I haven’t been blogging much recently as my energy has been funnelled elsewhere, but writing today felt important as there is something I wish to share. There is no denying it – I am in a ‘hole’.
It feels risky that in black and white whilst as an individual and professional, I also wish to portray myself as an ‘I have all my s**t together’, coach.
Thing is, coach I may be, but I am also human with all the ‘unfortunate’ trappings that brings with it. And whilst every cell in my body is screaming ‘don’t post this in a public domain you crazy woman’, I wonder how good a coach I would actually be if I avoided brutal honesty and total transparency. So I am ignoring the part of me that is scared of this kind of messy visibility, pretending I cannot see her closed eyes and the shaking of her head… and announcing loud (and possibly not so proud), ‘I feel pretty crappy’.
Thing is, I know better than to think something ‘out there’ has caused me to experience these very difficult feelings. I understand that I am not at the mercy of some external event that has disturbed my internal Dalai Lama, for I know without a doubt, that we are only ever feeling the thoughts we are entertaining in the moment. But, today, yesterday (and the day before yesterday!) my thoughts have seemed pretty real. I’ve been giving them lots of attention, far too much energy and way too much room in my head.
This can happen to me – I’ll be swimming along nicely in the river of life when ‘out of nowhere’, a thought will pop into my head that’s way too familiar to me and I latch on for dear life, allowing it to take me under, deep down towards the river bed. I try not to give myself a hard time over this (for I still have a part of me that feels like I need to be perfect and a part of me telling me I know way too much to get sucked in and sucked down), but sometimes we have the gift of clarity and sometimes, well, it’s just a little dark and it’s kinda hard to see.
Whilst there are many areas in my life when thought tries to trip me up and I see it for what it is, just a thought that will move through and disappear if I don’t get in its way, there are other (grey) areas when my understanding seems not to apply and thought looks real to me. In the moments when I’m blessed with a little distance between me and my thinking, I wonder about the familiarity of these particular thoughts – for they have visited me thousands of times over the course of my life. I’m not quite at the stage when I’d like to list them here in black and white (for there are a few!), but they have a theme and revolve around not being good enough and feeling like it’s only a matter of time until people leave… me.
Now this is interesting to me because when I’m in a higher state of consciousness and feeling ‘good’, these thoughts do not ‘get me’. They may pop in but I pay them no attention. However, when I’m at a low ebb and I identify something that could start the aforementioned abandonment ball rolling, I’m fair game! And once I’ve latched on and started to give these thoughts validity, it’s a downward spiral. I’m just lucky if I catch it in time.
We are thinking beings. It’s very simple. Thinking is what makes our experience real – you think it, you feel it. We all have old, outdated and familiar thinking that looks appealing – thinking that has been habitual to us and follows a theme. For what may be my Achilles’ heal, won’t necessarily be yours. We each view life through a certain lens and growing up, I absolutely had a way of seeing myself that wasn’t particularly helpful or beneficial to my sense of well being and it’s the very thinking that I’ve been entertaining for the last three days. And quite simply, it’s really rather painful and I am not enjoying myself, at all. Until I will be…
Because here’s the thing, I know it will change. I know this experience and this thinking is not the ‘all’ of me. It’s not static. It’s not permanent. And although I feel pretty horrendous in moments of buying in to what I feel is the ‘truth’ of these thoughts, experiencing fear and at times, a level of grief, I understand that experience changes. As a caveat, I do happen to believe these feelings have visited me because it’s high time I let go of the outdated version of myself – but that’s a blog for another time.
For now, I have to accept that I am where I am and it is what it is. Getting upset or judging myself for having a very human experience is going to help no-one, especially not me. I’ve done way too much of that in the past and if I’m looking to let go of the old outdated version of myself, self judgement is the first thing that needs to be shown the door.
Just before I move along the human spectrum of emotion into an entirely different experience of being me(!), I want to honour this experience of being human. Sometimes we’re up and sometimes we’re down. Sometimes we’re able to breeze along and sometimes we get sucked down and all of it is absolutely ok. Today I chose visibility and I am pleased with my decision as it has given me the distance I needed between me and the thinking that I felt ‘had’ me. This level of transparency and honesty has allowed me to move into a space of gratitude which is exactly what will change my experience into one far more preferential to me.
So in closing, I guess there’s something to be said about allowing ourselves to be visible in our messiness. For we’re all in this together and each of us, at one time or another, feels our own level of insecurity, fear and sadness. There’s something profound and healing that happens when we, as human beings, share our experiences with one another and we allow people to see inside. For in this moment I absolutely feel lighter… For me this is connection, this is true intimacy (into-me-you-see) and I am so very glad I headed the call and invited you all in! : )
With love
To Your Evolution!
Emma