Insecurity and safety
The squeeze keeps going, into the vulnerable places that we try to ignore. I’ve known it needed exploring but it was always possible to put it on the back burner, keep busy, pop it in the shadows, hope it might resolve itself without too much effort on my part. Those of you doing the work will know what i mean. You’ll also know that you cannot help it to resolve without going to those vulnerable places; it’s the natural lore!
It needs expression, release, a voice, a way of being digested, expelled.
I’m always, always blown away by how it works, the coincidences and the synchronicities, the seemingly small things that the universe sends in to help us feel the uncomfortableness of staying stuck and yet the uncomfortableness of finding our voice and speaking what needs to be said. Urgh.
It’s all good though. Today I’m very aware that it’s a beautiful world, really it is, however awful we may feel or however challenged or squeezed, really it is a beautiful world and it will support us and meet us as we need to be met. Everything is perfectly ordered in our lives, we just need to notice it.
This is the message that i received today and if you are reading this then you might relate to it too:
“Perfectionists often have conditional self-esteem: They like themselves when they are on top and dislike themselves when things don't go their way. Can you learn to like yourself even when you are not doing well? Focus on inner qualities like your character, sincerity, or good values, rather than just on what grades you get, how much you get paid, or how many people like you. “
This my friends is what underlays my current healing. This feeling is not a very pleasant feeling, laid down in childhood, the insecurity one feels from not living up to one’s idea of perfectionism, which I believe it underpinned by the need to keep safe.
I felt like I had found the missing part of the jigsaw puzzle when I read this:
“Some of us have very high standards for everything we do. You may want the highest grades, the best job, the perfect figure, the most beautifully decorated apartment or house, neat and polite kids, or the ideal partner. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always turn out exactly the way we want, even if we work extra hard. There is a piece of the outcome that is at least to some degree out of our control. Bosses may be critical, jobs may be scarce, partners may resist commitment, or you may have genes that make it difficult to be skinny. If you are constantly disappointed and blaming yourself for being anything less than perfect, you will start to feel insecure and unworthy. While trying your best and working hard can give you an advantage, other aspects of perfectionism that are unhealthy. Beating up on yourself and constantly worrying about not being good enough can lead to depression and anxiety, eating disorders, or chronic fatigue.” Psychology Online.
It’s always such a relief when we see more clearly into the shadows and make sense of that which we have been trying to understand for a good old while now. I’ve written a third book as many of you know, about my journey with depression and eating disorder to a point, the two are so interlinked it’s difficult sometimes to separate them; they feed into each other. I’ve been trying to explore the root of all of this, to understand more of what caused it all to begin. I had known on some level, but this substantiates it in a way that had not been so visible previously.
It feels like an ending in many respects. Kali came into my life the other day, the Goddess of endings and new beginnings, of death ultimately, and it all make perfect sense. We need to the ending, the dying, the letting go, the grieving and the sorrow. Like a fire we combust that which is no longer needed into ash, and this can be added to the soil in which we grow new seeds. It is all a cycle.
Our inherent feelings of safety on this planet are all being tested right now, Covid has tested the habits and patterns that we have created in our lives to give us a sense of feeling safe, whether that is real or imagined. The rug has been pulled from under our feet and we are trying to find our grounding again, clutching at anything which makes us feel safe, even if it is just imagined. We are all being squeezed, to heal those wounds which prevent us from feeling inherently safe in our connection to the universe, to God, to a higher power, however you want to define ‘it’.
It’s not easy though, because we have to go to those vulnerable places. I see this in yoga. We know, the ancient texts tell us, that yoga can help to cease the fluctuations of the mind, can help to ease our suffering, but even then, even knowing this, it can be too confronting for many to go there in the first place. We might try, we might like to stretch the body, build strength, take a few photos for instagram, but something stops us letting the practice take us deeper, into the shadows, to the spirit, to the heart of yoga.
It’s a shame and while I’m delighted that yoga has become more mainstream with increasing numbers of people teaching yoga now, and some with very few years of practice or experience, it doesn't matter because it is spreading yoga out into the world. But, my concern is that what is being taught is no more than an exercise class, that lacks the potential of yoga, so that many are buying into the idea that they are practising yoga but are able to remain unaffected by it, so that yoga is diluted and not allowed it’s expression either.
But i have to trust in that, because if I don’t then I can feel the frustration creep in, especially when i hear about rising levels of depression and anxiety and increasing use of medication to create feelings of safety and security, to try to mask the inherent feelings of insecurity. There is another way. It’s not easy, but it is worth it when you get there. A whole new world awaits, that you could never have imagined, when you find that place within yourself, your centre maybe, that helps you to access your inner strength and sense of security, challenged as it might be from time to time.
Just for today, we let go of all that is in our way. Just for today, we allow ourselves to go to those tricky places. Just for today we hug ourselves and remind ourselves how beautiful we are inside and out. Just for today we celebrate our perfections and our imperfections in equal measure. Just for today we acknowledge our vulnerability and we’re OK with that, rejoice in it even, because we have to go there to pop through teh other side, into a more compassionate level of being, more connected, more trusting. Then the feelings of safety arise naturally. We are safe, we are safe, we are safe.
