Author: gwynn

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Inner Critics and Inner Cheerleaders

I’ve been quiet here on the blog for a few months. The Unbecoming Circle took most of my attention this past spring, as did wrapping up the last full semester of my graduate school career. As the Circle wrapped up, I found myself focusing on my family, my upcoming graduation and the wide open future of my private practice.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I want my website to look like, how the blog will evolve, what programs I will continue to offer online, what my in-person practice will focus on. I’ve wondered and dreamed and worried and fretted. I’ve known and then questioned and then known and then questioned again.

And while I’ve been focusing on this new becoming, the voices in my head and heart have been making themselves known.

No, I haven’t had a psychotic break. The voices I’m writing about are the ones that we all have. The ones that whisper and the ones that scream. The ones that encourage and the ones that try to keep us right where we are.

The voices of the Inner Critic and Inner Cheerleader.

During the spring session of the Unbecoming Circle, we spent some time unearthing and exploring our inner critics and cheerleaders: who they are, where they come from, what their voices sound like, what their motivation is to speak (or not!) to us. We got to peel away a layer or two and start to see how important both of these voices are. We also were able to start to give love to both of them, and to understand that both the critic and the cheerleader are parts of us. Parts of us that we need to embrace if we want to be whole.

The work I did quietly on the sidelines while the circle gathered helped to calm both of my voices a bit. I mindfully noticed as I have been trying to figure out this  next iteration of my working life that my Inner Critic isn’t as loud, she isn’t as aggressive as she has been in the past. I also observed that my Inner Cheerleader isn’t as frantic as she once was, instead more calmly, more knowingly, cheering me on.

By giving these two aspects of ourselves attention, by acknowledging them, understanding them and sending them love, we can start to hear the real message that may be hidden behind their words and feeling. By embracing both of these aspects of our Self, we can start to hear our own embodied wisdom.

Who is this Inner Critic and Inner Cheerleader? Where do they come from?

The Inner Critic is often motivated by fear. She don’t want us to take risks. She don’t want us to get hurt. The Inner Critic is trying to protect us from the Big Bad World. Hers is the voice of experience; she is born of that time (or times) we were picked on at the playground, or that time the cute boy didn’t reciprocate, or the time we failed at some important test or task, or those times we disappointed those we love. She is born out of pain and longing: the pain of not being accepted; the longing to be loved.

So she shouts because what is most important in the world to her is that we not feel the pain of failure or disappointment; the wounding of being unliked or even unloved.

And yet, pain, failure, disappointment, and yes even being unliked and unloved are all part of a fully lived life.

The Inner Cheerleader, conversely, is motivated by hope. She has the same experiences as the Inner Critic, however she isn’t fearful that everything will always end in failure or pain. She believes that things can be different than they have been in the past. And more importantly, she believes that even if you fail, even if you feel pain or disappointment, even if someone doesn’t like you or doesn’t love you, you are strong enough to get through it and start again.

embodied July and AugustNext week I will guide a one week online workshop exploring and embracing our Inner Critics and Inner Cheerleaders. We will unearth their motivations and voices. We will recognize how they are each an integral part of us, and also that they are not the whole of us and neither controls our decisions or our life. Then for one week in August we will take the time to explore and embrace our Shadow Self (more on her later).

Already a beautiful group of women have gathered to do this work this summer: taking a week to dive into our depths, to understanding our unconscious motivations, to connect more fully to our own embodied wisdom through mindfulness, creativity and stream-of-conscious writing. It would be amazing to have you join us.

 

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Live your love

Today, like every day,
we wake up hollow and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Reach for a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Jalil al-Din Rumi (1207-73), Persia

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

Yes. Simply yes.

 

 

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Trust lost and found

Over the last two months, in two different workshops,** I have received the writing prompt “I was told.” Writing for these prompts has opened a floodgate for the myths and stories and, let’s call them what they are, pack of lies, that I internalized during my childhood and young adulthood. Some of these lies I was actually told, as in another person said the words to me, others I simply understood, because of actions or reactions of those around me. Those who had the most impact, who did the most damage with what they told me, were also, ironically perhaps, the ones who also did the most good for me, the ones who taught me about perseverance and resilience; the ones who showed me how hard it can be to love another when you hate yourself; the ones who showed me who I knew I didn’t want to be and gave me ways to heal generations old wounds and to make something better for my own children.

Many of the stories, I have learned, are universal for women, they are the threads that bind us together, and in the words of one of my favorite guides, it is up to us to weave those threads into a net, to catch us and support us all, each other, each of us supporting and witnessing our sisters in this journey to ourselves.

This is why I do this work, to weave those nets, to create space for women to finally share the stories they were told and to release them to the wind and fire. Calling women together in circle is powerful work, and yet the real work I can’t take credit for: I create a space, and the women who gather do the hard labor of digging into themselves, exploring and examining pieces here and there, throwing what doesn’t fit or work into the crucible and transforming themselves.

I have been witness to this time and again, both in circles I have lead and in circles I participate in. One of the stories I was told is that I can never trust women. I held this story as truth for a long time. This story ran deep, as not only could I not trust other women, but I also couldn’t trust myself, my intuition, my own embodied wisdom. I couldn’t trust the messages that my own body and heart would scream or whisper. Others, men generally, always knew better and best. I spent a long time living this way, attaching myself to men, both as friends and lovers, trying to let them lead the way to me.  I had very few women friends, and the ones I did have I held at arm’s length in many ways. I was lonely even though I was surrounded by people. I was lost even though I had so many people there to lead the way for me.

Eventually I realized that lie for what it was: a lie, a story, an untruth, a myth. Slowly I started to have friendships with women, real friendships, the kinds where I started to share parts of myself that I had kept hidden away for so long. I began to learn to admit my own imperfections and slowly, oh so fucking slowly, I learned to not judge others of theirs.

Through these friendships I learned to love myself. I learned to acknowledge and accept things about myself that I didn’t really like. I learned to break through the binds of the stories and myths that were holding me back and refashioned those ropes into a net. I learned that none of us are perfect, we all deserve empathy and what we may see on the surface of someone is not their whole being. I learned to listen to the truth of others and then slowly began to listen to the whispers and screams of my own truth; the ones that had been trying to make themselves known for years. I learned to listen to my body and her own wisdom and I learned to fight for her, with the same passion I would fight for my daughter.

I learned to trust. Myself. My body. Other women. It didn’t happen overnight, and it was slow and sometimes painful. And yet the beauty and fullness that is my life now, is amazing. I am going in new directions and following my own intuition. I am being more and more fully me, in each moment, each day. My body now tingles with excitement at the unknown future instead of shaking in fear. Because I know I’ve got this. And if I don’t, I know I have a net of amazing women to catch me.

And for my work, I get to guide other women to do the same.

Join this next circle of women and learn to trust yourself again. Learn to listen to the whispers and growls and roars of your own embodied wisdom. Dare to step into the crucible and transform. We begin on March 20th and there are a few spots still left for this next iteration. Find your trust again. Take the first step on this quest, and connect with me.

Trust Lost and Found Being and Unbecoming**Isabel Abbot‘s Writing the Womb & In Her Skin and Amy Bower‘s Dream Lab workshops.

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Dare, Jaguars, Pink Hair & Wonder Woman

Since I began dreaming up the Being & Unbecoming circle four things keep appearing to me, declaring a piece of this next iteration of my work circling with women, this next iteration my own soul work: the word Dare, women with Pink Hair, images of jaguars, and Wonder Women (and other super heroines, but mostly WW). Over and over the images came up or the word makes itself known to me. Over and over I get a small thrill, a chill that runs through my bones and womb and heart, when these images and word appear.

Dare.

Dare to do this work.

Dare to dive into the depths of who I am.

Dare to shed all that has been holding me back.

Dare to rebel against those myths and stories that have tried to box me in, to define me in ways that aren’t at all me.

Dare to circle with other women, ready to do this deep work, ready to reconnect with their own power and strength and embodied knowing.

Dare to take myself to this next level.

Jaguars. Every where jaguars appear to me. In the magazines. On mailers. On TV. In books for the kids and for me.  In my social media feeds. Again and again, they step out of their dens, inviting me in,  to do this shadow work, to embrace my own power, to release this layer of fear, to connect to my own embodied knowing.

Dare.

Dare to release fears. Dare to connect to my own power. Dare to awaken that inner sight, that embodied knowing.

Women with pink hair. Everywhere again. In the same yet different places the jaguars have been beckoning me. I’ve had pink hair on and off since I was a teen. For me it represents both rebelling against social norms and embracing my “traditional” femininity, my “girlness.” Pink hair both declares: I’m not going to play by your rules, and I love all things traditionally female. Pink hair is bold. It’s brazen. It makes a statement. It says fuck you to the status quo while giving it a nod and knowing wink. Yes, I’m female and I’ll wear pink, but only on my terms, only in my way.

Ironically, since leaving engineering I have shied away from my pink hair. Stories of what a “proper therapist” looks like swirling in my head, wanting to be taken seriously, not wanting to work so fucking hard for respect and understanding from those in power, those in authority. “Real” therapists have natural colored hair, my inner shamer says. It was okay to be so daring in the corporate world, but honey, you’re going to have your own business, you need to calm down and grow up.

What??!!! Because having pink hair as an electrical engineer… what? It made me stand out. It made me both noticeable and memorable. It added to my glow, not detracted from it. It made me different from the rest of the pack and my clients loved that. It added to my image of thinking outside of the box, of giving them something fresh and new and unique. Because, tell me, how many pink haired electrical engineers do you know?

Exactly.

And why would this be any different for me as a therapist? Why would it not make me stand out. Why would it not add to what I have to offer those who come to see me? Wouldn’t it only add to my image of writer, rebel and guide? Wouldn’t it add to me being uniquely and authentically me? Isn’t that what I want to model for women, for my kids? To be unapologetically yourself, rainbow hair or clothes or whatever and all?

(Because, tell me, how many pink haired therapists do you know?)

Dare.

Dare to have pink hair.

Dare to take that next step of releasing those stories that aren’t true.

Dare to let go of my need for approval from those in “authority.”

Dare to allow myself to be seen, noticed, remembered.

Dare to allow myself to glow right on through.

Dare to be wholly and holy me and set this world on fire, pink hair and all.

Wonder Woman. Oh Wonder Woman. How I have worshiped her since childhood. How I wanted to be her. I so desperately wanted WW under-roos, but never got them. I did have a WW swimsuit though. And my WW Barbie. Who I loved so much. So very, very much. I watched Linda Carter portray WW each week, and practiced my spin to turn into her myself. I made my own golden lasso out of some rope and my bullet bracelets out of some old costume jewelry.

Wonder Woman loved animals, was kind and strong and knew how and when to kick ass and when words alone would do the trick. She had the lasso of truth that would make the bad guys admit just how bad they were. She was a gentle mother figure and protector, both things I so desperately needed and wanted as a child. She was both who I wanted to become and who I wanted to save me.

And in some ways, both have happened: I have become her in many ways, and in many ways she has saved my life by giving me a role model to look up to, by allowing me to honor my own softness and strength and kick-assness and diplomacy. By reminding me, over and over, that the Truth will always come out, and that the bad guys will be stopped.

Dare.

Dare to find strength in softness.

Dare to have the wisdom to know when to kick ass and when diplomacy will do.

Dare to know the truth, my own truth, of my own power.

Dare to unbind myself from the chains of the myths and stories that hold me down.

Dare.

Jaguars.

Pink Hair.

Wonder Woman.

….

I feel the power of these images, these words, what they speak to me, how they are speaking through me. I get a literal zing in my body each time a woman steps forward to join this quest to unbecoming and being. Thinking about the program, the energy it holds, brings the biggest smile to my face. I feel it, the magic, the power, the energy, of this next iteration.

For me. For the women who have gathered. For the women who are finding their way to this work.

The power of women joining together. In love, support and witnessing.

….

One of the questions on the check-in questionnaire is if you agree to follow the three guidelines for this circle: 1. No comparing or judging; 2. What we share in the circle stays in the circle; and 3. No giving advice (unless specifically requested).

One and three are particularly tough for most of us.  Not comparing ourselves, or our experiences, with others. We sit and think of where we “should” be or what we “should” have accomplished by now and can get lost and sucked so deeply into that downward spiral of guilt and shame. Comparing only serves to make us feel less than, not enough, not good. Here’s the truth: our experience is our experience. It is neither good nor bad. It should not have been any other way, because it is part of what brought you to where you are today. It is part of what will get you to where you are going tomorrow, next week, next year and next decade. It is your journey, the one you needed to find your way home to you. Each step, each experience, vitally important.  Each journey has unique details, and if we listen and honor each other we’ll see our common threads and how they have played out in our unique lives. We’ll see what brings us together, what links us in sisterhood. It’s not about comparing. It’s about knowing, deep in our bones, that regardless of what another has (or has not) experienced, we are all in this together.

Number three is the one I have received several comments on. Not giving advice. We’re fixers, us women. We see a problem, see a person we love in pain, and we want to heal it. We want to make the issue go away, and honestly if the person would just take our advice, it would all be so simple. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). I’m a chronic advice giver. Seriously the worst. I’m admitting this as a therapist in training: sitting and listening to another person’s pain, holding the space, not interjecting, not trying to fix—hardest thing ever. It doesn’t come naturally for me. I want to wrap my clients up in warm blankets and hold them and rock them and (here’s the bad part) tell them exactly what they need to do to feel better. I’m getting better at not giving advice in my professional realm. And I’m very much a work in progress in my personal world.

Here’s the thing about giving advice though: when we give advice, we aren’t honoring the person who just spilled their guts all over the floor for us. We are, unintentionally, telling this person, who is in his or her most vulnerable place, that hey, that’s nice, and really if you only did this thing I’m going to tell you, you’d totally be out of this mess (or would have never been in it in the first place). It’s telling the person we don’t have time for their pain, to shut up and fix the problem already. It’s showing the person that it certainly is not safe to share intimate pieces of themselves. And here’s the truth: it’s judging. Because if the person were only wise enough to do what you tell them, well, it would all be okay. And clearly there is something wrong with the person if they don’t take your advice, if they don’t just “fix it.”

Advice giving comes from a place of discomfort. Being a fixer comes from being uncomfortable with what is “broken” or messy or raw. Part of not giving advice is learning to sit with this discomfort, to allow our own messiness to bubble up. To be as okay with those icky parts of ourselves or our stories as we claim to be with that of others. Not giving advice means honoring and truly seeing the other person, allowing ourselves to give the space for another person to simply be, to find her way in her own time, to uncover and reveal her truths not only to everyone else in the circle, but most importantly to herself.

So.

Dare.

Jaguars.

Pink Hair.

Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman never gave advice, by the way. She listened empathically and then acted appropriately (either by kicking ass or continuing to listen, to hold space).

Dare to sit with the discomfort.

Dare to witness other women. Dare to be witnessed.

Dare to be okay with the messy, the raw, the “broken.”

Dare to listen, and not only that, but to hear others and their experience.

Dare to be heard. Dare to speak of your life without comparing, without shame.

Dare to show up, just as you are.

Dare to shed the stories that no longer serve you.

Dare to glow.

Dare to embrace your inner jaguar. Dare to don pink hair. Dare to be Wonder Woman.

Dare to come home to you. Dare to be exactly who you were meant to be. You may have taken the long way, and you have known your destination all along.

You.

Dare to be you. Fully. Unapologetically. Unashamedly. You.

the long way homeThere is still time to join the next iteration, the circle-quest to you. Click here to request a short check-in questionnaire so we can get to know each other. Space is limited. Dare to join us, dare to come home to yourself, dare to explore the power of you.

 

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Wishes and Prayers Answered and Becoming

When my daughter was younger she used to wish upon the sun, using the logic that our sun is a star. She would alter the well-known rhyme to “Starlight, star bright, first star I see alright. I wish I may I wish I might have the wish I wish in daylight” and she would make whatever wish her heart called in that moment.

She also prays to the Tooth Fairy. After each tooth lost, all eight now, before we start to read our story for the night, she will quietly lay down on her bed, fold her hands together at her chest, close her eyes and send a prayer to the Tooth Fairy that she not take her tooth, that she understand her unwillingness to let this literal piece of herself go just yet, and could she please go ahead and leave the money anyhow. (If you were wondering, of course the Tooth Fairy always answered by complying).

To date, this sweet girl always asks before she gets a piece of candy or sits down at the computer or to watch TV. She makes sure she is “allowed” and at closing in on eight, I wonder how much longer this will last. How will her way of checking in with us change? When will she stop asking permission and instead choose to ask for forgiveness? How did we ever raise a girl concerned with rules?

Curled up close at the end of the day, or as we are at the sink brushing our teeth or at the breakfast table or randomly in the car she will say “Thank you for being the best mommy in the whole world!”  I’m never sure what I have done to deserve those words, and certainly could give you a long list of things I have done to prove I do NOT deserve those words, and yet she gives them to me, a gift straight from her soul into mine.

I am in awe of this girl child growing into a young woman. I’m not always sure where she came from, and the joke in our family for a long time was we didn’t know who her mother was. Despite all my foibles and outright failures she is a beautiful person, shining brightly every day. I’m honored to be her mama, and I hope as she grows and our relationship has its storms, we both always remember this: She is her own Self—she is not mine even though she came from me, both my body and my heart, and I will always love her and be proud of her, even when I don’t agree with her or her choices.

Because there will likely come a day when she makes a choice that worries me or scares me or worse: reminds  me too much of myself. I pray that I enter those times with grace, allowing her to be her own person, make her own mistakes or even prove me wrong with my worry or fear. I pray I don’t get lost in my own ego and judgement and that I am gentle with her, even more so than when she was an infant, even more so than I am now. I pray I always let her know that no matter what, I am her mama, I love her, and she always has a place in our home.

I pray for a life for her I did not know. I pray for a relationship between us to be one I did not have with my own mother until it was almost too late.

I know in my heart, it will be different, she and I will be different, our relationship has already been different these first seven plus years. And I breathe in the truth that I let go of the stories of how children should be raised and how girls should act and held onto my own truth of what it means to be a mama, what it is to raise a child with love and respect and compassion, what it means to raise a girl into a woman.

And so my prayers may already be answered as I look over at this beautiful girl, engrossed in a game of creation. Her gangly legs bent and her posture that of a teen already. I say another silent prayer: please slow down, please let me savor these between moments a bit longer.  Because the truth is,  it all goes too fast, even when we are paying attention.

her own self

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