Last time was all about my sequence of thoughts and feelings that welled up in response to an icky, but minor, incident. I also mentioned how step 5, meeting yourself where you are, is the pivotal step. My understanding of which comes by way of Havi Brooks and plenty of her destuckification wisdom. Now for some things that helped and some that really didn’t.
The good and helpful (and I fully admit that these are just the usual suspects): Talking with some friends on a coaching call immediately following … the incident. Feeling heard. Crying. Re-reading loads of old posts and noozeletters from Havi on releasing the need for external legitimacy and separating my stuff from their stuff. (Yes, I already get this intellectually. Yes, it’s item 13 in my own personal manifesto. And yeah, I need lots of reminders.)
Also really, very helpful: waking up to a new day. Drinking coffee with a snoozing puppy curled up on my lap. Sweating my ass off at the gym. Writing in my journal.
The sucky and opposite-of-helpful: Trying to talk myself out of feeling hurt by intellectualizing the whole criticism/approval cycle. Telling myself that I know better than to get upset over someone else’s, let me put this gently, very unflattering opinion. Telling myself I was overreacting. (And geez was I overreacting.)
So yeah, these are all about resistance which is the dead opposite of allowing myself to be where I’m at and feel how I feel. And once I got into the groove with that idea, relief came almost immediately. Tears came, too, but they felt sweet and clean and perfect. So back to my praise of good old item 5 in the stuff-zapping sequence.
And by old, I mean brand spanking new to my own personal practice. I used to skip that step. I perpetually chose to flee the fire instead, which basically stalls out the entire healing process.
As I learned to stop fleeing, and to start just being, my reactions to dealing with stuff sometimes looked and felt like overreactions. And for awhile some of these reactions seemed kinda excruciating intense. But now I notice any extreme reaction as the pendulum swinging correction of the old avoidance pattern.
And it is so worth it. Because avoidance and resistance usually cause negative patterns and emotions to build up for a rainy day. And then I’d miss out on steps 6-9, the part where the sun comes out.
