If You Came Here to Experience Utopia, You Chose the Wrong Planet...
Riding the highs and lows...
Today’s article title was brought to you by a friend of mine who said this in relation to people on earth. OMG, I thought, it’s true. Nothing is ever going to be perfect. We are inevitably always working through SOME THING. We discover what we don’t want in our lives by experiencing it first-hand. Perhaps the best we can ever do is home in on the quality of our experience of life by eliminating that which doesn’t feel good and moving toward that which does. But for sure, if we don’t eliminate, there will be no space for something better to show up in its place. If you ever feel stuck then denial is likely the root cause.
I had a day last week when I felt like I plummeted to ground zero.
I wouldn’t call it rock bottom. It was far more neutral than that. I was neither resigned or inspired about life.
But it was bleak. I didn’t feel hopeless, just empty. Blank. I had no idea what I wanted. Nor did I know how to change it. Nothing was either bad or good. For a while, I felt like things could definitely get worse and tried not to give it any thought. But now I noticed I had increasing doubt that if I continued in the manner I had been, they would also never get better. How could they? I had made it a point to not strategize things into existence, but wishful thinking wasn’t earning me any interest in my bank account.
I was so happy when the day ended, and it was time for bed. I would have loved to just sleep and ignore it, but of course I ended up with a rare bout of insomnia, which resulted in me dwelling on the nothingness for hours with what seemed like no end in sight.
I suspect my neutral day was catapulted by what I read last week in the Self Healers Circle (TheHolisticPsychologist.com) about one of the signs that you need to reparent yourself if you have a lack of understanding of your own needs, wants, desires and passions. Is my sense of worth so low that without being fueled by someone else to focus on as “my project” that I wasn’t even capable of functioning on the most basic of levels of providing myself with a good life? I think so. Absolutely my relationships with men have been fueled by me being an over doing partner on a quest for “us” to have the best lives possible, often over-compensating for their lack of drive to do it without my pushing for it.
It's been hella eye opening this week to realize the life I can give myself now that I realize I am both worthy and capable of doing so.
What do I even want? I had some big ideas, as shared here before, but how am I actually going to get from this place, far over to that place? To be honest, it is probably never going to happen if do nothing but “wishful think”. Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “hope is a beggar”. Please let this happen for me and the women who would benefit from that which I envision… or some version of whatever is in the highest good for the highest number… pretty please, sugar on top.
Is my dream to have a community where I can endlessly “hold space” for others, merely some fractured co-dependent thinking that I have to give all of myself away in some capacity or another in order to be worthy “enough” for love? That somehow I hope to get taken care of in exchange for doing so? Is this another version of martyrdom thinking that someone will see what I’ve done and reward me? When instead I could lay down the cross and put my own oxygen mask on first? I’m pretty sure I need to do so first if nothing else for the experience of the first time ever of knowing “I got me”. Reparenting the vulnerable little me in a manner I fiercely parented on behalf of my daughters.
It's not that I don’t want to assist others, but in case that never works out, shouldn’t I at least make sure I’m good first and expand from there? It’s not that anyone was asking me to take care of them either, but yet it’s just what I did… and I think it comes from long time wiring of having to “earn my keep”… “prove my worth”… “be” a certain “low maintenance” way or do, do, do, in order to be loved (and codependently taken care of or at least not abandoned).
It hit me on my low, that it was similar to the fairy tale thinking that had me believe in prince charming and happily ever after involving a white picket fence, albeit a more altruistic version in which somehow the resources would just miraculously show up to create a community because it is a “more worthy” spiritual quest of sorts.
I have a dear friend who is similarly financially unstable with big “spiritual” ideas, but 40 years ago she had a dream that some wealthy benefactor who would also be her divine counterpart would come into the picture and want to fund the ideas she has to create a healing center. She spends a lot of time holding space for that, and refusing to do any work that might get in the way of her finding him and bringing the vision into reality, but meantime, she barely has enough money to live. I love the idea of this possibility coming into fruition, but also finding lately that I am less likely to err on what the consequences will be if it never happens. Put your own oxygen mask on first… not to be at risk of being tainted by financial neediness… and then if he shows up… halleluiah… but if he doesn’t… you have a place to live that isn’t subject to the whims (or greed) of others.
On my bleak day I wondered how much longer I want to put my trust wholeheartedly into magical thinking albeit under the guise of “spirituality”. There has to be a happy medium. A balance. A place where I’m both financially stable AND able to empower my own and encourage others’ healing and thriving and a way of life where all souls have access to at least what I feel are the basic necessities.
The next day I felt significantly better. Something had absolutely shifted inside of me. I had this huge realization that I have never 100% full on taken care of me, myself and I. And not only that, but I had pretty much kept myself in a position of being insecure. As though I was used to feeling anxious about being insecure that anytime I felt the feeling of security, I did something (subconsciously) to erode it and get back to the homeostasis of feeling insecure. Self-sabotage and never living up to one’s full potential are trauma responses. It takes consciously exploring our patterns (which means stepping way back to even be able to see them) and then interrupting them in order to create new neuropathways and let the old ones die off from inactivity.
My brain was wired for and by insecurity… but I didn’t realize I had grown to be so comfortable there that I didn’t know how to move beyond it… or operate any other way… no more than I was similarly wired to feel bad in my relationships with men (having grown up amidst the bad emotional dynamics in my parents relationship) that subpar relationships felt like home. It wasn’t that I was happy there as much as it was that I chalked it up to the way relationships are supposed to feel.
But even being able to recognize that a constant feeling of anxiety is not something to be tolerated, but rather something to be explored and moved past. To believe it doesn’t have to be that way is almost impossible to imagine for some people. That it is not only possible to feel safe and secure, but even imperative.
I felt like I had to either choose this world or that. Either find myself knee deep in capitalism, jumping through all the hoops to have this, in order to do that, and someday, one day, I’d be financially “set”. But somewhere along the line I realized I was living for the future that “today” was never good enough and I felt so empty despite all I had acquired.
So then, I wanted to scrap it all and live for the moment. Be present and trust that I would somehow be able to do what needed to be done and have what I needed to have, and to be honest, somehow things did always seem to work out. Today was almost always good enough, but I did have underlying anxiety about tomorrow. Would today continue to take care of itself into the future?
Was it possible to have both today and tomorrow rather than the consequences of the imbalance of leaning more toward one or the other?
Why did it seem that it could only be either or? Is there a version where I could experience both? Somewhere in the middle? A melding of physical and spiritual well being?
Upon waking up from the day in neutral, I realized not having balance was just another version of either deflated or inflated.
Dense and relentlessly strategizing or ungrounded magical thinking. Two extremes, neither of which fully allow me to get clear downloads from my soul. Leaning into either direction is not being in balance… and only when in balance am I able to be fully upright.
In the past, when I’ve worked too much, I’ve found I didn’t have the energy to consciously relax or replenish. I tend to be a workaholic (or at least with too many projects on my plate in addition to working) because “doing” kept me from feeling my emotions.
When I’m too attached to “la la” mode, which basically means doing whatever I want, whenever I want, avoiding anything that might obligate me to something… then I’m more apt to be financially unstable which creates a large underlying anxiety. Either has been a viscous circle.
But just like I don’t want to be co-dependent on another person, which is inevitable until I can truly trust myself not to be needy for the financial support of any specific person I may be in any sort of relationship with, I also don’t want to be flying by the seat of my pants waiting for the wrong thing to happen that could take me under.
I know this is article is particularly all over the place. However, I’m in the midst of contemplating some new stuff bubbling up from deep in my subconscious, and I still haven’t quite wrapped my mind around it. Thanks for bearing with me!
I want to leave you with these words I copied from a Facebook post by a relationship coach I follow named Igor Vasilevitsky. He posts a myriad of great insights:
Holding space is a particular altered state of consciousness where we leave our baggage, our emotions, our wounds, our thoughts out of relationship and offer our presence, our witnessing and compassion and our empathy to the other instead.
This is not a regular mode of being.
It is rather reserved for moments of healing; of being in spiritual service to others.
This is not a normal state to maintain and perpetuate within a human partnership.
Those that are spiritually gifted will sometimes struggle with the amount of space holding they find themselves offering in romantic relationships.
The truth is, often the compulsive need to hold space is the result of a wound that shut emotions and feelings and needs of self out of interactions with others.
It’s the spiritual version of people pleasing.
It says “I will keep our connection free of my stuff so that you don’t feel burdened by it and if I throw in some incredibly potent energetic spaciousness for your soul to heal and unravel and unfold in… well now I’ve really given them (originally dad or mum) what they wanted and they will never abandon nor neglect me if I just maintain this”.
My interpretation of Igor’s words is that IF you tend to be an anxious attacher (in that you either pull people toward you or oppositely avoid having to give anyone anything at all) then we need to either live alone (or have some outlet of solitude) while we heal to avoid losing ourselves by reacting to what we think others expect from us. We don’t really know how to share space, but instead we can be susceptible to suppressing our own needs in order to be palpable to others lest they reject us (i.e. hold space for their needs perceived or otherwise) If our brains are wired to be addicted to the hormones produced when feeling at risk of abandonment… we can’t be anything other than inauthentic in order to feel appropriately connected. It’s not a choice.
According to Igor, peoples’ fears around “projection” must be met and unveiled as human insecurities around having permission to occupy and to claim energetic space within connection. They find their way into the realization that filling up connection with our humanity, that thing we have gaslit ourselves with as ‘projection’ when done consciously, is necessary for relating. We have to learn to share space, rather than scrubbing it clean of our human baggage by perpetually holding space for others.
A friend of mine recently posted a long post, but I extracted/slightly altered one line of it that really spoke to me:
BE VIGILANT WITH YOUR GROWTH AND PROTECTIVE OF THE SPACE YOU GROW IN.
Seriously. Protect your environment. Hold space for yourself… a sacred womb from where to rebirth yourself. You are a growing a new healthy you. Do whatever it takes. It may be best for you to decrease your responsibilities…financially or otherwise. Moving in with someone who can contribute to the expenses or checking out of the American spin cycle and moving to the amazon jungle to study with a tribe of Shamans. Or maybe it’s time to get a job… a better job than you’ve ever had… for me it’s this latter, but also realizing just how much I bring to the table and making sure I’m compensated accordingly.
As always, I do apologize for any typographical or grammatical errors I may have missed. Additionally, in the essence of time this week, I will not be recording this week’s article. I would love your feedback as to if you like the option of listening over reading. I think it’s ideal to have both as options, but hope to master getting my writing done earlier in the day so I’m not struggling to keep my eyes open by the time I’m finished.
I’m happy to be in my old stomping grounds of Durango to spend time with my younger daughter for her 20thbirthday this week. We are meeting at 8 a.m. to go to the hot springs with our respective besties, so I must get off to dreamland now
Thank you so much for being here!!
I realized I hadn’t listened to this yet! I love that you’re doing the audio! Thank you for that lol I also love the sacred space synchronicity!
I love the audio! And I read along too!