Gwynn Raimondi, MA

Secular Blessing for Becoming Unleashed 2018

By

The work of a lifetime, the process of individuation, is widening of that spotlight so much that everything is illuminated and you are conscious of and can see your All.

~Sera J. Beak, The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting Your Divine Spark

May we…

Unravel our stories of not enough, seeing in them the lies we have been told that have nothing to do with us.

Revolt against the idea that comfort at any and all costs is necessary for our survival

Dismantle the shame we carry in our bones and being

Embrace our beauty, our power, our voice

Realize we no longer need to compromise our integrity, our values, our love for our Self, in order to be loved by another

Release the tales of how we are too much and allow them to scatter on the wind like so much dust

Reclaim our birthrights of respect, honor, and real, honest, and mature love.

Learn to be accepting of the in-between spaces and unknowns as we move through this work, through our lives, through this world.

Find the ways of being that strong, resilient, soft, and loving that have always lived inside us.

Amen.

…

There is still time to join the Becoming Unleashed Circle 2018.  Registration will close at 10pm PDT Monday October 1.  To learn more and register you can go to http://gwynnraimondi.com/becomingunleashedcircle .

In case you missed the essays exploring the topics and ideas we’ll be examining in this circle, you can find them at the links below:

The Impacts of Inter-generational & Cultural Relational Traumas

Releasing our stories of too much, not enough, & shame

The Goo: A time of Renewal, Restructuring, Re-evolving

Reclaiming our power, strength, & daring 

Why the Becoming Unleashed circle?

The essence of Becoming Unleashed

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 

Reclaiming our power, strength, & daring

By

 

Without the ‘dark’ I would never understand how light the ‘light’ really is. And while I don’t care for the dark, I do appreciate what it does for the light. ~Craig D. Lounsbrough

Change is supremely inconvenient, uncomfortable and naturally scary. Yet we only move through life through the process of change, reinvention and renewal, and so bravery is our quintessential rebel for pushing us past our own limiting beliefs and behaviours. Bravery is feeling the fear, immersing yourself into it and through it so you can come out the other side. ~Christine Evangelou, Rocks Into Roses: Life Lessons and Inspiration for Personal Growth

A story only matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change. ~Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Within each of us is strength, power, and daring.  Our own.  That of our ancestors.  Within each of us is resilience, love, hope.  Within each of us is a knowing, a trusting, a believing.  It is there.  We may not feel it.  We may not be able to admit it is there, we may not be able to see it, but it is there all the same.

The work of reclamation is to unearth and reclaim these parts of our Self that we have buried, pushed down, ignored, or truly did not believe existed.  It requires us to reclaim our bodies as ours, our strengths and skills and talents, our inner power and knowing, our courage, bravery, and daring to break patterns and cycles, to become the people we want to be.

Reclaiming those parts of our Self we thought lost, or worse that they never existed, is work that can only be done after the work of releasing and creating space, and allowing for the time of renewal to integrate the openness into our being.  Once that space exists and is truly a part of us, we can begin to see those parts of us we couldn’t before.  Those parts of us that we were told were vile, were ugly, or simply weren’t there in the first place.

Reclamation is the time of deeply and viscerally realizing that what we were told is “too much” about us is actually our strength, our power.  Of realizing all the ways we were told we are “not enough” is actually where our courage, our bravery, our daring lives.  Of realizing all the shame we carry isn’t ours, that we were never meant to have it living within our being.

Then, once we have all these realizations and can feel them in our bodies and at the core of our being, the work of reclamation becomes relatively easy.

I’ve described all these stages of this work in a linear fashion, first one then the next then the next.  And while it is true that in many ways one stage does need to proceed the next it is also true that we are constantly doing all these stages of this work simultaneously.

I envision the path of this work to be like a three dimensional spiral.  We travel along it, around and around, up and then down, revisiting the same narratives, the same wounds, but at different layers and from different perspectives each time.  The work is perhaps never actually “complete” and yet with each layer we find our ways closer to the person we truly want to be, the person we truly are, and finding more and more freedom from the leash of our own trauma and the trauma of living in our current western culture.

I talk more about these ideas in the 6-minute video here.

This essay is the fourth and final of a four part series I have written exploring our narratives of too much, not enough, and the shame we carry and how we can release them and reclaim our own strength, power, and daring.  I hope you have found it helpful and informative.

This essay series is also to introduce the themes we will be exploring in the fall online women’s circle Becoming Unleashed.  We begin October 1 and space is limited to six women.  You can learn more here.

In case you missed the previous essays, you can find them at the links below:

The Impacts of Inter-generational & Cultural Relational Traumas

Releasing our stories of too much, not enough, & shame

The Goo: A time of Renewal, Restructuring, Re-evolving

Reclaiming our power, strength, & daring (this essay)

 

The Goo: A time of renewal, restructuring, re-evolving

By

Metamorphosis is the most profound of all acts. ~Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden

And I feel like the Queen of Water. I feel like water that transforms from a flowing river to a tranquil lake to a powerful waterfall to a freshwater spring to a meandering creek to a salty sea to raindrops gentle on your face to hard, stinging hail to frost on a mountaintop, and back to a river again. ~María Virginia Farinango, The Queen of Water

I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me. ~Anaïs Nin

According to Merriam-Webster to renew has the following definitions:

  • to restore to existence : revive
  • to make extensive changes in : rebuild
  • to begin again : resume
  • replace, replenish
  • to become new or as new
  • to begin again : resume

If we look in the thesaurus, some synonyms for renewal are:

  • awaken
  • transform
  • metamorphosis
  • revolution
  • shift
  • radical change

When I think of renewal I think of the story of Inanna, the Sumerian Goddess of Heaven and Earth.  The very condensed version of the story is that Inanna travels to the Underworld to be with her grieving sister, Ereshkigal. Inanna had to travel through seven gates on her way down into the Underworld, leaving a piece of clothing behind at each gate to enter into the Underworld completely naked.  The descent into the Underworld and removal of layers of clothing represents Release.  Her time in the Underworld represents Renewal.

Ereshkigal was not happy to see her sister and had her hung on a hook to die.  Inanna’s handmaiden, Ninshubar came after three days and helped Inanna back up through the gates, reclaiming what is rightfully hers at each gate, and back to the land of living.

This time in the Underworld, hanging on a hook dead, was the time of Inanna’s renewal, her own transformation, her incubation that lead to her rebirth.

It was her time in The Goo.

If you are new to me and my work, The Goo is the time in the cocoon when the caterpillar has fully disintegrated and decomposed yet not yet formed into a butterfly or moth.  My feeling is that this is a very uncomfortable time.  The Goo is no longer what it was (a caterpillar) and also isn’t yet what it is to become (a butterfly or moth) and honestly I believe The Goo has no idea what the future holds for it, and so it is a time of unknown, a time of needing to trust in the future without being able to see it. It is the time of great change, great shifting, profound transformation.

While The Goo is uncomfortable, likely terrifying, it is a time of quiet restructuring.  To the outside world when we are in our own versions of The Goo, it may look like we are doing a whole lot of nothing or that we are resting.  This is because The Goo is not a time doing, it is a time of being.  It is a time of outer stillness in many ways.  Not stagnant, for there is much movement internally, but stillness to allow for the internal restructuring and integration to take place.

The Goo is when we learn what it is to tolerate discomfort, to accept the unknown, to be able to be in the in-between spaces of life without trying to force things in one direction or another.  It is a time of acceptance.  Of surrender.  Of allowing what needs to happen to happen.

It is not an easy time.  Like the stage of release, but to a greater degree, it is a time of unlearning, unraveling.  A time of allowing old neuropathways to atrophy and new ones to sprout and take root.  It may be a physically painful time, it is always an emotionally painful time, and there may even be moments of psychological pain as we let go of old coping mechanisms that no longer serve us, but in fact are now causing us harm.

The Goo may feel unbearable at times, but it does not last forever.  Even the most profound of transformations do come to an end (to allow us to move into a new time of transformation).  The discomfort doesn’t last forever, pain does pass.  The person we become on the other side, I believe, is worth all the work, and discomfort.

I talk more about these ideas in the 8-minute video below.

This essay is the third of a four part series I have written exploring our narratives of too much, not enough, and the shame we carry and how we can release them and reclaim our own strength, power, and daring.  I hope you find it helpful and informative.

This essay series is also to introduce the themes we will be exploring in the fall online women’s circle Becoming Unleashed.  We begin October 1 and space is limited to six women.  You can learn more here.

In case you missed the other essays and videos in this series, you can find them at the links below:

The Impacts of Inter-generational & Cultural Relational Traumas

Releasing our stories of too much, not enough, & shame

The Goo: A time of renewal, restructuring, re-evolving (this essay)

Reclaiming our power, strength, & daring

Releasing our stories of too much, not enough, & shame

By

You cannot let go of anything if you cannot notice you are holding it.  ~Neale Donald Walsch

Letting go helps us live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. It allows others to be responsible for themselves and for us to take our hands off situations that do not belong to us. This frees us from unnecessary stress. ~Melody Beattie

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle. ~Marilyn Monroe

Last week I shared with you where these stories of being too much and not enough and the shame we carry originates.  Not a one of us were born with these stories, and yet they seep into our skin, bones, and sinew and impact the ways we are in the world and with ourselves.

Here’s a thing though: we don’t have to hold onto these narratives.  We don’t have to allow the shame to continue coursing through our being.  We can do the work of release, renewal, and reclamation – over time, with patience, practice, and self-compassion. It is work that is done in layers, over and over throughout our lifetimes.  It is work that is perhaps never actually done, and yet the more we are able to move through the process the more we are able to move ourselves from a space of living only to survive and into a place of living to thrive.

As I mentioned last week, naming the narratives is a vital first step in this work.  Until we name those stories that spin through our heads, and consider where they came from, we can never move into the work.  After we name the narratives and realize they are not our own but were given to us by our families and culture, we can move into the space of release.

Release does not happen over night.  It does not happen simply  because we think it or wish it.  It requires intention, ritual, practice.  It requires patience, self-compassion, and time. It requires a deep, visceral understanding that these stories are not yours to carry.

A truth is we can know, logically, in our minds that these stories are not ours; that they are not actually true; that they have little to actually do with us, individually and everything to do with us collectively.  However, knowing in our minds is not the same as deeply knowing in our bodies, in our core being.

To move from a mind knowing to a body knowing means… you guessed it… coming home into our bodies, finding where those stories live in our muscles and cells, and inviting them to leave, allowing for an openness to be where these stories once lived.

Coming into our bodies and releasing these stories that affect us in so many ways, is challenging work.  It is uncomfortable in the beginning.  And yet the shifts that come from this work can be amazing.

When we intentionally do the work of acknowledging those stories that do nothing more than cause us harm, we are able to begin to move into new ways of being with ourselves and others. This new way of being takes time to integrate into our bodies, minds, and spirit.  It requires space for shifting which means that we need to learn to tolerate that sense of openness, that may mistakenly feel like emptiness, so our new ways of being can take root and grow.  (More on this next week.  Stay tuned.)

I talk about these ideas in the 9-minute video below.

This essay is the second of a four part series I have written exploring our narratives of too much, not enough, the shame we carry and how we can release them and reclaim our own strength, power, and daring.  I hope you find it helpful and informative.

This essay series is also to introduce the themes we will be exploring in the fall online women’s circle Becoming Unleashed.  We begin October 1 and space is limited to six women.  You can learn more here.

Links to other essays in this series:

The Impacts of Inter-generational & Cultural Relational Traumas

Releasing our stories of too much, not enough, & shame (this essay)

The Goo: A time of Renewal, Restructuring, Re-evolving 

Reclaiming our power, strength, & daring

The Impacts of Inter-generational & Cultural Relational Traumas

By

You cannot heal what you will not unveil.

~Sanjo Jendayi

You will be too much for some people.  Those are not your people.

~Unknown

The most important day is the day you decide you’re good enough for you. It’s the day you set yourself free.

~Brittany Josephina

Let’s talk about our stories of how we are too much; how we are not enough; and all the shame we carry within our bodies.  Super fun topics, right?

Here’s a thing about these narratives we carry in our minds and bodies and spirits need to be named.  They need to be brought out of the dark shadows they live in and into the light.

Naming these narratives we all carry is powerful.  It actually helps us to claim power over these stories instead of allowing them to run rampant in our unconscious and impact the ways we connect (or don’t connect) with others and with ourselves.

Naming these narratives, admitting that we each carry them in our minds and bodies and beings, is only the first step however.  Once we have named them we need to find intentional ways to release them from our systems; to create space for our own incubation and transformation (and learn to tolerate uncomfortable feelings, because believe me, transformation is very rarely, if ever, comfortable) and to reclaim those parts of ourselves that we hidden, stuffed down, and or ignored: our own strengths, power, and daring.

Before we can move into this process however, I believe it helps to understand where these stories may come from, how they get under our skin and into our being.

I believe these narratives come to us from two different types of trauma.

The first is inter-generational trauma.  I define inter-generational trauma as the trauma that is passed down to us by our family of origin through their words and actions.  It is a lived experience trauma and we all experience it to varying degrees starting when we are very young.  It is passed down in the ways we are told what we “can” or “can’t” do, how we “should” or “shouldn’t” act. It is passed down in the language used in our families and the ways we are told we are wrong, told we can’t trust our own inner wisdom, told we don’t know what we are talking about (even if we are actually an expert in the particular topic).

It is passed down in the ways we are silenced by our families, in the ways we experience from our primary caretakers that we require too much of their time or energy, that we are too loud, too opinionated, too fat, too thin, too quiet, too sexual, too studious, we take up too much space, we are simply too much.

It is passed down in the ways we are told we aren’t (good) enough by those who are supposed to love us unconditionally.  It is passed down in the ways we are encouraged to compete, how we are reminded that our sibling/friend/neighbor/enemy/person we have never met is better at this thing or that thing (or all things) than us.  It is passed down in the ways we are corrected (often “for our own good”).  It passed down in the overt and subliminal messages we receive that our best efforts are never good enough.

All of these messages are passed down to us both unintentionally and intentionally by our caregivers.  Likely all these messages were also passed down to them as they were passed down to our grandparents by their parents, and so on up our family tree.

These messages are most damaging because they come from the people we rely on for our very survival.  These messages impact the ways we are able to form attachment bonds with not only our caregivers, but in later life with our intimate partners and close friends.

These messages are then solidified through what I call Cultural Relational Trauma (CRT).  CRT is the trauma we experience living in our current patriarchal, white supremacist, misogynist, ablist, hetero and CIS gender-normative, capitalist culture.  It is in the ways we other people not like ourselves.  It appears in the media, in our homes, in our schools, in our places of worship.

It also shows up in the ways we judge ourselves.  If we do not meet the “standard” or “normal” or “expected” ways of being in this world, due to our gender, the color of our skin, the ways our body functions, whether we have “enough” financial resources, etc, we internalize the message that there is something wrong with us.  We internalize the message that we are not good enough.  That we are too much in some ways.  And the shame of who we are, how we exist, burrows deep into our bones.

Essentially, if we are not a white, CIS-gendered, hetero-sexual, able-bodied, wealthy male who has a strong dose of toxic masculinity running in our being, well… then we are certainly considered by our culture to be “not normal” and thereby not good enough and to take up too much space.  Furthermore, we also receive the message of how we should feel shame for not meeting these “normative standards.”

I want to quickly clarify that something being normal does not make it right or just.  Racism and misogyny are normal in our current culture.  Neither is right or just.  

We receive these messages from our families and the messages are compounded by the outside world.  It is no wonder how we have internalized these narratives.  Culturally speaking, this is intentional.  What I mean by that is the status quo requires us to buy into the messages of how we aren’t enough, how we are too much, and how we should feel shame, so it can keep on keeping on.  If those narratives weren’t running through our minds, bodies, and being 24/7, can you imagine the world we would live in?  I am highly doubtful it would be in the authoritarian oppressive world we currently have.

I talk more about these ideas in the 11 minute video below:

This essay is the first of a four part series I have written exploring our narratives of too much, not enough, and the shame we carry and how we can release them and reclaim our own strength, power, and daring.  I hope you find it helpful and informative.

This essay series is also to introduce the themes we will be exploring in the fall online women’s circle Becoming Unleashed.  We begin October 1 and space is limited to six women.  You can learn more here.

To view the other essays and videos in this series, go to the links below:

The impacts of inter-generational & cultural relational traumas (this essay)

Releasing our stories of too much, not enough, & shame

The Goo: A time of Renewal, Restructuring, & Re-evolving 

Reclaiming our power, strength, & daring