How we become strangers…To ourselves

Several years ago, I was struggling with a relationship. I remember someone asking me what I really wanted in this situation we had been trying to resolve for months. 

I actually didn't know. 

I honestly couldn't separate what I wanted from the "shoulds", the ideas I carried around what being a good partner entailed, or what HE needed or expected from me. Inside, all of it felt like one jumbled mess.   

If you’re anything like me, knowing what you truly need and want at times feels like hearing someone whisper in the middle of a tornado. It feels impossible. And on some level, it feels like the least important thing on my life’s priority list. 

Truth is we all struggle with knowing who we are, expressing our most authentic selves in a culture that constantly pulls us outside of ourselves with an exhausting pace of living and obsession with performance and outward measures of success. We are rewarded for tuning into what the boss needs, our jobs require, our roles as parents demand above all else. Somehow who we really are gets lost or at least very fuzzy in the process. 

Unless you were lucky enough to be blessed with superhuman unicorn caregivers (it’s truly amazing if you were!…), most of us have never really been shown how to BE ourselves fully, and really tune into ourselves. As a priority and foundation.

Why is it so difficult to really tune in?

Our deepest truths is often buried underneath a heap of sneaky “shoulds”, the musts, and the very real desire to be accepted by those we most love. We are hard-wired for connection and belonging. We want that love so bad it blinds us at times from who we truly are, without all that stuff. 

When we were infants, we wholly knew what we wanted, needed in every moment. We expressed that without holding back. We were clear, pure expression of our truth, of our needs in every moment. The world didn't always like what that was or how it was expressed. So we learned to soften the corners of our truth and real needs over time. To be more worthy of the attention and love of our caregivers. We learned there were conditions to this love and sense of really being safe and secure in the world, as we were, without significantly carving off important parts of our true self. 

What happens as we begin to tune in more and more to our truths, our preferences and our needs, we can be met by a lot of our own mental and emotional resistance. Our ego convinces us it's the worst idea in the world. That we may be rejected and abandoned if we do!  Learning to see through the lies and illusions of the mind is part of our path of being truly human. Our fears feel REAL. They live in the memories, the very cells of our body. To connect to and to live from our deepest truth takes Courage. 

Trusting another way 

What if today you gave yourself permission to just BE? 

-All of YOU... 

-The difficult and the delightful, the brightness and the parts you have learned to hide

-Tuning in and acting on YOUR truth...expressing honest opinions, preferences and needs...

-The most authentic and real version of you? 

PAUSE for a moment, and check in with your body. How does reading the above feel inside your body, your stomach, at a gut level? Many of us can actually feel something. Pay attention to the squeeze, the nausea, the restriction or emotion inside. It is wanting to tell you something. It has a message for you. 

Not from your head but from your deepest essence, your heart.

I recently expressed something to my sister. I was afraid of hurting her. Despite knowing I needed to be honest and straightforward with her, I felt the pull to just ignore my truth, and revert back to old habits of interacting (where I wouldn't really say what I needed but acted on "shoulds" and from a place of avoiding hurting her). I knew our relationship would be based in more authenticity and love if I said my piece honestly. Regardless of what her reaction might be. I showed up in my realness. 

The result? 

• Once it was all done, I felt a wave of relief. I felt free, like a space opened up inside where my soul was rejoicing. I felt at peace as I sat there with all parts of myself. None of them abandoned anymore. All embraced. 

• The bonus was that the conversation felt real. She thanked me for my honesty and we made plans for my vacation based on two people honestly showing up truthfully rather than hiding the inconvenient parts of ourselves. It changed the quality of the time we spent together, and has brought me closer to her.

Our reason for being here

It is my moment to moment practice of remembering who I really AM. This experience of authentic expression springing and gaining momentum from my inner trampoline made of love and self-worth. Simply delicious! 

Be yourself. Fully. We will all benefit from it. 

With love and compassion,

Char

#embraceandloveitall #permissiontobe #soulfire

#truth #healing #yourpurpose #innerfreedom #soulcoach #heartwhispers