“What IF?”

✨“YOU are the MAGICAL Ingredient in your life?✨

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

(The Slightly elaborated version😉)

I don’t know about you, but somehow, my family, religion, culture at large, evolutionary design, passed down some “implicit” messaging to my brain that, by in large, was Not wholly true, and worse, has actually caused me some harm.

For those brain nerds like me, “implicit” learning is Powerful Stuff. (It’s the deeply seated messages that get written (encoded) into parts of our brains through our nervous system, in the form of “neural tags,” that are outside of our consciousness. These parts of our brain receive hoards of information (before our language centers even come on line, in order to preserve our lives).😯 *The survival structures of our brain have been around for roughly 400 million years; while our “thinking brains” have only been around half as long.

So, for example, “explicit memory” would be remembering your parents told you directly, verbally, it was “a sin to have sex before marriage.”

Implicit memory would be you, as a small child watching how your pregnant, unmarried aunt was talked about behind her back; shunned & so on. Maybe you didn’t know all the details, but you “felt” the ‘ickiness’ & made the connection.

Which do you think is the More Powerful message? Which, do you think STICKS with us, lies there under the surface, influencing our choices (one way or the other) sometimes, without our even knowing exactly why? (YEP! IMPLICIT.)

In fact, there has been so much research in this area of late, that in my field of trauma therapy, we have now come to recognize that (those infants we used to think were not harmed by living in homes filled with domestic violence, substance abuse or mental illness); we Now realize, have quite likely suffered tremendously. After all, an infants’ brain is hard-wired for encoding “safety vs. danger,” has a “negativity bias,” and a primary survival job of setting up the pathways for (ideally, a regulated) nervous system.

This whole notion Fascinates me!!! The truth of the underbellies of our unconscious ‘memories,’ the wisdom stored in the very cells of our bodies.

I could really dig in even more here, but that’s not the point of this post, (& I’m working on being less verbose😂)

So, I’ll just get to the point & share that somehow (see above) it was encoded into MY Implicit memory, that it was Noble to sacrifice; that suffering made me special, dare I say strong? That ignoring my own needs in the service of tending to others was the way one Should be; most especially since I one was born female; (which is not to say that males don’t get some of this messaging too. After all, I have 1 out of 3 brothers, and a Daddy who surely did.) Furthermore, it is also an evolutionarily ‘safety feature’ to default to “attachment” (think: pleasing others) over “autonomy,” (our own desires) in the name of survival. [Back in the caveman days it was nearly impossible to survive solo.]

But What IF?

*What IF, we weren’t created just to suffer, sacrifice, and die?

✨What IF, at the end of our lives,

the Forces of Creation (or, insert your Deity of choice) asked us:

✨“So how much did you Revel in your senses? Smell flowers, 💐 or the Earth after a hard rain? How much did you Enjoy your body? How it breathes for you, no ask required? Did you notice how your arms carry things & how they were able to wrap snugly around the people you loved? Did you smell puppies, 🐶 the heads of babies, freshly ground coffee? Did you pay attention when someone spoke to you? Smile at a stranger? Did you ever listen to the birds? 🐦 Taste a warm berry fresh off the vine? Grow something? Bathe in a river? Watch a sunset? 🌅 Climb a mountain? What about all the water & plants? How often did you spend outside marveling in Mother Earth? 🌍 Did you fall in love? ❤️Open your heart so wide, so soft, that all the light poured in? And when it broke & grieved over losses, did you seal it up; or did you see that this was the measure of your love? Did you make Art? 🖼️ Friends? Were you one? Did you Swim? Hike? Cry? Laugh? 🤣 Wonder? Dream? Dance?🕺 Sing? Did you get angry over injustice & raise up your “once-in-a-universe” distinct human voice🎙️for things that mattered to you, to the world? Did you listen? Look up? Were you willing to change your mind? Forgive~others & yourself (especially yourself?) Did you give yourself permission to begin again, remembering that you were never meant to be perfect; you were meant to be Human?

What IF, at the end of our lives, we learned:

✨“You” are the Magical Ingredient in your life?✨

✨ “You are meant to Experience: JOY, BLISS, LOVE, FUN, WONDER, AWE?

Maybe this notion isn’t new to you. I think we’ve all heard of the “rocking chair test,” and “write your own Eulogy” as offerings, as “ways in” to “wake up to our own lives;”to live them with intent, & purpose, on purpose.

But this particular notion here, (this flip of the script so to speak) courtesy of Katherine North at: Declare Dominion, really stopped me in my tracks one day. As in, literally- I was walking around a track near my daughter’s high school, and upon hearing Katherine’s response to a caller on a coaching call; a caller struggling with the feeling she didn’t “deserve;” was supposed to work hard; earn it;

something in me shifted. I woke up to some ancient wisdom coded in my DNA perhaps? Encoded, but written over I suspect. No matter, whatever occurred, it was like my whole body responded to this notion. They say truth has a way of uniquely fitting “just so” in our ear, and so I stopped stunned, tears spilling from my eyes, inching down my cheeks. (And while I’ve utterly re-worked the wording of what she said from the memory of this coaching call some two years ago now), I think I’ve preserved the spirit of what’s stuck with me ever since.

So that day, I made a decision. I decided I wanted to embrace this notion; that it could be True.

And then, I said to myself, YES! I believe this! This Simply Has To Be True!! I mean, it makes just as much sense as the ‘suffering notion,’ which seems rather pointless, and not at all fun or inspiring to me personally.

Yet, human that I am; well-worn paths that I have established, in spite of this decision, I still forget.

But that’s ok. Because, as soon as I remember, I’m FREE again; Hopeful Again; Alive Again; Grateful Again; in pursuit of Passion & Presence & Beauty again!

Thank Goodness!!!🤗

And although my “old ways” would have historically had me nixing any self-care when pummeled with hardship or extra, unexpected “lifey stuff,” as it is these days; I Am INSTEAD:

*doubling down on all things Presence; All things: Nourishing, Creative, & Nervous System Healing so that I can Revel in the Wonder of Just Being Alive.

I Now Practice memorizing My Favorite Self🥰

And sure, life is still gonna do its thing-throw me sickness, & rejection, hardships, tests, & betrayals, death, & disappointment, etc. (It presently is, in fact😉)

And sure, I expect I’ll probably default to my old, self-defeating, toxic ways for a bit. Pretty sure I wrote a rather lengthy post about just such a week already. 🫣

However, I’m “Noticing,” I don’t stay there near as long. I’m noticing, having practiced a new path some years now; there is room to extend myself grace; & in this space, possibility for permission to just “Begin Again.”

I remember now, that practice makes permanent.🤗

Ursula LaGuin reminds us our lives are stories. Sometimes, I forget I’m the Heroine, and not the Villain. (Ok. Maybe, Sometimes I’ve been the Villain 🦹😂, but now, I get to choose when, why & how.) And now, no matter what’s going on in my life, I catch myself becoming aVictim to my own self-imposed suffering. I Notice, seek safety through nervous system tools, return to nature, & remember:

While Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. I Remember I Get To Control My Own Narrative.

Sometimes, I forget I’m holding the pen that writes- not only the little vignettes, but the whole epic tale of my life & that I can change the script~Any time I want.

However, As soon as I ask, “What IF, (After I feel whatever is coming up for me due to life’s circumstances: resentment, anger, grief, etc.) (because ALL Feelings are Valid & just want to be felt); I can Then: FEEL JOY in spite of, or More OFTEN, Even WITH whatever is happening in my Life right now?”

Thanks for reading!

Xo,

Colleen