Letting Go and Breaking Through

Today we began as always with a centering breath. I was really glad of it today as I was feeling very scattered. I honestly struggled this week, feeling raw, and very open, exposed like an open wound. Feeling really uncomfortable, yet I know that it is all a process of letting go. Its not easy to let go, but I feel like in this session that Mary was helping, uncovering the core of me.

I have also been feeling really uncomfortable with the physical weight I have been carrying for so many years and which has become a real burden. I want to put it down along with this emotional baggage I have been sloughing off. I keep thinking its not just wanting to ‘LOSE WEIGHT’ BUT instead LET IT GO! To finally SET IT DOWN, set it all down and let go of it and the past. Yes that’s really the way to describe it for it all has felt so cumbersome. Mary wonders if maybe I finally feel ready to share the real me.

In this session my 6 year old self showed up, and she wasn’t in the best of moods either! During the dialogue I began to see how strong I had to be and all that I had to handle and all the weight I had to carry as a child. I still feel like I’m moving at warp speed to catch up with myself. I think I may have mentioned that before, but truly its how I’m feeling. Like there is no time to waste you know?


When I was growing up MY NAN was the one person who I felt was truly there for me.
I think if she were here today she would want to help me and quickly take me from this place. Just like Mary my Nan would quickly want to show me how valuable I truly am. My Nan tried to give me so much why she was still alive and I just know that today she would be proud of me. She would be proud of how I live my life and how I am showing up for myself, she would approve and I feel glad for that.

What was so lovely for me was that during the session what came up was a really wonderful memory of my Nan and me in Blackpool on one of ‘our’ trips to the ‘seaside’ to see the illuminations. We would stay at a bed and breakfast eating toast and marmalade, and drinking tea out of fancy cups, from a tea pot with little pink flowers on it, and planning a day out to go up the tower on the shore, and watching the fabulous lights. There with her I was safe and happy. It was as if she were there as always wanting the best for me. She was the best Nan.

This session more than any other has shifted my perspective. Mary invited me to explore and enter the emotion where the ‘STUCKNESS” lives in my body, actually feeling where the heaviness settled. Here is the drawing:

Here is a portion of the dialogue using the non dominant hand:


I have to say that for the next two days I felt HORRID………discombulated, pressure…..like I couldn’t get out of a quicksand pit…
[Now there’s a visual]. I realized that my stuckness has to be let go of and I’m ready. Mary says that when we enter in and engage with our emotions we begin to loosen them up and we can release them but the process can initially be uncomfortable.

By day three I woke with almost a lightness in my step. I got up at 6:45am-went to a 7:30am yoga class, worked out after that, came home did 2 classes towards my certification course that I will be graduating from in December.

I realized that I’m meant to be here, that I have something to offer, I just have to get used to my own voice. I have to talk and be counted. I have ideas; I have things to say and things to share and a lot to GIVE.

I want it to come from a place of peace. The more I honor my self, my body my mind, my home and my husband -that has been a hard one to do, maybe because he is my closest alley. I realize that he doesn’t have the answers and that I’ve been punishing him for that…but then I’ve been operating from a really young mind, maybe 15-16 year old.

So in conclusion to this I want to say thank you to Mary for helping me get to my inner child and I really hope that we can continue to explore this to really help me get grounded in my healing, become more of who I am and to be able to go out into the world with confidence and show others how to do it……….I have a ways to go, I know that, but Mary you really are showing me the way, I hope for others that they find you for you are a healer of the highest order and should be honored for that place in this world.

Talk later PaulaX

Learning to feel

Today we dealt with a reoccurring theme in my life which has been this belief that I have to do for others and put their FEELINGS AND LIVES IN FRONT OF MY OWN. Mary seemed to think that it was important to find out where this belief began so we decided that in this session we would work on unravelling it.

We started as we always do with a simple centering breath exercise which I find really helpful as I’ve said before on my previous posts. The breathing is especially since I had been feeling so overwhelmed.

Mary began the session by having me go into the feeling within my body and to allow a drawing to emerge. It was an image of my 14 yr old self that showed her face. In the image I’m so small and appear to be at the beginning stages of puberty, my shape beginning to be visible but I notice I have no feet or hands or very non descript. Eyes and mouth are closed and a sad expression on her face, I felt sad for her, and both needed and wanted to retrieve her.Mary said we are retrieving are and your voice. I had been wondering when she would appear for it was at that age that my second step-father began his reign of sexual/psychological abuse.


Then Mary asked me to write the question what is your name and the response was ‘It doesn’t matter’
(see actual non dominant hand dialogue, click on it to enlarge)which now as I look over my writings I realize that there was a disconnect that began a lot earlier in my childhood and I think culminated in me completely feeling lost by the time my step-father began.

I have so many times resorted to the feelings of that 14 year old young girl and at times the confusion is so palpable.

I have been feeling lost and overwhelmed especially as I have ‘so much to do’ there’s a lot going on in my life at the present time that needs my adult self to show up.

I am feeling those high alert feelings that I had growing up, and especially had on a daily basis whilst going through this trauma. I never feel as if I’m going to ‘figure out’ how I can get to the other side.

I have included all the writings for this session because I think it shows my confusion so well, and as I wrote with my non-dominant hand I can really tell how lost that little girl was and its my desire to SHOW UP FOR HER. I realize that I need to be there for her now and I’m on the path to learn how.
Mary has such a gentle way of both guiding and coaxing things from her. I don’t know that I’ve ever really spoke the truth before and from her perspective instead of my adult self evaluating it.

I felt very sad and very alone. After this session I had a really difficult week and kept reverting to the tools that Mary has made me aware of and that now I am able to use.

It’s all still so new to me; but I do try to be still and really connect and be aware of where I’m ‘FEELING’ the feelings in my body.

I honestly can’t say that I have anything to add to this except that it’s really hard work at the moment and although I am being ‘IN’ the feeling and not running away as I always have, its been an exhausting week.

Thanks for reading talk later
Paula

Putting the Protective Parent into action

Starting to put the work to work…is what this session felt like today.
Mary and I started as we always do with some centering breath excercises.I brought up a specific problem I had been dealing with one of my own clients and how I was feeling less than valued. Mary suggested that we look into this situation as she thought it could be connected to a longer standing pattern. We put my protective parent into action through the dialogue process. WOW!!!!! OK!!!!! I get it.

I drew a picture of one of my clients who for most of the time I find to be quite reasonable but there are those times where I feel completely undermined. I kept thinking that it must be me [of course who else am I going to blame]and the inner critic was still reminding me that I must be incompetent or something. This client would give me a compliment and in the same breath tell me how I could do better [?] I would find myself trying to MAKE her see (prove) that I’m a good person/worker etc. or I would just work harder and prove to her that I was valuable. [Now after drawing out this inner voice I can see it for what it was…

I drew a situation which depicts the woman I work for and then myself using my non-dominant hand. (see image below) In the drawing it was interesting to see how very small I appear and I wonder could I appear any smaller? I mean good lord, I feel so sad for that minute being. I wonder do I really feel like that inside? Around her YES YES YES!!!!

Is she purposely making me feel like that NO NO NO…………I’m doing that to myself. In the drawing the caption above my head reads: “I’m so tired of these people." In my life I have grown tired of those people but in the past few months I have begun to notice that those ‘type’ people who used to always show up are not showing up as much in my life now. Could it be that I’m not attracting them as much anymore or I’m not attracted to them.

Mary also asked me to do a dialogue between the client and my protective parent using my dominant hand. She wanted the protective parent to be put into action in order to shield the inner child from being treated poorly.
(Click on the image to enlarge)


This dialogue was very revealing. In my last post I had said I feel like I’m maturing at warp speed and I am still doing just that. At the end of the dialogue my protective parent spoke a truth that I had not vocalized, but it is really the way I feel.

This image says it all as it shows me walking out the door. (click on the image to enlarge)
In reality I have begun finding and taking on new clients who treat me better. I want and know that I deserve to be appreciated for the work I do. [I’ve already signed one on to my books this week …hey go figure, and he’s signed on for my rate, without even a sigh! Twice the rate that I was getting previously. This new client was SO respectful and totally grateful, he was already feeling like I was going to be such an asset to him, and how did I feel. VALUED! VALUED, and in charge of my own voice.

I cannot piss and moan about how someone ‘makes’ me feel and expect things to change, I’m the only one who can change my circumstances. I’m the only one who gets to chose who and what I allow into my life. I must take responsibility for that.

As Mary so eloquently puts it; you only need to tend to your own inner road map, it’s not your responsibility to try to figure out anybody else’s emotions, or their shortcomings. If something doesn’t ‘FEEL’ right to you, that is an indicator that you shouldn’t be there, or you should take stock of what the feeling is trying to tell you……You need only to tend to your OWN inner world it will give you the information you are seeking. You must be still long enough to hear it!
This is my 9th week with Mary and so far I have taken on 2 new clients, and the completion of my ‘Life Coaching Certification’ should be done by December 2009.

I know for certain that if I hadn’t taken on this challenge of going in and working with my inner child that there would be no way I would have made such progress in my day to day life. I have been making healthier choices lately and have been learning how to become a better observer. I’m hoping that this ‘observer’ stays with me, throughout the rest of my life, allowing me to live more consciously.
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It’s like I’m just getting used to myself and it’s quite exciting to like who I am, and to know that I don’t need to prove that I’m worthy to ANYONE! I’m learning that I’m valuable and loveable just as I am……… this takes practice. I have begun asking myself “What Do I Want?” What Do I Need?” Where Do I want To Go?” What Do I Want To Achieve?’ these are questions that now bare paying attention to…

Talk next week Paula