Category: being & becoming

I have an issue with the idea of “personal growth.” I’ve come to realize that this idea often falls in line with those ideas of fluffy positive thinking. Do I believe people grow? Absolutely. We all change and shift and morph as life marches forward, and some people put a lot of work into growing and changing and learning to adapt and be resilient.

Where my issue falls is in the idea that “growth” is necessary. There is a subtle message that I hear when people talk about “personal growth” and that message is “I’m/you’re not okay as we are.” And that I have issue with. The idea of personal growth is one of striving and reaching and not being present; it is focused on outcome and future and not on process or the now.

It’s a mixed bag really, because things that people do for “personal development,” like meditating or yoga or breath work or learning to become self-aware are things I’m all for. I’m all for connecting to our body, bringing our unconscious to consciousness, and using the tools of meditation and creativity and connecting to nature and others to do so. Where I’m feeling the bristling is in the doing it to “better” our selves. Because this implies that we simply aren’t okay as we are.

“Bettering” ourselves is all about the striving and (over)achieving and reaching. Ironically, we are often told to do things like yoga or practice mindfulness to “better” ourselves, when those practices aren’t about “bettering” ourselves at all!

Self-awareness however, while part of what is considered “personal growth,” doesn’t carry those expectations with it. Self-awareness is about, quite simply, becoming aware of our Self. It is also connecting to our body, bringing our unconscious into consciousness, and doing so using the tools of meditation, yoga, breath work, creativity, connecting to nature and others. Yet there isn’t really an end-game in self-awareness, beyond becoming aware. There isn’t a need to fix or change or “better” one self. It is, quite simply, learning to be aware.

I’m grappling with these ideas and with the language of this work I do. My work is not about “fixing” people or making them “better.” Truly, my work is in guiding you, and myself,  to become more aware, and in this process to learn to accept and love ourselves just as we are. Which means, if you are angry, it’s okay to be angry; if you are sad, it is okay to be sad; if you are elated, it is okay to be elated; if you are grieving, it is okay to grieve; and if you are a mixed bag of all of these, which most of us are, you are okay being a mixed bag.

We are told over and over in our culture, by those in “authority,” be they our parents or “gurus” or teachers or bosses, that having feelings beyond happiness  isn’t okay. I’m here to call bullshit. And to say fuck that. To be your and my and everyone’s advocate in saying WE GET TO FEEL OUR FEELINGS and to proclaim that our experiences are ours, are valid, are true. I’m here to say that those who shame you about being angry or sad or frustrated or whatever it is you are feeling need to step back and deal with their own stuff.

We don’t need to “grow” or transform or change. We don’t need to “better” ourselves. We don’t need to stuff our rage, or sadness, or worry.  We are NOT too much. We are EXACTLY enough.

Becoming aware of our Self:: connecting to our body—her physicality and her wisdom;  exploring our unconscious and Shadows and bringing them to light; embracing our spiritual self, whatever that may look like :: that is the endgame in itself. And yes, we grow and change and transform, that is a byproduct of this work, not the goal. This is an important distinction to make.

Having transformation be a “goal” sets us up not only to fail, but also to feed those stories of how we aren’t enough and are too much as we are now. Having “growth” be the goal feeds the shame that we are somehow not okay as we are, in this moment.

When growth and transformation happen as a by-product, because the goal was simply to get to know our Self better, shame is not fed and begins to melt away from malnourishment. When we change as a by-product of understanding our Self better, of being curious and getting to our Shadow, those stories of being too much and not enough start to lose their grip, because we are learning to accept our Self as we are and not trying to “fix” us.

Poppy Lockridge said recently: You don’t need fixing. The world needs fixing. Let me repeat this for you: YOU DON’T NEED FIXING. THE WORLD NEEDS FIXING. We do not need to better ourselves. And we abso-fucking-lutely don’t need to quiet our rage or calm down or act “properly.”  And we especially don’t need to buy into this idea that we must, at all costs, be shiny and happy, every moment of every day; that we have to constantly be making lemonade out of lemons and seeing all these supposed silver-linings in every tragedy.  We don’t need to believe that if  we aren’t seeing the positive in every.single.thing, well, then there is something wrong with us.

There is nothing wrong with us. There is everything wrong with a world that tries to sell us a story that there is something wrong with us.

There is nothing wrong with being sad.

There is nothing wrong with being angry.

There is nothing wrong with being hurt.

There is nothing wrong with being uncomfortable.

There is nothing wrong with being negative or anxious or scared.

And, yes, there is nothing wrong with being happy, either.

However, let’s not be “happy” at the cost of our wholeness. Let’s not be “happy” because that is how we are told we should be. Let’s not be “happy” because it makes us a “better” person.

Let’s simply be who we are, in this moment, and allow that to be okay. Let’s, not so simply, become aware of our unconscious motivations; our internalized -isms (and we all have them, so while we’re at it, let’s also let go of that idea that we don’t). Let’s become aware of our triggers and our knowing. Let’s connect to the people we are, right now. Let’s come back into our body and feel her and all her physicality and hear all her wisdom. Let’s learn to love ourselves, not despite, rather because of our humanity. Let’s learn empathy and compassion, for ourselves and others.

Let’s let go of this idea of “bettering” ourselves and instead embrace the idea of accepting and loving ourselves as we are. Let’s move away from needing “personal growth” and instead embrace self-awareness.

Because we don’t need to have “growth” be a goal. It will happen, as a by-product, by not-so-simply becoming aware. We don’t need to burn ourselves out with all this striving. We truly can allow ourselves to just be.

These thoughts  were originally published in my weekly love-letter on April 9, 2016. I have revised and expanded on that original writing in this post. To receive more of my writing on these ideas of being too much, not enough, shame, and how our culture feeds them all to us, you can subscribe by clicking over here.

I’ve been diving into these ideas lately: of being told we are “too much,” or “not enough” and how shame plays its role as we internalize these stories, as our own Inner Critic gains control in our heads and hearts. I’ve been thinking about patriarchal culture and how its goal is to keep us all small, isolated, living in shame. I’ve been thinking about what internalized misogyny looks,  feels, and acts like.

I explored some of this in a video I made the other day. (It’s part of a series, and if you are on my mail list you will be receiving all four, spread out over two weeks, starting Tuesday. Alternatively you can sign up to receive just the series over ten days by filling out the form here). And this video series is only the tip of the iceberg in exploring these ideas, where they came from, what they mean.

I’ve been reading Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes book Women Who Run With The Wolves (we’re reading it in my Alumna group for our book club this year, slowly chipping away at it one chapter at a time). In it she shares the story of Bluebeard and then goes on to talk about the “natural predator of the psyche.” Every paragraph where she explains and explores this archetype has me screaming “Patriarchy!! That’s what patriarchy does to us!! Of course it’s considered an archetype – it’s that insidious!”

She writes:

In psychological interpretation we call on all aspects of the fairy tale to represent the drama within a single woman’s psyche. Bluebeard represents a deeply reclusive complex which lurks at the edge of all women’s lives, watching, waiting for an opportunity to oppose her.  Although it may symbolize itself similarly or differently  in men’s psyches, it is the ancient and contemporary foe of both genders.

It is difficult to completely comprehend the Bluebeardian force, for it is innate, meaning indigineous to all humans from birth forward, and in that sense is without conscious origin.  Yet I believe we have a hint of how its nature developed in the preconscious of humans, for in the story, Bluebeard is called the “failed magician.”  In this occupation he is related to figures in other fairy tales which also portray the malignant predator of the psyche as a rather normative-looking but immeasurably destructive mage.  *Emphasis mine.

She continues talking about how there are stories where questioning the status quo is punished and how there is a desire for control and power over others.

How is this not patriarchal culture? Is this truly an archetype? Is this truly an aspect of our inner workings or is the not-so-side effect of millennia of patriarchal culture, teachings and internalization?

At what point do we declare the split between outer forces and inner? When do we bring into our consciousness what we have internalized? When do we allow our awareness that our Shadow aspect is made of something that was never meant to be our nature?

The inner workings of our minds are complex, to be sure. However our mind does not act as a separate entity from our body. There is much research in regard to how physical health affects our mental health (for example, untreated hypothyroidism can cause symptoms of depression and anxiety).  Researchers have also shown us that the effects of trauma, when unprocessed and unhealed, are passed down generation after generation through our epigenetic (i.e. changeable) DNA. These markers live in our bodies and they affect our mental, physical and spiritual health. Knowing how women have been treated historically, how we have been tortured, raped and murdered for opposing the status quo, for fighting back against our oppressors, I believe we could all agree that the trauma of these experiences, over millennia, lives in our DNA today. Our anxiety, depression, rage. Our autoimmune issues, reproductive organ cancers, heart failures. Our isolation, detachment from the truly spiritual and acceptance of immature masculine religion.

I’m asking the question: this archetype of Bluebeard, is it truly an archetype? I would say, given current scientific research, no. This particular archetype is not something that is “in our head.” It is a force that is still very much alive in our culture still today, an experience many women and men are fully aware of.

Let’s look at the definition of “archetype.” In Jungian psychology (remember that Dr. Estes is a Jungian analyst), an archetype is “a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches.” But is what Bluebeard represents, the oppression and torture of women, an “unconscious idea”? Is it not a reality for millions of women, even today? Was this not the reality, to varying degrees, of our mothers, grandmothers, and great-great-great-x10 grandmothers?

So, when do we start to call a spade a spade and stop side stepping around the ideas and realities of how oppression plays a very pivotal role in our every day lives? When do we both stop claiming that our lived experience isn’t real and is only in “our heads” (that our unconscious mind is making us think things that aren’t true), and acknowledge the very real trauma that is passed down generation after generation, and becomes exponentially more intense with every generation that healing does not occur? (Due to the compound experience of any one person’s lived life and personal traumas combined with those of all the generations before us).

When will we start to acknowledge the very real effects of the past on us today? When will we acknowledge the truth of our history: both how we have oppressed and been oppressed throughout history?

More importantly, when do we acknowledge the truth of our own lived experience? Of the various forms of oppression we have each experienced as women, even in the modern year of 2016?

Joseph Campbell writes “Myth is much more important and true than history.  History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.”  I would say this is both true and not true. The history in the books we were fed in elementary and high school is very much unreliable and biased journalism. However, we each have history living within our bodies: we hold the stories of the men and women who came before us, without whom we would not exist. True, within our body we do not have dates or times or specific details. What we have within us is far more important: the feelings of both the wounding and the strength and power of those who came before us.

We may not know the “facts” of the rapes, abuse, torture, belittling, of our mothers or grandmothers, however, we have living within us the truth and feeling of these experiences. The pain. The Shadows of fear, anger, and sadness. The very real feelings of terror, rage, and deep body wracking grief. We have within us the stories of how the women before us wanted different, for themselves and us, how they either fought the system of oppression or played along to survive. How either of these scenarios twisted and formed their views of the world, of themselves and of the children they bore.

Looking at depression, anxiety and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress, when can we stop accepting that these symptoms are in “in our heads” and start acknowledging that they are the results of true and real lived experiences, both by us and our ancestors, and are part of the very physical fiber of our very being?

I believe in our ability to heal. I believe that as we acknowledge our “Shadow” self, and the dark experiences that created her, we can finally process the trauma and wounding that lives in our bodies and move forward, embracing our strength and power and light. However we can’t ignore our Shadow self, or the experiences that created her. I believe a possible first step in this process is understanding that the culture we live in helps to create our feelings of being “too much” and “not enough;” how it feeds our shame; how we are continually and repeatedly traumatized; and how the experiences of our ancestors helped to form who we are today. Healing is deep work, it is at times, challenging work, and yet, as we are able to uncover these layers, to understand our Self and our “unconscious” motivations better, we are able to live in the world more fully, to walk through it with more ease, and to embrace our power and make the changes we want to see in the world.

 

 

 

Rising within is a rumble. A growl. A roar.

It is ours and not ours. It is within us and yet beyond our being. It is greater than our own experience and of our experience.

It is from the knowing. The being seen. The connecting to those parts of that have been buried and hidden and ignored.

Do you feel this rumble? This growl? This roar?

Within us is an anger, a frustration, a furor, bubbling and boiling. It did not start with us, with our experience and yet it has been fed by our life, what we have done and not done and what has been done to us.

It is fed by our friends and sisters, as we witness their lives, as we see their pains and joys.

It is fed by our mothers, and their mothers, and their mothers. And their neighbors and friends and sisters.

It is fed by women we’ve never met but read about or read their own words or saw photographs or news footage of.

It is fed by women we’ve never seen or heard.

This rumble. This growl. This roar.

This righteous anger. At all that has been done to and “for” us. At all that has kept us back and down and small quiet.

This gnawing grief. At all we have lost and never had and wanted so desperately.

This marrow deep strength and power. Our resilience. Our knowing. Our surviving and thriving.

I feel it rising within me and and I sense it rising within you and you and you.

Let’s let it out.

xoxo

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