Are you awakened or asleep?
I’ve been asking myself that question for a long time! So if you’re wondering, you’re not alone.
And when I’m honest with myself, I have to say: BOTH!
Recently one of my mentors, David Neagle, posted this quotation from Leland Val Van De Wall on Facebook:
“The degree to which a person can grow is directly proportional to the amount of truth he can accept about himself without running away.”
I’ve been hearing about the Time of Awakening since early in my adulthood certainly. And I’ve wondered what it means, thought I knew what it meant, then realized that even though I had the concept down that actually LIVING in an awakened state is a never-ending process.
Because no matter how awakened I become, there’s always more for me to wake up to. There are always more places in which I’m sleeping, unconscious to the truth because of my conditioning from this and other lifetimes.
My desire to be safe underlies all of this, cultivated from lifetimes of persecution and violence as a healer, teacher and outspoken woman. And no doubt I say, no doubt, also playing the role of persecutor as well. Because my understanding is that we have all been all of it. In and out of lifetimes, playing this role and that. We can hope learning, growing and expanding along the way.
~> How much truth can I accept about myself without running away?
It’s a provocative question, isn’t it?
~> How much truth can you accept about yourself without running away?
Okay, I’ll go first.
Here’s a kind of tricky, icky one I’ve become aware of recently.
I’ve had a martyr thing going on. I’m good at hiding it, so much so that I didn’t even know it was there. But this is how it shows up:
In ordinary reality, I do this by taking on too much responsibility for other people, whether it’s my family or my students and clients. I have pretty good boundaries, so it doesn’t show up quite as a lack of boundaries. Instead it shows up as is doing too much myself that I could have someone else do. (Of course this dovetails nicely with my desire to be in control, but that’s another story!)
~> My story: I think I HAVE TO BE THE ONE that does this or that. It does not even occur to me that I could delegate certain things because I can’t conceive that someone else would or could do it as well or like I do. This has been so embedded that I have not been able to see it until recently. Of course being the principal of a small company and a mother potentially feeds this every single day!
How does this affect me? It’s exhausting, first of all. It also keeps my life and my business smaller than they could be because too much is dependent on me and I am only one person. I have unconsciously set it up that way. So much so, that I’ve had trouble finding or keeping the right support people in certain key positions in my life. Fascinating, right? Because this feeds right back into itself. What I get most frustrated about is something I am creating.
Why? That I’m not that sure about—but I’m pretty sure it has to do with (1) lack of trust based on past life experiences, and (2) desire to control so that I can feel safe, and (3) need to be needed to prove my worth in some way.
Now I’m awake to all of this. Has it changed? Being aware does begin the shift, because until I see it, I don’t have a chance of changing it. And it’s always an inside job, first. I’m seeing more and more places where this story plays itself out in my life, and I’m shifting it piece by piece.
- I just hired another person onto my team.
- I’m instituting changes in the way that we do things in my business so that the systems support us rather than my memory and brain.
- We’ve changed our daughter’s school so that she’s getting more there that we were trying to give her outside of school (in progress, stay tuned).
- I’m making my body and health a priority over me getting certain things done—and that is forcing me to delegate or otherwise let go control.
And there’s more. Once you wake up to conditioning as old and widespread as that it takes awhile to reorganize yourself. I actually don’t recommend trying to do too much too soon. That can be super stressful in many ways and in the end not that helpful because there is always a backlash if you can’t integrate a change.
We would see this after our 10 day Clarity Breathwork® retreats. Participants would be full of new insights on their lives and patterns and we would caution them: DO NOT go home get a new job or business, ditch your partner, or move, for at least a few weeks! Breathe, integrate, then allow your awareness of what to do next to emerge. You’ll know, if you listen in.
So what about you? What truth can you allow in, with acceptance and compassion, not self judgment? What can you awaken in yourself that will enable you to be more free?
Because in the end, awakening is all about freedom, isn’t it?
Leave a comment either about what this article meant to you, or to share something you are awakening to. I always love to hear from you—we’re all in this together, right?