The road to REALITY
The other day I expressed how sad and betrayed I felt over a certain situation. A well meaning friend proceeded to tell me what the lesson was and to proceed with a positive attitude. I know he meant no offence but sadly it doesn’t really work like this. None of us do. It’s ironic, don’t you think that society is so unbelievably happy obsessed that so many can’t bear the thought of being with their emotions and so end up on anti-depressents…or worse drugs, sex, alcohol, work addictions etc.
I was reminded of the incident when someone I knew asked me to point out why they might be afraid in certain situations. I told her that even if I pointed it out, it wouldn’t help. The reason it wouldn’t help, just as my friend pointing out my lesson is two fold; firstly each person’s relationship with the world is so unique that it’s impossible to imagine the meaning things or situations might hold for them and secondly even if you got it right, its essential that we unlock our own mysteries. Otherwise they remain purely intellectual and life as we know it, my friends, is not an intellectual process - it’s an experience full of emotion, complexity, mystery…
IF IT WERE that easy all we’d have to do is line up at some self professed guru’s door and wait to be dished up the answers with our morning bowl of oats. Fortunately the answers are inside us as we ARE the masters. So how then does one begin to make sense of it all?
Well recently I’ve been thinking about the path to wholeness…or becoming real….authentic - call it what you will. What does it mean and how do you get there? Practically I mean. I started thinking about the steps I’ve taken in my own life and also in working with clients.
Firstly wholeness (or any of those other words) is the ability to be with yourself always! Not just when you’re successful but always! It means being able to be exactly who you are; that doesn’t mean sickly sweet…it means real. It means being able to say what you think, express your emotions, ask for what you need, take risks, be vulnerable…you get the message. Basically CAN YOU LOVE YOURSELF even if you feel no one else does?
So how?
I’ve put it into a few steps (for those who love formula’s;-)
- Wake up and smell the coffee! I’ve met people who say they’re happy go lucky and nothing bothers them yet they smoke, can’t be alone and spend countless hours in front of TV. Yup the very first step is to wake up and smell what’s not so kosher. How? ASK WHY?! Why am I eating this? Why do I do this? Why do I love this person or hate that one? Why am I afraid of X? Why am I a certain way? Ask and wait for an answer.
- Go back! Whilst I don’t necessarily delving into what your mother did or didn’t feed you as a child, it’s essential to work through the trauma of the past. It’s essential not only in releasing the emotions bottled up from all that time ago but also in seeing how you formed certain beliefs about the world. E.g. “Life is unfair” or “Good guys finish last” or “People are scary” etc.
- Take another sniff of coffee. Be aware! What are you thinking everyday? What are you feeling? How do certain people, places, things make you feel. Most of us are too afraid to find out what’s going on inside so we make up a million ways to be too busy to pay attention. We overwork, try to fix other people’s problems, watch tv, smoke, drink, have sex, run (literally)…and a million more. Becoming aware has got less to do with what’s going on around you and more to do with what’s going on inside. It’s about noticing your habits, how you communicate, what you think, the ways you relate to people, things you want…WHY? Because you must see the ways in which you sabotage your deepest desires. You must see the ways in which you allow others to control you and vice versa. You must ultimately become ware of what subconscious beliefs are driving your behaviour. You must at some point - whether its in this life is totally up to you;-)
- Becoming aware of the director. Each of us are living our own movie and we have multiple directors. Sometimes there’s a dictator running the show, another time a critic, another time there’s a saboteur, others an inner child…and so they go. They’re called aspects of our personality. Unless we become aware of them and dare I say make friends with them, the fear of them drives their actions further. This leads us to…
- Seeing your behavioural patterns and the ways in which you manipulate others or are manipulated. Do you withdraw? Do you demand attention? Do you feel guilt? Or do you blame others? Do you criticise? Do you become a victim? Do you become bossy? Do you escape your life through a specific medium? Do you attract a certain type of person? Do you keep creating the same relationships with the opposite sex, money, work etc. These are all patterns of behaviour. This is not some exercise in proving how bad you are but the truth is that as Carl Jung put it in his work with ‘the shadow aspect of the psyche’, we cannot truly step into our light until we have seen how we hide it.
- Engage with your body! Your body is far more extraordinary than you might think. It houses every experience you ever had in it’s DNA. It stores information and processes the world in accordance with the mind and how it perceives the world. The body is where we change beliefs. How? Through stillness, through making love, through allowing ourselves to feel our hearts, through releasing past programmes through exercise and healing techniques such as kinesiology
- The very last step which is where most people begin to attempt the process of change and which is why they usually fail is in action phase. Once you’ve been through the process you will actually have to take physical steps in changing your life. Perhaps that means more boundaries. Perhaps it means saying no to a particular type of relationship. Perhaps it means a lifestyle change. Perhaps it means less TV time. Maybe it means more meditation or more family time or less work or even more work or maybe it means just 10 minutes a day devoted to you.
And voila you’re perfect…NOT! You’ll still encounter challenge and still deal with life but the way in which you do it will change and in changing the approach, the outcome is always changed.
In the coming weeks I’ll be talking more on each one of the above and paying particular attention to each point.
In the meantime keep it real and be good to yourself
Love Lisa
