I made a huge discovery last week. I discovered what aspect of my personality was lurking behind my Thinker. As is usually the way, it wasn’t someone telling me what it was, but an “ah ha” moment brought on by a series of events that brought me to my proverbial knees.
For the last 6 months I have been working with my colleague Heather to try and bring about my vision of truly integrating the mind and body. I have been following the trail of intuitive breadcrumbs; meeting and working with other therapists, teasing out a method, building affiliations, blogging, getting a booth at the Natural Living Expo and at the Lincoln-Sudbury High School Wellness Day. Most of these things were quite challenging to me.
However, while all this was going on, I have also been dealing with a very challenging home life. I live with my significant other, and as of this summer, both of his boys, aged 19 and 21. It’s not a big house and it only has 1 bathroom. Not an impossible situation, but everyone needs to do their part so that everyone can get to work on time and the house doesn’t turn into a hovel. Unfortunately, that has not been the case for most of the summer into the Fall, with Steve and I basically being the cook, the maid and the chauffeur.
So, what do you get when you add the frustration of growing a business, the anxiety of manifesting a vision, the fear of financial disaster, exhaustion from spreading yourself too thin, and anger and resentment from carrying more than what you feel is your share of the load at home? In my case, it was a full blown tantrum, complete with throwing things around.
It was not my proudest moment.
But what tipped it off? You could argue that all of that was enough to send anyone over the edge. And yes, I could certainly feel the tension building, but it didn’t have anything to do with what was going on outside of me. This was a seething cauldron that was kept out of sight and mind until the pressure to keep the lid on got to be too much, and exploded. And it was me keeping the lid on. What about myself did I not want to see?
What tipped it off was a conversation I had the morning of the Tantrum. I was talking with my nutrition counsellor, Paulina, after one of the group meetings about spirituality being one of the primary foods of life. This moved on into talking about faith and surrender and how I have a REALLY hard time with that because, “I don’t like to lose. I want to win.” Those exact words. They just popped out from the depths of some abyss that I had relegated them to. It wasn’t the Thinker saying those words. It was the badass of the profiles that I learned at the Energy Medicine School: the Enforcer/Charismatic Leader, and it wasn’t small!
I was so shocked and appalled (a beautiful bit of judgement there) from that spontaneous visit from my lower self, that I decided to pretend it never happened. I’m a Thinker. It’s not about winning for me, it’s about bringing ideas and inspiration into the world. (Visions of wide rivers with pyramids and bridges in New York seem to be pouring in from somewhere...) That may be true, but that isn’t all of it.
Well, apparently, once you let that particular cat out of the bag, it won’t go back in, hence the tantrum.
It wasn’t until the next day that I had the “ah ha” moment though. There I was, in the shower, and a little thought pops in. “Trust, faith and surrender are the same thing.” (Thank you Guides!) And in that moment, as they say, I had a thousand moments. I saw in a thousand ways, thoughts and actions, over the course of my life how I didn’t trust, or if I couldn’t win I wasn’t playing, the competitiveness, the stubborn will, the “my way or the highway” attitude.
But most importantly, I saw that I knew it all along, but either ignored it or rationalized it away. But I never owned it. That’s a lot of me not to own. That’s a lot of power not to own.
So there I was, not 3 days before the Natural Living Expo, the biggest event of my professional career to date, and I find a large part of me that’s hanging out in the open, raw and bleeding. Just what I needed.
The good news is, I have lots of Enforcer/Charismatic Leader friends to help me. I called one of them, (another Heather) and when she stopped laughing, she had a great insight. Basically that just before the Expo, a time that I need to be that Charismatic Leader pioneering a new vision into the world, I’m shown that I have one. I have what it takes. She also helped me see the gifts that are the other aspect of that characteristic. She helped me see the strength, determination, fearlessness, integrity and nobility that doesn’t demand followers, but inspires those to follow. My Thinker, as much as I love her, can’t do that.
So I want to say a big “Thank You” to the universe for giving me the opportunity to see and appreciate a part of me that scared the crap out of me, in a timely way with all the support of my Guides and friends. It may have looked ugly at the time time, but that's what it took to get me wake up. Just what I needed. Maybe this will help me find the trust that I need to surrender.
Maybe!
