Hello, my pals ~
I met a new part of myself the other day.
She’s been around for a long time, but we had never been formally introduced. She’s operated behind the scenes, with her hands in nearly everything, but I was oblivious.
‘Til she finally stepped into the light after a disagreement with my honey husband. Small disagreement. Verrry large reaction on my part.
What the heck was THAT about? I wondered. Where did YOU come from?
It took some quiet “listening in” to untangle the threads. One by one, the feelings started to unravel.
Then the words came. Haltingly, searchingly, the words came.
There is a part of me
who thinks she knows
best …
better than anyone else.
She listens for any little indiscrepancies in people’s words and actions. She watches like a circling hawk, and when she senses something that’s incongruent, she activates and “comes to the rescue” by rising up and telling everyone that she knows better than they know themselves.
She diagnoses, details, directs, deploys and destroys anything that gets in her way.
Damn. She’s busy.
Once I tapped in to this part of me, staking myself to the ground with courageous wonder, I weathered her storm until it passed and I could begin to feel mySelf again.
“Where did you come from?” I asked her, more gently this time.
She showed me a slideshow of small betrayals littering the chapters of my life. Moments when someone I trusted did something that changed the weather in my mind.
A parent whose emotions shifted with the wind.
A former partner whose “forever” promise faded with the season.
A boss who praised publicly but scolded privately.
Deals that changed. Words that didn’t hold.
When I started to look, there was no shortage of things to see.
*****
It was 1987 and I was a first-year teacher. After being observed by my all-time favorite mentor, I was offered a reflection that had a profound effect on me.
“You’re very congruent,” she said. “Your words and actions align. That’s why your students trust you.”
In a flash, that word – congruent – lit up as one of my core values.
To be trustworthy meant to be congruent. And congruent was safe: no surprises, no sleight of hand.
Over time, if something didn’t add up, I read it as danger. You were untrustworthy. I was unsafe. I know that was the voice of trauma talking, but still I worked overtime to keep everything around me in line — believing I could manage my way to safety.
And so, let’s fast-forward to that oversized response to my sweet husband. Sure enough, there she is. That protector part. The knower of all things.
Now that I’ve met her — really met her — I can tend to her differently.
She’ll still show up. She’ll still want her say. But I can turn to her with a compassionate heart and whisper, “I see you. We’re okay. I’ve got this.” And instead of hijacking my nervous system, she might simply… tap me on the shoulder.
Will life’s little incongruencies continue? No doubt.
Will they mean the same thing to me?
Probably not.
Very likely, she and I will become friends, and we’ll learn to weather each storm together…sheltered in a space of allowing.
With lightning love and sturdy umbrellas,
Nancy |
|
|
