m far more inclined to tell you what I don’t like than what I do.

But when you go along to get along, it doesn’t always work out that well. You could find yourself being resentful without being sure why. Resentment coming from not expressing your own desires, wants needs. I’ve come to the conclusion that knowing what you want and expressing it is not selfish, as some might suggest. Instead, it’s part of being an individual. Knowing what you want, what makes you come alive, brings you delight, makes your heart swell with joy. It’s not the same as someone else’s joy, or passion, and that’s ok.

And simply knowing and expressing what you’re passionate about, your favorite things, doesn’t necessarily mean you are surrounded by those things at the exclusion of what others desire. Instead, you can weave together…find a blending and harmony in sharing your favorite things with others.

You may already know your favorite things, but if you’re like me, let’s work on figuring it out. As you go through your week, notice what sparks joy in you. What activities, objects, people, experiences, feelings make you happy? Where do you find delight? Is it shopping at Whole Foods market because you like the environment – for me, yes it is. Being in nature, the sunrise or sunset? Bodies of water? Helping other people? Shoes? Painted toenails? Painting in general? While these would start a list, it would not fill up the board my friend had at her party. The challenge for me, and anyone else looking to get in touch with themselves, is to notice, name it, and write it down. Expressing what you love might feel awkward, or foreign to you, but practice it. In time, we’ll get there and have a greater ability to express our bold selves. I’m with you on the journey.

 

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Becoming who you are

Let go of youI find personality tools to be fascinating. Ways to learn more about myself and other people from different perspectives. I recently took a workshop on the Enneagram. If you want to get straight to the heart of how you’re wired, dip your toe into this tool. I sat in a cramped room, snacking my way through a fire hose of information for four hours. Literally, an immense amount of information. Enough to scare away someone who hadn’t read about it ahead of time. Thankfully, I had.

In a nutshell, the Enneagram is a framework to give us tools to shed the masks we wear by discerning what is true and original from the false ways we’ve adapted so that our original essence can emerge. Strip off the masks and get back to the true self God made you to be.

What’s hard for some is seeing the ways they’ve adapted to survive the world around them. You must be willing to see that, even in an idyllic childhood, each of us had to cope with something. You may not have had a tragic childhood, or maybe you did, but you had unmet mental and emotional needs that resulted in the development of coping mechanisms. The coping mechanisms are what evolve into our adult personalities.

Over the last few years, I’ve spent endless hours reading, learning, to understand myself and my wiring. It’s not purely for the sport of it though. Nor is it to look back at childhood or earlier life experiences and criticize them or use them as an excuse. It’s simply to understand so that I can make informed, different decisions in my life. The Enneagram is one of the tools to do that. Where people make a mistake is believing it, or any other tool, is the end all be all. We are not one dimensional. God didn’t make us that way. He is not one dimensional and we’re made in his image. There’s more to each of us than meets the eye.

That said, the Enneagram explained what I already knew about myself. I desire harmony, to live in peace. Doesn’t everyone? It comes from a false belief that I’m only ok if everyone around me is ok. Consciously, I know that’s not true, but I also know I’ve constructed much of my life around that idea. My chosen career in human resources allows me to resolve conflict at work, keep the peace. I became a coach to help others resolve inner conflicts. I’ve done it in my life, I mediated my kid’s arguments because it was too stressful to have the tension. But I’ve also avoided conversations for the sake of keeping the peace.

There’s a quote I’ll butcher…”once you’ve seen, you cannot un-see…” that I believe reflects my thoughts about the Enneagram and other tools to understand people, me included. It put words to what I already knew about myself, consciously or unconsciously. I think this mid-life journey is about doing something with the wisdom and discernment I’ve gained with those tools. To ignore that knowledge and be asleep to my life isn’t who God made me to be.

And that life might be uncomfortable. It’s requires letting go of the coping mechanisms I’ve used in order to have true peace, harmony and love. To assert my own beliefs, needs and desires even when they might cause tension. Trusting that the peace I desire comes from God and there’s room for me to be myself in His vision of my life. It’s getting back to my authentic self, not someone different, simply the me that’s been in there the whole time. Is it a bold move? Maybe. But that’s the journey I’m on.