Life musings
Today I want to talk about life and specifically how life evolves through us. When we come into life, we come with a beautiful blueprint, the gifts we bring to the earth and the things we want to accomplish and learn in this lifetime. However, when we are born into a family, we enter a bubble, a miniature version of the real world that is the small world of a newborn baby. And in this bubble we are surrounded by the beliefs, programmes and world views of that particular family system. As newborns we drink in all the lights and sounds around us, all the colours, sensations, flavours, energies and emotions. We are like sponges, absorbing it all to make sense of this new experience called ‘Life on Earth’.
We are tethered to our primary caregiver(s), if not by a physical umbilical cord, definitely energetically. Even if we don’t yet have the words, we know if our world is safe or unsafe; if care is lacking or our basic needs are met; if love is abundantly given, slightly absent or distracted by worries, fears, depression, stress etc. Our young brains are geared to absorption of information and learning, we build an incredible amount of new neural connections to navigate life. And the more interesting, stimulating, safe, loving and sensational (literally) our environment is, the more connections we make.
In the first 0 to 7 years of life we go through a series of developmental stages, including learning about the Self, as a separate entity and in relation to others, we develop a personality; an ego, a critic etc. all based on our blueprint and shaped by the experiences we go through in those early years. And let me assure you, none of us have come through completely unscathed. And this is fine. It is likely part of the bigger picture of what we came to learn and develop on a soul level in this lifetime.
Ego-imprints
In short, beliefs, programmes and world views infuse everything we do. Whether on a conscious or subconscious level, all our thoughts, actions, perceptions, emotions and choices are influenced by these underlying imprints. Therefore, the lens through which we view the world also creates our world. If this keeps happening on a subconscious level, life might feel like a string of repeats, hurdles and challenges.
Some examples: If an imprint has to do with financial insecurity or lack there is a high chance that this will remain a challenge throughout life (one of the reasons why poverty is hard to overcome on a generational level). On an outward level you may believe that not everyone can enjoy riches, there just isn’t enough to go around. On an inward level you may believe you are not worthy or deserving of those things you saw others had when growing up but you didn’t get. If you grew up in a broken family where there were lots of arguments or fights and safety wasn’t always guaranteed, this can severely impact your views of love and relationships and your ability to navigate them with trust and integrity. If you moved around a lot as a child or had trouble fitting in and making new friends this can make it challenging to feel at home and rooted, in self and place. If you were told over and over again that ‘boys don’t cry’ ‘girls can’t be scientists’ ‘artists can’t make a living’ ‘.....’ (fill in the blank), these verbal messages can also become deeply ingrained beliefs that can hamper you later in life. And so on...
Every experience growing up gets neatly tagged and filed away in the archives of the subconscious mind and starts running programmes in the background that affect your everyday life experience in the present. Obviously, experiencing big Trauma (I refer to those as Trauma with a capital T) will have a big impact on life as you know it. But there are lots of little traumas, insignificant words or actions in our adult eyes, that nevertheless had a lingering impact on us as youngsters and that may have left us with subconscious programmes of never feeling good enough (very common!), or worthy of unconditional love, or being too big/loud/powerful a presence when we are truly ourselves. So we become perfectionists to the point where it hampers us in trying new things, or we make ourselves smaller to fit in, feel loved and accepted.
Healing
Good news is: everything can be healed! When we recognise that parts of our lives are driven by these subconscious beliefs, we can start exploring them, in stillness, with awareness, acknowledgment, acceptance and love. We can often understand where they originated, how they came to be, what they’ve brought us and if they still hold truth. We can start to unravel the threads that weave our lives and selectively enhance those that are helpful and update those that are a hindrance. And therein lies the invitation! The invitation to become curious, to learn more about yourself, how you function, what you hold true. And to look at your life as if it’s a mirror, reflecting back at you your programming and beliefs. It is the universe showing you how you believe the world works, how you feel about yourself, your life and your environment.
I see a lot of people around me, in the community and on a societal level, who are dissatisfied, angry, upset, scared, in financial distress or dealing with (mental) health issues. I feel a lot can be won when people stop blaming their circumstances and start taking responsibility in a new way for their feelings, thoughts and actions. This is what adulthood is. There is always the choice to stay stuck in the discomfort of the familiar and keep playing the victim and blame game or to venture into new ways of thinking, become curious about new ways of living. This takes courage because we have an ego-centred mind that wishes to preserve itself under all circumstance, that works tirelessly for your very survival and that prefers to keep you in the uncomfortable yet familiar areas of your life than to venture into the unchartered waters of the new and unknown.
Soul
And then there’s the soul... the life spark, divine light, source fractal, higher self, whatever you wish to call it. That part of you that holds the bigger picture for your life, that signed a contract and came to earth with a mission, a purpose and a wish list. You have probably felt a soul-calling at some point in your life. When you felt really passionate about something or a deep longing to do something, go some place. Or when your intuition nudged you with a sudden and inexplicable urge to travel to a particular destination, take a course, join a group, visit someone etc. Or when you do something you so love, it makes time and space disappear and gives you more energy than you had before. These are all hints from the soul. Breadcrumbs you can choose to follow, or not.
Other hints can be rather less pleasant and tend to occur when previous hints have been ignored or suppressed. Imagine yourself driving on a multi-lane highway, and you’ve probably considered changing lanes but actually feel too comfortable in the lane you’re in to make the effort or run the risk, so you keep cruising, even if you’re a bit bored or unhappy. Your soul may decide to step in and ‘nudge’ you into the other lane - onto a path that is more aligned with the soul’s goals so to speak. Unfortunately, this method tends to be accompanied by crisis and upheaval. This was me, a few years ago, and my nudge was called cancer. Out of the blue, under 40 years old and super fit and healthy. You can imagine the upheaval. But it was probably the nudge I needed to start taking myself seriously; to up-level my self-care, my professional life, emotional life and spiritual growth, to get to where I am now. So even though I am still processing layers of that upheaval, I am also accepting and forgiving of my former self who let it come that far and grateful for the experiences it has led me to since.
Meditation
My first-up, go-to method for relaxation, emotional processing and self-exploration is meditation. Not the type where I necessarily have to sit up straight and still with my legs crossed for an hour. More the type where I slow down and take time to explore and connect to the body, whether with awareness, breath or through movement. They say ‘the body holds the score’ and I believe this to be true. All suppressed emotions, unprocessed fears and trauma, toxic thoughts, unreleased stress and nervous system overload are held in the body tissues and can build up over time to the point where the build-up leads to symptoms, (of course all the other crap we expose our bodies to on a daily basis doesn’t help it in its resilience to deal with it all and can cause symptoms too. Pure air and water, a clean diet and good nutrition together with enough sunlight, sleep, emotional processing and energy tools will support the body in optimal health, see my free e-book for more on that). Again, we are faced with a choice here: do we view the symptom as a message from the body or do we find it an annoying inconvenience? Do we listen to the symptom or suppress the symptom? The first requires time, dedication, awareness and self-care, the latter tends to be handled by handing our responsibility for self over to a general practitioner and taking whatever they prescribe. And yes, in most cases the symptom will disappear...phew... for a while. But the underlying cause has been left untended and will surface again, probably somewhere else in the body (with a different symptom so you may not recognise they are linked), generally on a deeper and harder to treat layer.
But I digress, back to meditation... by removing distractions and shrinking attention away from the outside world we come home to our Self in that present moment. By turning on full awareness to the inner world we sharpen our inner senses (knowing, feeling/sensing, hearing, seeing). By becoming still – in mind and body, and slowing down the breath rhythm, we are sending the body a message of safety. The mind is always hyper-focussed on danger, anything that may threaten survival, and the body reacts, every time. This happens many times a day, so you can imagine how soothing it is for the nervous system to receive a message of safety, for the body to experience a moment of deep relaxation.
The body is what we have, the medium through which we experience life. Yet, so often the body gets ignored, because it’s uncomfortable, or there is shame, fear or dissociation. The mind doesn’t want to go there for what it may or may not find in the depths of our being. This is where the mind fabricates distractions (screens, food, smoking, even exercising can be used as a distraction). However, when we do choose to focus on the body, to explore and deepen our connection to it, through curiosity, an open non-judgemental mind and our awareness, we strengthen the relationship with our body, learn its needs and where we hold old stuck energy/stress patterns/emotions. We do not need fixing, we just need the three A’s: awareness, acknowledgement and acceptance. By doing this over and over again, we re-learn who we are in wholeness, underneath the programming and ego-criticism. Simultaneously, we connect more with our intuition, strengthening our inner-knowing and inner-standing of who we are.
The body holds more intelligence than we can imagine. It knows how to rebalance, heal and regenerate itself. Everything that happens in the body is a functional response to some, often multiple, causes. When we relax the mind, tune in and explore, moment by moment, breath by breath, the body learns to relax and reaches the resting state with more ease. And this is the very state it requires to work its magic. For me, it is a spiritual journey through the physical body. And over time it has brought me more stability and resilience, more self-acceptance and self-love and more moments of calm and bliss. What’s not to want!?
If you are interested in getting acquainted with my way of meditation, I offer small groups (max 8) with weekly themed guided meditations to get a taste of some different ‘flavours’ or you can choose 1-on-1 personalised sessions to advance your life journey.