A week of #aha and the intersection of experience with Change your Thoughts Change your Life
It’s funny how we can cruise through the days just doing our own thing and then others we’re deep in it, getting hit with lessons, epiphanies and aha moments like no ones business.
This was one of those weeks.
As I meandered through the days attempting to go gently with myself, entering into energetic autumn and recovering from illness there were so many moments of reflections and realisation that I wanted to share them with you here.
aha #1: No one actually cares that you helped them for free- this is a good thing
This was a tough lesson to learn and one that kept coming around for me. Every time I thought I’d dealt with it, another gratitude post for how transformational x advice or guidance was, would pop up and poke my ego. I’d stew on my hurt as to how I’d said the same thing to them ages before or wonder how they can discount all of the guidance I had given that brought them to that place of paying to work with someone in the first place. Bottom line, it was all about my block around wanting my talents and expertise acknowledged.
It goes all the way back to grade 3 when I was at a loss why I could never seem to get a merit certificate no matter how hard I tried, how well I behaved, or how perfect my work was. I remember going to my teacher in tears because, yet another assembly had passed with no merit certificate, and in fact one of the naughtiest boy in the class had got one. She carefully explained to me that it was to encourage him to do more of the good stuff. It left me feeling bewildered and deflated, that my efforts that she seemed to think were so effortless, weren’t worth anything.
So back to my present day need for acknowledgement…I was listening to Wayne Dyer’s Change your Thoughts Change your Life, which, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is essentially his take on Lao Tzu’s, Tao Te Ching.
The 17th Verse
With the greatest leader above them,
people barely know they exists.
Next comes one whom the love and praise.
Next comes comes one whom they fear.
Next comes one whom they despise and defy.When a leader trusts no one,
no one trusts him.The great leader speaks little.
He never speaks carelessly.
He works without self-interest
and leaves no trace.
When all is finished, the people say,
“We did it ourselves.”
(Dyer, Change your Thoughts Change your Life, p76)
This verse immediately made me feel better about it all. I realised that to lead well, is to leave no trace. And it was completely aligned with the process of Creatrix® that I facilitate which causes a download of source-like personal wisdom to my clients. I do not generate their learnings, they do, by tapping into their pure state of being through the Creatrix® process, so apart from being the facilitator, I can claim no glory for it. This was humbling and brought me back in alignment, thus enabling me to let go of the attachment to recognition that I still felt to some degree. Gone. What a relief!
Aha #2: No matter how enlightened you think you are there’s always more work to do
It’s like some people never quite make it out of high school. No matter how enlightened we become and how much baggage we unload, a miscommunication or or perceived injustice can tail-spin some of us right back to grade 9. Now I’m paraphrasing here but this message left me dumbfounded: “I won’t be your friend anymore because you’re friends with such-and-such and I’m not friends with them anymore”. Surely this was something my 9-year-old daughter would be fielding not me nearing 39!! In any case I refused to buy into the drama. I knew vaguely what had gone down but it was nothing to do with me and I chose to stay out of it.
In fact quite a number of unrelated conflicts played out on social media this week, but they played in the background of me working on my business, caring for my sick children and resting in recovery from my own ill health. My priorities were elsewhere, and I was cautiously directing my energy to things that added value to my life. On the occasions that I’d look up from life, I was confronted with energetic lashings-out. But sadly no amount of talking about Karma changes the fact that circumventing the gruelling work of conflict resolution for the easier court of public opinion, is not the path to emotional freedom. It was at this time that I was profoundly moved by this passage from Change your Thoughts Change your Life (p178) where Dyer quotes from The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu, translated by Witter Bynner:
“He who feels punctured
must have been a bubble,
He who feels unarmed,
must have carried arms,
He who feels deprived,
must have had privilege…”
It made me consider those times when I had felt bullied by others and I re-evaluated how my actions contributed, amplified or attracted that experience. And how my responses perpetuated it. So when I was approached in this manner, I let it be their choice to let the friendship go on those terms. I realised that there was no reasoning with the irrational. There were too many emotions of hurt and betrayal to counter and any suggestion to clear those before making a decision would have been poorly received. I had to let them go with love and grace. Their lesson was theirs and my lesson was mine. It made me realise that I’d come a long way but that I still had a few things to Creatrix®. It made me nervous and pushed my “but I want everyone to like me” button. Guess what got added to my monthly intra-support list of blocks to be cleared?!
Aha #3: Authenticity is layered
I spent this week really revelling in my eccentricities and peculiarities. My apparent dichotomous oscillation from pragmatic to spiritual, from rational to irrational, from intellectual to emotional, from the mind to the body, bought me great joy and deep discoveries. And the more I let these dichotomous elements play out as simply parts of my whole rather than opposing forces, the more delicious my authentic journey is, a spectrum of authenticity if you will. It is as Dyer states in Change your Thoughts, Change your Life,
“Once the dichotomies or pairs of opposites are transcended, or at least seen for what they are, they flow in and out of life like the tides.” (p10)
However, I’ve noticed that there are those who cannot see past the dichotomies and hold the opposition of sides to be sacred, believing you to either be authentic or inauthentic, that if views change you are contradicting yourself rather than acknowledging the historical synthesis of ides, that growth and development spirals and isn’t linear. So my re-learning (as it wasn’t the first time I was struck by this thought) of the layered nature of authenticity gave me permission to ease further into it, without the need to feel as though I somehow wasn’t authentic before. I am a spiralling authentic being. I have always been an authentic being. I always will be an authentic being. But my many layers of authenticity are still, and will be forever unfolding.