I’ve been living in this body for 68 years and am very comfortable living with my core belief systems and behaviors until they don’t work any longer. I spent a lovely weekend on the north shore giving myself a change of perspective, surrounded by beauty and ocean respite.
I manifested a ritual to step into my full self as wise elder and clunked up against a behavior that basically ticks me off. I am a super sensitive human and have been all my life. I perfected the fine art of reading a room, a person, a situation, a reaction by figuring out what is expected of me? What do I need to do to appease, placate, raise the energy, lower the energy, entertain, be submissive, be assertive, inject humor; the list is endless. Basically, I’ve learned to be a chameleon to other’s needs.
It’s another way of being in the audience, a more subtle participation. Usually being in the audience means I’m judging me by what I think others are seeing. This layer puts me deeper in the audience, energetically figuring out what other people need and then contorting myself to meet their needs. It is natural. I bumped up against my awareness this weekend. The whole scenario takes a millisecond, speeding by so fast it’s easy to miss.
Another layer another learning.
I’m always talking about awareness because awareness gives me information to release old behaviors and beliefs that do not help any longer. The behaviors and beliefs may have helped me in the past, but the past is the past. I’m living in the now. I am an adult. I’m ready to move on.
Having awareness about my behavior brings the behavior clearly on the table so I can see it for what it is, a skill I developed as a young child to stay safe. Who’s standing around the table? My adult self, my child and my wise elder. I invite in my guides, angels and all beings that represent love and light. Everyone on my side.
I don’t know how to get rid of this behavior. Now that I can see it, I trust and release it to my Higher Power, letting it go. So I wrap up the behavior in a beautiful shroud and put it in the arms of my angels and ask for help as I release it. My skill in reading a situation has been helpful to me all my life, but I choose to read a room on my terms, staying in my heart integrity and aligned awareness.
Another layer another learning. I’ve rewired my system. The old system dominated by fear fueled by my mind is now rerouted through my new system dominated by love fueled by my heart. Both systems were designed to keep me safe.
Being human is a miraculous journey because of the incredible abilities we discover using our minds to manifest change. My mind creates using my heart as the engine. My body is attached to both. I choose to be in balance with my heart, fueled by love, respect, kindness and integrity.
“Don’t let your mind drown out your intuitive voice, train your subconscious to be positive by using the heart intelligence.” ― Steven Redhead, Unleash The Power of Your Heart and Mind
Participants' Reflections:
I really like that phrase ‘another layer another learning’, and then I thought deeply about focusing inward or tuning inward versus tuning outward. I think my tendency when I focus outward is not what can I do to please someone, although I’m sure there’s a piece of that, but what is my responsibility to help that situation, to give in some way that’s useful.
The work that I’m playing with right now is about the big me and little me, attention without and within. Someone recently mentioned the book, The UnTethered Soul, so I pulled that out and looked at it. It talks about the difference between paying attention to the chatterbox versus the one who is watching the chatterbox. In my meditation, I kept trying to separate those two. What it brought me was figuring out where in my body lives the person who watches the chatterbox. The thinking mind that constantly talks and tries to keep me safe is just another organ like my liver, like my kidneys. It has its own function. One of the things the Untethered Soul says is I am not my mind and my thoughts. It occurred to me my thoughts are just another organ of mine that processes and keeps me safe, and I want to reach for the me that holds the whole thing together, the soul.
The sentence that jumped out for me was ‘I learned to be a chameleon.’ I’ve named before I tend to be other-oriented so that hit home. I ended up drawing concentric circles in my journal, and in the middle of it was me and then my family out outside and then beyond family. It came to me I’ve had a pattern since my teens to look beyond my family for identity of my own. I took my family for granted. They were just givens. I plopped into that unit as the fifth of six children. I’ve done that in my adult life. Then I realized at this point in my life, I’m looking a lot more at me, spending time with me, getting to know me. I drew a large circle labeled me and inside is my brain, heart and gut. I felt like now I’m exploring things deeper than words and labels. The final thought that came is an awareness that all is family not to be taken for granted. We have an underground root system connecting us.
Thank you for this reading. It’s very difficult to be aware of our own behaviors, which is why we have psychotherapists. So to become aware of one’s behaviors is a powerful step towards healing it. I loved the line about using our heart intelligence to train our subconscious. Some weeks ago (March 18), we talked about putting my hand on my heart to release oxytocin, the love chemical. Thank you for the reminder.
Thank you for joining us today. I’m glad to be back in my nest of the familiar. It helps me reach out with more confidence. I’m glad you joined us here. Awareness is something we can take with us every day to glean and learn, find our next clue of what we need in order to bring more peace within. I wish you all gentle awareness today as you go about your journey.