I am loving this beautiful journey of unlocking true self. Exploring what is there at the core, in which my spirit keeps coming back to limitless love, awareness and oneness. Everything is energy and we are all connected. The only thing separating us from one another is form. The thinking mind, the ego, steps in and tries to tell us that we are separate from everything else. That our human body defies all of the laws of physics and nature simply because we are aware that we are aware. But the further I go down this path the more I experience this not being the case.
We are made up of so many parts and identities. The mind can only see what it is aware of. If you are aware of something then it is because it is part of you. If you see it in someone else its because you have it in yourself. You can see qualities in others that you like because you like that about yourself. Or maybe you you notice something that you can simply smile at because you are in balance and peace with it. Or maybe something triggers your entire being and when this happens it is a part of you that needs some love and attention to be brought back into balance.
I had thought that last weeks episode exposing my trials and tribulations of romance was a one off. I attended a workshop on ‘Finding Wholeness Within’ this week that shone a whole new light on my projections of most recent sober dating adventure and feel that its important I share it. For completeness and integrity. Relationships are gifts, our biggest teachers in life and in the sphere of romantic relationships, I definitely have the most to learn.
The whole point of this blog is to humbly share my learnings as I explore who I am without alcohol, which was a crutch and friend for a large part of my life. It’s also a journey of love. Ultimately, one of the biggest reasons I decided to give up drinking is because I felt that it was standing in my way. I felt that it was holding me back from achieving all I am capable of. There was also a knowing in me that it would unlock limitless potential. I remember walking through the national park in Mauritius listening to my teachers Gabrielle Bernstein and Wayne Dyer. I can visualise it so clearly in my mind, the first time and subsequent times I received the message so loud and clear. “You are going to give up alcohol and it will unlock your superpower”. It was terrifying to hear. I didn’t want to. I was happy to stay in my denial that it was a healthy, joyful part of me. Alcohol was so woven into the fabric of my life, how I celebrated being alive. Or so I thought.
What I am awakening to now is on a complete different level. That it was a form of punishment, a relinquishing of responsibility and control, and a compounding of the belief that I wasn’t worthy of love. With alcohol in my life I was disconnected from truly accepting and loving myself, just as I am, and therefore was blocking the flow of love into my life.
This spirit free journey is a learning curve and I love it because I don’t know where it is going to lead! It excites me and it feels so good to write and share about it. I don’t feel like I am alone and feel that my bravery in embarking on this venture can show others that its possible. That moving through the fear is worth the freedom on the other side. I know I’m only four and a half months in, but I am also 4 and a half months in, the longest time without alcohol since I was a teenager. The amount of clarity and awareness I have gained in this time makes giving up alcohol unquestionably the greatest gift I have ever given myself. It is the greatest act of self love and has released an immeasurable amount of shame which I have unconsciously carried round for decades. I am learning to not hide parts of myself or judge myself knowing that I am living with integrity.
We can only live with as much as integrity as we have awareness of. We can only free ourselves from our mental prison if we are aware of the walls. The walls we have projected out of fear, likely thinking that we are keeping ourselves safe. The walls which we are blind to can inflict so much pain in our own lives.
The why isn’t so important right now, but I have had a big realisation that I am dissatisfied with the protection and security I was given when I was younger. Over the past week I have connected to this forming in my teenage years.
There is a lot of focus on the subconscious forming years pre seven, but our teenage years can be really difficult time for a lot of us, a lot of which I notice I have mentally blocked out.
I started drinking when I was a teenager. I didn’t really feel like I fitted in. I was labelled the giant year seven, towering over everyone for the first three years of secondary school. I had been moved up a year so was also the youngest, so the not fitting in was more than just a feeling. A lot of my desire to drink was to break those walls down, allowing me feel like I was part of something. I remember that I didn’t really like it and felt uncomfortable going against my parents, but my desire to be liked by the others that were doing it over rode this. I thought joining in provided me the security of their friendship. Also I felt so unattractive and unwanted by the opposite sex, and drinking helped alleviate that. In my early years of school, my friendship group was the popular pretty girls whom everyone fancied. You’d ask any boy in the whole year who he liked and it would be one of them. Any one of them expect for me. I developed this thought or hope that maybe if everyone was drunk then maybe someone would be interested in me, which I realise is a pretty disturbing thought and belief to connect with.
Since I have stopped drinking, I have thought a lot about the culture of offering yourselves up to the night. Seeing what happens when you have had a few drinks. Seeing what is possible without all the things you believe stand in your way in day to day life. There can be an attachment formed to the alcohol as a support mechanism for bravery. ‘We’ll see what happens after a few drinks’, ‘lets see where the night takes us’. I’d liken it to the spiritual definition of surrender only its under the influence of different, and far more dangerous type of spirit!
It’s like we know that having so much control within our lives doesn’t feel good but it the modern constructs of society don’t know how to get there. We have lost connection to our courage to be ourselves and so we seek Dutch courage. The more engrained this is within us the more it is harder to free ourselves from. We don’t know what our lives look like without it, or more importantly who we truly are.
From doing what you always did, you will get what you have always done. From seeing the world as you have always seen it you will see more of the same. And that segways me nicely into how if you are focused on something, whether you are trying to heal or fix it or welcome it in your life, you will bring more of it into your reality.
I’ve touched on everyone being a mirror and what we see just being a projection of our relationship with ourselves that we play out with others. As I expand my awareness there are always things that rise up bringing light in your own darkness. My darkness being dissatisfaction. Focusing so hard on what I didn’t want my next relationship to be, so dissatisfied by my patterns of the past, that I’ve bouldered in, flashlight in hand, looking for faults. In protection of myself, I have been watching out for ways in which someone could hurt me rather than letting them be and seeing them as they are. I keep myself in karmic loops by trying to control the outcome, desperately not wanting to end up where I have before. Repeating patterns I know don’t serve me by putting my attention there trying to avoid them.
Don’t think about pink bunnies.
What are you thinking about?
Pink bunnies?
So I have been thinking not wanting to repeat my relationship mistakes of the past. Actively learning, exploring and practicing self love in an attempt to welcome it in. And I sure do feel it more than ever. But I still am acting from a place of fear when it comes to connecting to romantic love. My ever-watchful eye trying to spot what won’t work out on every male encounter so as to quickly avoid going down a road that I will struggle to get out of. I am scared. Scared of ending up in a situation where I get hurt again. Scared of losing my connection to and love for myself as I have done before in relationships. Scared of accepting treatment that was less than I deserve and blaming myself for creating it. Allowing myself to be the reason for the abuse. Projecting the cycle of love being pain and me being the problem. In an attempt to not be the victim, I take accountability because then I have power to control it. And I guess, I realise as I am writing this now, that I am doing that in what I am about to say. I have realised to what great extent I am projecting the outcome of romantic relationships from my place of fear. Playing out loud with a new person the relationship I have with myself, playing out familiar painful childhood wounds.
We can often blame others in life for not feeling free, but we are the ones choosing to carry the weight of the past. There is a great parable that Eckhart Tolle cites in his book ‘A New Earth’ that I think of often.
In a village, [two monks] come across a young 17-year-old girl with a long kimono, trying to cross a very muddy road. But she’s not daring to step into the mud. So one monk picks her up, carries her across the road through the mud, puts her down.
The monks walk on in silence for another four or five hours, just practicing noble silence.
Then, after four or five hours, they’re getting close to their destination. One monk says to the monk who had picked up the girl, “You shouldn’t have done that because monks are supposed to not even touch women. So you really shouldn’t have picked up that girl. You’re not supposed to do that.”
The other monk says, “Oh, are you still carrying that girl? I put her down hours ago.”
Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
So I want to take this back to last week’s blog post on Boundaries.
Using some tools and simply giving it time in space I have an increased awareness and perception of the events that played out throughout my attempts at dating the man with all the muscles who I had a big fight with on the paddle boards in the middle of the Ocean.
He has been in touch. After ten days of silence he drops in asking how I am and if I wanted to do something again. I am confused. He had said, “We can go kayaking next time” but in my head, I had rolled my eyes and thought, “that’s just what f*ckboys say to ease the awkwardness that there won’t be a next time. I’ve heard that line before and it means SEE YOU NEVER.”
In my attempt to do things differently to before, rather than delete the message and carry on like it hadn’t happened or fawn and respond politely ‘’fine thanks, and you?”, I decide to let him know how I felt after the date and that I was therefore confused about him getting in touch again. He doesn’t understand my confusion, he had said he’d be in touch and now he is getting in touch. We exchange long voicenotes for a few days about what has happened, him repeatedly saying he would like to see me again and me focusing on what triggered me and what I needed that I didn’t get. Eventually I just say that it feels too heavy and I want things to feel fun, so we agree to leave it. That day, after spending a long day at immigration, I head to the nearest beach to catch sunset. Of course, he is there walking his dogs! However, I don’t want to get into a discussion, so I head to sit down facing the sea, eyes fixed on my destination – ironically and subconsciously the scene of the paddle board incident!
As I sit, my eyes wanting to glance back and see if he’s noticed me, a random man sits next to me, offers me a beer and then we get into a conversation about life without alcohol. By the time we finish chatting, the sun has set and he is gone. I think about the importance of presence. How all that matters is being present in the now, the past will follow you unless you shift focus and allow it to peacefully drift away. Then you can just be in the experience of every moment. I decide this is my lesson and go about my evening.
The following day I go to attend a workshop. As I focus my coaching niche surrounding inner freedom, I’m going to any workshops and retreats that align. I see my ability to help guide others coming from a place of integrity with being able to help myself. Call it inside out coaching, market research or a self experiment!
In life I feel like I get drawn to certain people who are part of my journey, there to bring awareness and consciousness. There are some people that I am intrigued by and aligned but also noticed a few triggers which I’m keen to explore and show love at the moment. I’ve met the lady running the workshop ‘Finding Wholeness Within’ at one of her talks before and was drawn to connect more.
The workshop ends up being only the two of us. The alignment in our journeys has us both in tears. We are two dots on the opposite ends of the same line, her fear is stepping out of the darkness and mine is coming out of the light. We both see each other and have an incredible illuminating two hour conversation.
We start talking about presence and I bring in my most recent lesson that I think I am being taught, surrounding this tinder guy. Somehow we end up very quickly on my shadow of dissatisfaction, which I had seen in him on our first date and had felt very uncomfortable sitting with it. I had seen it as a red flag, moaning, something I didn’t want to be around. From the first date, despite being attracted to him and thinking it could be something I had decided that it would end badly because of this moaning… that and he’s blocked his mother. So thought it was better off for me in the long run to avoid dating him for too long, as I could end up getting attached again and not knowing when to leave.
I have a pretty deep abandonment wound. I don’t like being left and so like to leave first. From him not contacting after we kissed, to him paddling off without me, my HE’LL ABANDON ME WHEN I NEED HIM alarm bells start going off full throttle. What’s even more crazy is the realisation that the massive fight that we had in the middle of the water was just a projection of me fighting with my own dissatisfaction. He had said to me ‘I’ve told you what to do but you aren’t f*cking listening to me. You aren’t trying hard enough. You aren’t even pointing in the right direction’ to which I retaliated ‘F*ck you, I am doing my best. I am getting pulled out by the current and I don’t really know what I am doing. I haven’t done this much before, you know that.’
He says ‘I am turning back, we’ll go another day. You’re too far away and by the time you get there and back I’ll be burnt.’ To which I reply ‘I have tried so hard to get here, I don’t want to give up now. I want to get to the island. I don’t want all of this effort to be a waste.’
This is overwhelmingly identical to the conversation I have been have with myself most days regarding venturing down a new career path, a complete new way of living. My voice gets louder and more consistent but his voice still creeps in. I have so much I know I am capable of and want to share with the world but sometimes that inner critic, self judgement, not feeling good enough creeps back up. And when you try and push it away and not give it a voice, as I have been, it finds another way of playing out. In real life, on a date in the middle of the ocean!
The extent and volume of my projections are endless the more we unravelled in conversation at the workshop. I don’t like my dissatisfaction, I feel uncomfortable around it and so it’s playing out. Looking for attention and love. So I know I need to give it this. What is it about?
I try to go to my first AA meeting after the workshop. I was all excited; look at me go, celebrating my bravery and self awareness! I can’t find anyone at the meeting and suddenly feel like this little girl looking for help, tired of doing this all by herself. Wanting someone to hold her hand on this road and not leave her to have to do it all alone. I walk along the beach and the tears start to come. This isn’t easy, it’s a lonely journey and whilst I know that’s my doing, its hard to break free of the pattern.
I sit on the beach gazing at the sky full of stars, tears streaming and let it all come up. I become aware that the dissatisfaction is about not feeling protected as a teenager. I then become further aware that because of this, I decided that I wasn’t worthy of protection and so for a good twenty past years have been punishing myself by not protecting me. The drinking has been a loud cry for help that I didn’t want answered. I just wanted others to see how much that lack of protection hurt me. Listen to the shrill telephone ring in their ears whilst I refused to stop calling. It’s heartbreaking to feel how much I have hurt myself over the years projecting this dissatisfaction with my protection as a child. But I guess things need to break to be put back together sometimes.
I talked in In the Silence about how I had found peace in playing out my greatest fears. In the death of those I love. And through this coaching workshop we got to that the peace was in the old relationship dying. The old relationship has to die for a new one to be born. And the new one can then be born in pure love.
I say all the time that ‘Beautiful new beginnings are often disguised as painful endings’ but it’s not always easy to see this by yourself. We need each other as guides.
Whilst today, I am still sitting with the little girl who didn’t feel protected, acknowledging how much pain that caused her. Seeing it, feeling it and asking her what she needs now. I am also so aware of just how powerful I am at creating my reality through projection. I feel a bit in awe, scared and cautious of just what I could create harnessing my inner freedom to create from love. I have always been aware that my capacity for love is my superpower, but feared it. It feels like offering my raw unprotected heart out in my hand and that it could destroy me. The fear sits with me so strongly I feel sick to my stomach. But I can keep my heart in my chest, me and my little girl can hold hands and look after it together. Secure that together we can look after each other, our heart and don’t need to put others through the ringer to test whether they can protect it. Together it feels safe. Together we had another chance at true love. Together we are free.
Before I sign off to take some time to allow this new awareness to integrate. I want to bring in forgiveness. Often when I increase my awareness, I notice some negative self talk creep in; I should have known sooner, annoyed at myself for standing in my own way or concerned what emotions I have left someone else with. What I focus on is that you don’t have to forgive the situation to forgive the person. I can know that I hurt myself or someone in a specific situation but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t doing the best I could, with the tools I had at the time. I can choose to ruminate over what I could have done better or I can choose to forgive myself and choose love.
At times like these when there are a lot of raw emotions surrounding this expansion of awareness, I return to Hoʻoponopono, the traditional Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness. I meet myself in the eyes in the mirror and reconcile with myself.
I am sorry
I forgive you
Thank you
I love you
