One thing our culture tells us all to do is speed up; achieve, grasp higher, be louder, produce more.
It is challenging to be continually searching for better.
I’ve said this before, self-improvement isn’t conducive to fulfilment. It is continually reinforcing that you are not enough.
Shame.
That is a shaming tactic.
The process of development needs to come from unfolding all that you already are.
If you learn something what is it that you do?
You go out and look for knowledge that you don’t know, and you need to know. You seek a teacher, mentor, or guide who has that knowledge and is willing to share it with you in exchange for a gift; money, or a healthy reciprocation of emotion, support, or physical resource.
In this process you uncover the sense of yourself that can embody the new knowledge. You change in energy.
You might hold yourself differently; learning might help you unlock some more confidence, or elegance in your stance. The added social standing that you receive might make you feel assured, confident, progressive.
Do you see that it’s not the information that makes you these things, it’s how you interpret it; embody it.
The last six months have been a time of great uncovering and turning for me, I’ve grown in energy, spirit, and I’ve physically changed my circumstances. The music industry disappeared so I had to pivot and change my job; now the UK government has officially told all musicians and artists to retrain, they’re pushing jobs in ‘cyber’, whatever that means.
When the job first disappeared it was like having a bit of breathing room; I’d been seeking to have the space to heal without the guilt that came from thinking that I should be working.
I started writing on Medium because I felt called to share what I’d been learning. I don’t make any money on here for the time being.
Then, as it evolved, I began to become obsessed with the stats and figures, and I’d check my partner program for the projected income. Partly this was from a change in my circumstances, an end to government financial support, and partly it came from my need to be validated.
It’s a very human thing to want to be validated by circumstances.
I have this trait that I use called ‘the dummy’; If you’d like to know more about that then you can read ‘King, Warrior, Magician, Lover’.
The dummy is a boy psychology that exists before initiation into a mature manhood. One of the most significant aspects of this is grandiosity. I was wanting to be famous and well loved.
Three weeks ago, I couldn’t define it in words, but I felt it, it was a familiar feeling. Sitting heavy on my chest, and making my gut unsteady. Whenever this trait comes back up in me, I know it’s time to slow down, and take time to process something.
This time it was a profound occasion.
My body was preparing something, I didn’t understand it. I slumped into depression, an old and familiar depression.
I felt forced to slow down, and process that emotion moving through my body. There was old griefs, sadnesses, angers, joys, excitements, desires.
All rose in me to be seen and processed.
I’ve been waking up late the last few weeks, struggling to get out of bed with the charges of these old memories. As a super-achiever, I lived my life at a thousand miles an hour and I celebrated that, the culture too. My family were proud of me for that.
I didn’t have any time to feel, or integrate, what I was experiencing.
You could put this on the trauma that I experienced, I didn’t have the space or capacity to feel emotion. I think one cycles the other.
I was beginning to understand the energy of the depression in my body, and it was starting to loosen on me, then I had a family grievance. My grandma passed, it was sudden, and I had space in my life experience both to support my mother through this, and to grieve my own experience of life with her.
I believe in synergy, and I follow Taoism closely now. I see the energetics of this time in my actions.
Sometimes you have moments of introspection in which all the puzzle pieces click together and you can see what transpired over time. Things you couldn’t understand, that you had to flow with in the moment, they make sense.
I believe I slowed down to process this emotion so that I could be fully present with my family in this time. I believe that to do that I needed to take a couple of weeks to feel the depression I’d experienced in the past. Start to know what that was trying to teach me intimately.
I’ve remembered so much in this time. Re-member is an interesting word to describe an embodiment experience, we also use the word member as a part of our body, I see that you recall energetic states back into your being; into your body. You re-member yourself.
Before this slowing down, my mind was frantic and tense; it was searching for a solution in the same processes of doing, doing, doing.
I feel like I found the soul-ution in surrendering, embracing, and accepting that my body was trying to communicate with me.
Counterintuitive to mindset, there’s confusion and disconnection in the mind when we move towards forgiveness, surrender, embrace of complicated and uncomfortable situations.
If you trust in the higher workings of the universe, you can easily navigate this, because some emotional and bodily sensations can help you to know when those bigger wheels are turning.
The curious thing about being a human being, is that it helps for you to believe that you’re part of something bigger. Most of the time, this helps to release extreme control in situations, and an unhealthy relationship with radical identity as well.
Our culture tells us to achieve, achieve, achieve.
What if the best, and easiest, way to achieving was through letting go?
Allowing your essence to come through, and prepare you for a situation that your mind does not yet understand.
I prepared myself for a significant grievance, my grandma’s passing was sudden, even though she was 94. It was powerful, the grief moved through me in waves.
I have so much gratitude for slowing down, because it allowed me to feel the grief. My body didn’t go into shock, or freeze mode, like it previously did around big emotional situations. I was able to connect with my family in this time; it helped us to navigate the passing of a beloved member of our family. It also enabled us to connect more profoundly than we’ve ever previously related.
As a trauma survivor this is a big thing to say. Previously, I wasn’t able to connect in this way.
I hear so many people that work so hard, and then are so desperate that change isn’t coming in the way that they need.
I would like you to consider the ways that you could give yourself space; time just for yourself, self-care necessities, breaks in routine to recharge.
Integration is essential in the growth journey.
This is essential for your wellbeing; your fulfilment, and being able to continually working towards your mission, purpose, and long term goals in your life.
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Previously Published on Medium
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