Monthly Archives: June 2021

To Be Of Service

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Not long ago I had a Vedic astrological reading. This system has some similarities to Western astrology, but is also very different in some fundamental ways. So while I have experience with Western astrology, working in a new system allowed me to see and understand aspects of myself that sometimes elude me.

One of those elusive aspects being my relationship to service in the world. My concern for the welfare of All that has been with me since I can remember. It has been a source of great joy for me at times. As well as a place of pain, confusion, distortion, and overwhelm. You would think helping others would be straightforward. It is anything but. For when you really begin to wonder what it actually means, looks like, and takes, to be of genuine and authentic service in the world, it gets a little, or a lot, murky, sticky, and oh so very tangled.

Personally, this exploration has been the single greatest, and most arduous endeavor I have ever taken on. Ever.

I use the phrase “taken on” intentionally. For to contribute in a healthy and meaningful way is to first and foremost choose to do the work of getting to know yourself inside and out. It is to come to understand why it is that you do what you do “in the service of others.” It is, paradoxically, to begin with yourself, not the other.

It is to seek out the dark and distorted places that look like help, but that are really masking your own personal gratification, neediness, and desperations around safety, belonging, and being seen and approved of. Ouch. And it is to recognize that much of what we do for others that looks so noteworthy, newsworthy and post-worthy, are in all actuality, about us. Basically, our attempts to look like a good person. To insinuate ourselves into the lives of others so that they need us. Cannot do without us, and think well of us.

Through it all, we deny our own needs and what is best for us in the name of sacrifice. The world loves this. It rewards and elevates those of us who do more than our share. Those of us who do not consider ourselves. Those of us who look “good” according to some cultural definition. Sadly, “rewarding” those of us who contribute in ways that allow others to not have to take responsibility for their own lives.

Enter 2020, and all of this takes on a deeper, darker, and more dangerous tone through the seemingly world-wide agreement to signal our virtue to one another based on whether or not we follow mandates that ask us to deny basic human needs. Based on whether or not we choose an experimental drug. Based supposedly on us doing all of this not for ourselves, but for others. Effectively separating us from our truest needs and the absolute, God-given right to bodily sovereignty.

To choose an action that leaves you out of the equation, that asks you to give up control over your own body, is to cause great harm to not only yourself, but to the people you say you are helping. For the Truth is, our collective is only as healthy as the individuals who make it up. Which begs the question: Why would we ever ask any individual to sacrifice their health and well-being for the good of all?

If this makes any sense to you, begin to get into the habit of asking yourself, “Why am I really doing this?” whenever you see yourself as helping the cause. Whenever you hear that voice, inside or out, that says “Do this, not for yourself, but for others.”

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Walls

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I recently read an article by a bodyworker who was talking about how we build false walls and false floors in our fascia and muscles to compensate for postural imbalances. Basically, all of the ways that we get ourselves positioned incorrectly, and then come to lean into those false constructions to free up the dominant side of the body so that it is available for action. I so know this process in my own body. And I so know how this way of holding myself both reflects and entrenches old, unhealthy states of mind.

In other words, how the walls in my body represent the ones I have built up inside of my own mind to keep me feeling safe. Balanced. Prepared and ready for action. Walls that have been created to give me a sense of security. Whether or not that is actually so having nothing to do with the maintenance of them in my life. Even going to great lengths to hold onto what does not work. What hurts. What is faulty.

Which is why coming to recognize that there has never been a single hurt that I have ever experienced as an adult that wasn’t connected to the past, has changed my Life.

For if you can come to see that how you view what is happening to you now as being somehow connected to long ago, you will have taken a most important step to freeing yourself up from the false constructions that set the stage for why you suffer now. This is not a rationale for staying stuck in the past. Instead, it is a reminder that what happens in the mind happens in the body, and that what happens in the body happens in the mind.

That we can go in through either doorway to change all of us.

Try it. Find one thing that bothers you now. Something you feel slightly hurt or disappointed by. Come up with a headline. For instance: “Feeling Unsupported.” Then, follow the bread crumbs back. Where in the past have you felt like this before? Drop all the names, the places, and the circumstances. What feels familiar to you from then to now? Name what it was for you, and then move. Dance it. Shake it. Wiggle and writhe it. Move your body in random and unusual ways until you feel like something has completed itself.

Then, watch yourself throughout the rest of your day. Is how what you lean into, or what is dominant, different somehow?

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To Retreat

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To retreat is an act or process of withdrawing

I am recently back from guiding a woman’s retreat in the mountains. On my first day home, I easily fell into a slower pace with a pronounced reluctance to jump back into what I routinely do. Instead, I felt called to not only slowing down, but to using that space to clear and organize my outer environment. This happened quite naturally, with no planning on my part. It all felt like something within me needed a gesture in the outer world to reflect back to me what was happening within me.

That being, to clear out the old. To honor the new and what it is that wants to come in. In a phrase, to withdraw from what has been in order to open to something more.

To retreat is an act of personal empowerment. It is a visionary choice that says,“It is time I withdraw from what I always do in the service of regrouping.” To even do this though requires having the courage to recognize that your way of being may not be serving you, or the world. It is a choice to get a scheduled tune-up to get your life realigned. It is a head-clearing vision that says, there is so much more.

To step out of our lives is an act of sanity. It is to recognize that we may be off track without even knowing how or where or why. It is an intentional pause, and the long over- due sigh that allows for the release of what needs to go. It is the breath long held that finally, finally, gets a chance to release in order to allow the next breath in. And always, and in all ways, it is a homecoming.

The world is in need of taking a step back. Personally and collectively. A kind of stepping back and away from where we are charging head first into the abyss of silo-thinking, fear, rushed choices, and an ignoring of perspectives that would include all of the costs and collateral damage that come from making decisions at warp speed. But that would take not only courage, but humility, an open mind, and the wisdom to back off until a fuller picture could reveal itself.

Where in your Life are you pushing too hard to make something happen? Trying to get to a resolve prematurely. And how would retreat be the bravest, sanest, and most life-affirming thing you could do? You don’t have to go far. Your own back yard will do. A commitment to be with yourself for even a few minutes quietly will do. And a dedication to understanding what drives your Life will always do. For you. And for the rest of us.

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In Whose Hands?

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I have been thinking about health for more than thirty years. Reflecting on questions like, What is health? What supports it? What undermines it? In whose hands does it belong? It has been a wondrous journey. A frustrating one. An illuminating, maddening, and empowering one. One that even on my worst days I would not trade for it has brought me health, and it has brought me into contact with that which still needs healing. Both personally and collectively.

But more than anything else it has brought me to me. Creating and shoring up a kind of sovereignty that I did not even know existed. Or needed. One that emanates from the inside out, and transcends the lobbying, the marketing, the hidden agendas, the outdated and narrow-minded science, and most of all, the fears and conditioning of my past.

But it has been arduous. Requiring that I come up against the places where I have abdicated my responsibility to another person. Or system. Or limiting belief. Mine or others. Or…fill in the blank. For to explore and claim total responsibility for your own health and well-being is an intensely deep, nuanced, and all-encompassing endeavor. As in, no stone left unturned.

So, let’s turn over one of the heaviest and most difficult of all stones to turn over. Playing the victim card. This is the part of you that says someone else is to blame, and therefore is ultimately responsible for, what happens to me. This is the voice that says I have no power here. I cannot possibly stand up for myself, fight back, or choose another way. Most especially, whenever I feel threatened and am up against that which I perceive to be bigger and more powerful than me, because I am too weak to hold the line and keep myself from being violated, accepting what does not feel right to me, I hand my power over to another.

Caroline Myss writes, “The core issue of the victim is whether it’s worth giving up your sense of empowerment to avoid taking responsibility for your independence.” Health is a central and guiding aspect of your independence. Where are you abdicating your power in this regard?  This one won’t be easy to get to as we live in a world that embraces, encourages, and justifies victim mentality. Meaning that, because so many around us have given over their power, we have come to believe that this is normal. The way it is. We even go so far as to bond with others around how we are being F’d with.

So if you want something else, you will need to look more deeply. Much more deeply.

 

Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential by Caroline Myss

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