11.11.2020
There has been a lot of shit happening in the world, in our communities and our homes. But hasn't there always been? Life has never been the straight arrow; there have been many jagged lines, side roads and air balloon rides from the beginning of recorded history and in our own lives from birth. So why does everything feel so different this year? So much more magnified? I think it's because we are all feeling a shift somewhere in our lives and it creates a powerful energetic tension that we can all feel but cannot explain.
I have had significant change in my lifestyle since January 2019. I was shifting my long time career from a toxic corporate environment to self employed, recovering from another major surgery while experiencing severe burnout, as well as learning how to balance self care with the care for my family of five. Change takes me some time to get use to - so by March 2020 when COVID became a threat, I wasn't really ready for more adjusting! Universe be like, ready or not.
The first two weeks of the global pandemic shook me. I felt fear. A lot of fear. I was glued to my phone and became an online activist overstating my perspectives from a place of that fear, oversharing media and not checking my resources & I tried to put my family on lockdown. I felt my ungrounded fire when I was challenged and it threw me for loop. It was quite a feeling - trapped in the fear so tightly that I couldn't relax or see I had some work to do. I am no stranger to inner work but even with the tools, I still get blind from fear. This is part of self care for me. Not the bubble bath, massage or take yourself out to dinner kind of self care but the next level self care of doing the inner work to face the fears and reclaim my freedom.
The Work
It is okay to be feel afraid but it's not okay to use that fear to manipulate or project it on to others in hopes they will see "my truth". That's what I caught myself doing when I felt threatened by the virus in March. I tried to set boundaries, spoke my fears out loud and felt conviction in it but I still felt afraid. I tried to control things on the outside to make me less afraid but that didn't help either. I demanded my husband see my point of view and "trust my intuition" because my body was telling me something was very wrong and that we needed to protect ourselves. I felt desperation, confusion and sadness but I knew they were coming from this place of fear. After two weeks of spinning and dizzy from overthinking, I finally sat down with my pen and journal and wrote it all down. I dedicated one page to each repetitive thought I was having and let it all out. I uncaged the swirls of fear based thoughts to paper and what a huge difference it made. I felt my body physically release tension. I cleared space to allow new thoughts, some more helpful then those released. And, when I read my words on the paper, I was able to make some really profound connections.
When I write, I find that I zone out and channel writing. Jotting my thoughts on paper can sometimes lead to some powerful prompts. The prompt I channeled that helped me the most was "what is your first memory of fear and who/what made you feel safe?" Bam. Instant clairty. The story that revealed itself was when I was about 11 or 12 years old and my family and I were camping in our RV in the Annapolis Royal area. Camping was a regular event for our family and we had visited this campground many times. One night we were sleeping and there was a man outside making a fuss. He had been around earlier, drinking heavily and now he was banging aggressively on our camper. I was tucked safely up on the bunk above the driver's seat and closed the curtains to hide myself more. I could hear my dad mumbling something to my mom from their bed at the opposite end of the RV. The man got increasingly more vocal and threatening. I heard my dad getting dressed and then approaching the door. I was so afraid of what might happen when he opened the door but also felt relief in knowing it might stop soon. When my father opened the door, I don't remember everything but I do remember he offered the guy a smoke and a blanket so we could all get some sleep and then he shut the door. Things were quiet long enough to find peace in thinking that was the end of it. Turns out it was probably just the end of smoking his cigarette and he wasn't done shaking our camper with his words and his fists. Our camping friends in the lot nearby, who were in a tent, packed up and left. I can't quite remember what the man was saying or why he was so persistent on targeting our camper but I do remember my dad staying up all night waiting this guy out as I laid there frozen in fear. I think dad knew that he was so drunk he would eventually pass out and when he did just that at the break of dawn, my dad locked us in and snuck out the driver's door of the camper and went to the office to report him. He was removed. The end of that memory.
As I sat there with this memory, I thought about why that might be coming up so clearly now, as I am working through fear and seeking that sense of safety. I was particularly triggered with the men in my life not taking my fears seriously enough in the current situation. I had a major aha moment when I realized that I was currently seeking my sense of safety from outside of myself, through my husband and other masculine energies. Well shit. I started to reflect on other experiences where I have felt afraid or insecure and wouldn't you know it...I noticed a pattern of seeking safety from outside myself, and mostly from the masculine energies in my life. Yes, of course our dads should protect us as children but if we only ever learn we need to be saved, it denies us opportunities to learn to save ourselves.
So what does this mean and how is that useful now?
Body
At the time of that trauma, my body responded as most do with flight, fight or freeze mode. I had no choice then but to freeze in my little room above the doors hoping that my father would protect me and just as terrified for his well-being. Bodies remember. I stored this information in my cellular memory under F for fears and also stored the memory of what makes fear subside. Each subsequent experience that held any sense of unsafety provoked communication between my body memory and my brain. My body sent the message to my brain that we were afraid and then together we seek safety from a known source of safety, the masculine. Each experience strengthening the pattern. Eventually this creates an automatic response that makes it hard to identify and overcome. Our body will never lie to us but we can misinterpret it's messages.
Mind
If we can't see the pattern, does it actually exist? Sadly yes and more sadly in my case it is damaging not to do the work to free myself from this false sense of safety. It's not just damaging to me but to all of my relationships, especially masculine relationships. The power of the body mind relationship is limitless. It does things on our behalf to keep us comfortable. The body sends alerts and the mind applies a story, sending us messages in forms of thoughts, words, images, colors, etc. What I have noticed is that the body tells my brain whats up and then my brain takes over based on the survival plan it designed for me. Isn't that thoughtful? Sure, but how does it know what I need RIGHT NOW to survive? It doesn't. It knows that when my body feels fear it can expect the man in my life to provide me with a sense of safety. Those poor men! I can see how this has probably been an issue in my relationships. When I feel unsafe and the man I am seeking safety from is not meeting this expectation I've placed on the masculine, it causes a feeling of rejection and confusion. Now, of course, I see it also creates opportunities to find safety from within myself and that's exactly what happened when my husband couldn't meet me where I was at in my initial fear of the COVID virus. In my journalling one of the questions was related directly to why it bothered me so much that my husband wasn't willing to go the extra mile to make me feel safe and, it's because he's not my dad peeps. Shit. Who is gonna save me now?
Spirit
Me! I gotta learn how to save me! That sounds like too much work. Picture here a toddler throwing a tantrum. That is how my ego responds to Soul work. Just let me hold crystals and bathe in sage, okay?! Acknowledging that I have MORE inner work to do is bullshit compared to just forcing my husband to build an underground bunker and protect me forever and always. Make me feel safe! Make me feel safe! Damn it!
Sooo turns out, the only authentic sense of safety comes from inside our own selves. Doing the work does not mean we do not ever again feel sensations of fear, but it does mean we have the ability to shift to a healthier relationship with ourselves and others. Safety is a big one for many of us and definitely worth taking a look at, especially in these uncertain times. When I worked through the fear, it was easy to see how I was projecting my fear, setting expectations for others and letting my old patterns of survival take the lead. I knew that it was time for soul/inner work when there was more resistance than flow. When I feel strong resistance to something, its my indicator I need to take a breather and look at the situation objectively - a little nudge from my higher self. I always ask myself, what am I trying to control? These little awarenesses have the potential of shifting our perspective, expanding our hearts and healing unhealthy patterns. When I can step back and witness my situation objectively, without judgment, I can usually recognize its time to let go & grow. Fear can serve us by keeping us alert in dangerous situations, and it can also serve us as a tool to learn about ourselves on a deeper levels, transforming fear to freedom.
I am slowly rebuilding a relationship with myself where I can find a sense of safety by going within and using self guided tools instead of repeating those old patterns of depending on others to make me feel safe. With a second wave of COVID happening all around us, now is an important time to remind my body it is safe, to remind my mind not to jump too far ahead and to listen to the whispers of my spirit cheer me on.
M,
xo