by Lucy, Sydney
Four weeks after Sydney Esoteric Developers Women’s Group (EDWG) 3rd February 2013 and Our Cycles –Period and Full moon App Presentation
We had an Esoteric Developers Women’s group in Sydney recently where we were discussing the possibility that the pressure we felt to fit in at school was still with us even though we left school many years ago. It was a ‘tumbleweed’ moment and then a dawning realisation that there were many areas of our lives where we were still trying to fit in – around the school community, in the office, with our friends, with our families.
I found myself sitting with, what we decided, was a group of ‘rebels’. As we shared our stories of life with each other we found we had each rebelled against what we perceived to be society’s and our family’s expectations on us in one way or another. We had rejected what we were told life should be, only to make up our own picture of what life should be and then create ourselves into a group of rebels searching out other rebels!
I felt a bit silly for wasting so much energy trying to not fit in, when clearly I was so keen to do just that, so after the group meeting I chose to put myself on a program of getting to know myself and what I liked to do and perhaps as a by-product, see what effect not really being myself had on my body and in my relationships with others. Also at the presentation was an introduction to a new app… the ‘Our Cycles –Period and Full Moon Diary’. I decided to use it to document my experiences, what happened, what I felt, and how I felt.
Although I had spent a long time doing things my own way and in my own time, I still had a major need to be liked by everyone, to avoid confrontation at any cost and to be the resolution centre for any issues that went on around me. On day one of my new program I felt quite lost when confronted with my first potentially explosive situation. I was having a conversation with someone who knows me really well yet who was telling me they were really worried about me, whereas I was feeling better than I had felt in a long time. What to do? Here was the potential to disagree with an important person in my life and someone whose approval I was keen to keep. I hadn’t really thought there was much wrong with this relationship as I thought I had become quite honest with this person in recent years; I also thought that I didn’t have an issue of ‘wanting to be liked’ or accepted any more. I found I didn’t say all I wanted to say, I simply said I would look at what they were saying and come back to them.
Everything in my head wanted to argue with them, run away, get busy, sweep it under the carpet. Instead I decided to take a moment once they had gone, and lie down. It didn’t take long to feel a huge amount of anxiousness in my body. My heart was pounding and I felt nervous and uncomfortable. I wanted to eat, to get up and do something, anything other than lie here and feel this raciness. I was logical enough to be able to stop and remind myself that although I may be tired, I was not worried and anxious, so why did my body feel like this? Having put myself on this program I was able to go back and check how I had been feeling and then see when this feeling came in – I managed to see the link to the conversation I had just had quite quickly. This wasn’t my worry! Which begged the next question… if that isn’t my worry then why was it in my body?
I could feel that I had taken on this worry as a truth about me just because someone I cared about had said it to me and because I hadn’t wanted to stand up for myself. I had taken it on as a truth or part truth to the point that here I now was living with it in my body. What I found most interesting is that my body knew it wasn’t true; I was tired, not ill or self abusive, and my body was trying to tell me – “this is not your worry”. I had stepped back to look at it but it was like I had left the worry in my body – I had vacated it to make enough space for the worry to move in. I was so surprised. I could feel this really clearly in my body, so I made a choice to step back in and kick it out!
This was my space, my body, my life to get right, wrong or any other version I choose.
That did not mean I discounted their worry: I appreciated the concern this other person had for me but now I was choosing to leave it in front of me rather than in me, to consider as a ‘truth’. The difference in my body was huge. We spoke the next day. During the call I noticed the anxiousness was gone and I was able to agree with parts of the concern and clearly explain to the other person which parts were not mine, but theirs. The conversation was totally different and so beautifully honest. I could see how and why they had thought I was drifting away and I could also see that it was partly due to my only giving them part answers to their questions. I always gauged what I thought they would react to the least, what would keep the conversation light and fluffy. Now I gave them the whole lot and I didn’t get a reaction, I didn’t get a drama, I got understanding and we all moved on! The gift I gave myself was to be honest with myself first… the rest was simple.
My body now felt like it had a hangover so I asked myself what would support it; I really felt like having a bath. I don’t have them very often but I knew that was what I wanted. This was a special moment, a moment to celebrate learning something about myself and I wanted to make the confirmation and healing of that equally strong in my body so I would remember the feeling. I lit a candle, put some oil in my bath, did a facial and lay in the bath with a moisturising mask on my face. I felt so much in my body, like all my nerve endings were coming alive but it was on the inside, not the outside. It was slightly freaky and there was a little part of me that wanted to go into the practicalities of cleaning myself or getting out and making dinner, or resenting the person for imposing their version of life on me, but I saw that pattern of going into a busy-ness and blaming others for how I was feeling and stayed watching it like a movie till it gave up and went away and I was left to enjoy my delicious self in the bath. The water felt soft, my skin felt smooth, my body felt tender. I wondered how I could possibly feel anxious or overcome by worries or insecurities when I was this tender. I felt delicate but strong. No ra-ra, just a simple fact – I am tender and I am strong and nothing before me is more than I can handle if I remember to listen to what people say but not give it more value than what I know to be true about myself. I dried myself with the same focus and snuggled with the children and my husband before taking myself off to bed a little early.
I wrote about it in the nurturing journal of the Our Cycles-Period and Full Moon App. It happened to be my first entry in the nurturing section as I had only just downloaded it. It was not what I thought would be called nurturing – the bath yes, but the honesty was equally nurturing. I smiled knowing I had given myself a great big hug and kiss.
My period started the next day – it felt like a new beginning. I knew I had done something pretty cool… I had learnt what it felt like to let someone else’s worry live in my body whilst I doubted myself. Feeling it in my body was a great lesson and one I was unlikely to repeat quickly!
The breaking down of the old way of being has continued through the month long program: I have had head colds, felt very tired and had plenty of opportunities to repeat the old routine. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, but each time I stop and have a look.
My relationships are becoming far more honest. In wanting to do it all ‘my way’ and in trying so hard to not join in with what I didn’t feel was true, telling people only bits of what I think they want to know, I seem to have created another version, which is equally ‘not true’, and I lived that. Those closest to me can feel that ‘not real me’, hence all the concern for me. My program continues and I am constantly on the phone or on Skype with my family and friends but now it is fun, not defending but celebrating each other and laughing at the insane games we have all been playing.
I was the only one consciously choosing to be on my ‘getting to know me’ program, but we have all had the most amazing healing.