After an exhausting day, I had spiritual work that needed to be done. It still isn't all cleared yet, but I worked on my Solar Plexus with yoga and painting. During corpse pose, I realized that I had opened it some, but I felt a great deal of resistance. Even still some as I write this, but I am hungry and that is a wound I'm still working with.
I did a breathing exercise to release some of this resistance, and it lessened, but there was an unsure or confused feeling there. It was as if it were hesitant to embrace empowerment. I let my mind clear and bring forth some memories related to this chakra. Then, an entire plethora of images came rushing in. The most dominant ones? They were about fear and strength.
I remembered visiting another waterpark with my sisters (outdoors), where we went in the wave pool. I had always feared deeper water, for no reason really (I hadn't drowned or anything of the like when I was little). But when we went in the wave pool, I felt this impulse to go to the 6 ft where the waves were coming out. When I asked this version of me why, they said, "Because I'll become stronger, I'll face my fears and overcome them." Thinking on that for a bit, I began to recall other memories of the like, where facing fear meant I was strong, and was even rewarded for it.
I had been involved in swim team when I was really young. I recalled specifically a time when I was 5 or so, and we were at a swim meet at another club. The pool had a depth of 12ft, and it terrified me. I was crying to ******* that I didn't want to, and about how scared I was. She responded with, "Well, think about how proud of yourself you'll feel once you do it!" I won't say there wasn't validity to her statement. But it wasn't just pride after I forced myself to swim the length. (I ended up getting one of the first place ribbons, maybe because I swam so fast out of fear.) It was relief.
I took this child into a visualization with me, before swimming the tournament. I approached her, and asked her, "Do you want to swim in this pool?" She didn't answer. I said, "No matter what you do or don't do, I will always be proud of you. What you feel is more important to me than what you accomplish." Then, I asked her again, "Do you want to swim in this tournament?" She said, "No, but..." and I said, "It's ok, you don't need to prove yourself or anything to me. You are wonderful, even if you don't want to swim in the pool." She looked up at me and smiled and I hugged her. I carried her on my side as we left the place and went to get food.
Again, when I did horseback riding tournaments, I ended up getting a 3rd and 5th place and felt great shame afterwards. I had let my team down. I was also criticized for having eaten blue candy before riding because blue lips 'wouldn't impress the judges'. This childhood self was feeling really bad for this, because she only wanted to enjoy herself but ****** got mad. I told her something similar to the previous vision, and she mentioned the candy, to which I said, "There may have been better timing, but you aren't wrong for wanting to eat candy! In the end, it's not so important. Enjoying yourself is more important than winning or gaining the judges approval." And off we went for Chinese food... (Really really trying to solve this stomach trauma, haha.)
I question whether putting ourselves in the very situation we are terrified of is actually beneficial. Exposure therapy may have great benefits, but this scenario is different. Instead of finding out why it won't harm us, we plunge ourselves in the middle of it all in the name of feeling 'strong'. It an attempt to feel self worth. And instead of feeling actually less afraid, we just end up feeling highly tense. We impose unneeded stress on ourselves, and then we feel relief.
I realize I still have this modality today. When something comes along that scares me, I've always thought, "Come on, do it! Prove you're strong!" When I'm challenged, I tend take the challenge no matter what I feel about it. Since listening more deeply to my emotions, saying no when I'm afraid has been a challenge itself--and a better one to face at that.
Forcing yourself or someone else into something is not loving. Everything should come as a result of intention and inspiration. We have to be gentler when we are afraid, and in our own time come to find love for that which we are fearing through understanding.
Once you love something, you can no longer fear it.
But we don't learn to love or overcome something simply by telling ourselves or someone else to do so. We can choose to be softer, and gentler or harsher and forceful.
Perhaps the single most important identifier in whether or not you do something to enhance your self-worth from a place of lack (rather than self-loving action), is whether or not you do it to 'prove' something to the world or others, or do it because it feels good and you like it.
No comments:
Post a Comment