This blog is an accumulation of over two years of experiences; changes in my life and shifts in my awareness. I am a different person than I was 2 years ago when I started to write it . . .
I’ve always had in my opinion moderate, reasonable and centrist views. Live and let live. We are a society of laws and as citizens we should follow and protect them and if the laws get outdated as they surely have and will, they can be amended. Each one of us can either contribute to upholding or changing the laws in one form or another; from protesting, donating money to a cause, joining groups, educating ourselves, running for office, etc. We have choices to either do something or do nothing. For the purpose of this blog, I judge neither approach. Live and let live.
I fundamentally believe that people are good and that we are all connected. It is the foundation upon which I’ve built my life and my work. There are a lot of issues going on right now nationally and globally and along with it so much understandable emotion and reactivity. What I’m finding personally challenging is that in order not to offend or upset anyone, it’s become difficult to express my own thoughts and feelings to anyone other than my husband, family, closest friends and clients and even then, if I’m honest, I find myself being careful. It feels like I’ve become responsible for how other people feel.
My mother passed away a couple of years ago and although she was in her mid-80s, her death was sudden and unexpected. One moment, she was a healthy vibrant senior who still walked, drove and played golf. After experiencing some minor discomfort (long story short), within less than 3 months she was gone. As much as I love and miss my mom and am grateful for all that she has taught me, this blog is about the discoveries I made after she passed.
As anyone knows who has planned a funeral, you and your family are literally running on empty trying to put together something meaningful to honour the person that you’ve lost with little sleep, while either pushing off or handling your own grief and sadness. If you’re blessed like I am, you have someone in the background (my wonderful hubby) preparing meals and snacks for you and reminding you to keep your strength up, eat and rest.
I’ve never really needed people to comfort me in my life’s transitions as I’m fairly independent and have truly gone through many of them alone but it’s true what they say about losing both parents; it’s a real thing. Someone dear to me shared a great metaphor; she said it’s like your house is still there but the roof has been blown off so you feel totally exposed. Having lost my dad many years ago, my mom was my last remaining parent.
I sent out copies of her funeral service details to family and friends. In my grief-stricken state, my heart was open and it was my way of asking for support (which I literally have never done). I didn’t expect everyone to attend her funeral and we were still in the latter parts of the COVID pandemic where people were still masking and some were uncomfortable being in public spaces but I did honestly hope that some would; especially the people who had told me how important I was to them. My mother’s funeral was very well attended; there were more people there than we expected and my family and I were incredibly grateful and felt supported by family and friends. That being said, I couldn’t help feeling sad, hurt and disappointed at the friends of mine who didn’t show up. It felt like a slight not just to me but also to my mother.
I’ve attended events for these people that I knew were important to them to show support, whether it was weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, dinners, get togethers, etc., not that this should be a transactional thing. Although I recognize that some of my friends have never met my mother, this was literally one of the only times in my life where I felt I could have used a little support.
I want to mention that some of my friends did show up (even some people I didn’t expect) and how incredibly grateful I felt and comforted that they made the time to be there. Let’s be honest – funerals suck and no one wants to be there. That’s not the point. The point is to be there for people you care about to show support and sit in the sadness and discomfort with them. Or even just to show your face for 5 min. before the service and leave. I even had one friend who had COVID at the time drive to the funeral just to sit in her car outside by herself so she could show support.
My initial reaction after the hurt (and it really did hurt) was that it released me from my feeling of obligation towards them. I realized how many events I had attended in my life and how much of my time I had given for those ‘friends’ and suddenly felt no obligation to do those things anymore.
It was my husband who pointed out that I should tell them how I felt and I realized that I was afraid to take the emotional risk of letting them know how when they didn’t show up, I felt like the loss of my mother, and I, were so unimportant to them that they couldn’t even sacrifice literally a couple of hours of their time (once in their life) to attend. The couple of people I mentioned something to were initially deflective and defensive. It was like adding insult to injury.
In my opinion, there are lots of people to celebrate the fun stuff in your life with but for me true friendships are the ones who stay in the sad and uncomfortable bits. I’ve tried to be that person both professionally and personally because it’s important to me. I understand my values may be different from other people and I’m certain that I’ve disappointed people and let them down unknowingly as well but this blog is about me and my feelings lol.
This experience made me reflect on how I spent a lot of my life doing things because it’s the right thing to do, being there for people and of course all the social obligations. People seem to really enjoy getting together for holidays, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries or just to get together. I’ve never personally understood it, but I appreciate that it’s important to people. I’ve attended a multitude of events for others, dinners, weddings, get togethers, family holiday events, barbecues, even trips. Honestly, events like these have always felt like work to me; it’s not that everyone isn’t nice or that I haven’t experienced enjoyment or benefited from them etc., it’s just not really of interest to me and has always felt like a social obligation. To be fair, it’s likely because I’m more interested in the conversations that people typically aren’t having in those group dynamics. I much prefer one on one interactions or doing something I consider to be fun or interesting in a group (taking a course, learning something, experiencing an event together, playing games or cards).
I realized it was kind for people to want to include me and that it was me that was accountable for my feelings and what I did moving forward. I wasn’t angry but curious as to why I had felt obligated in the first place. I knew it was time to take a hard look at myself.
I believe our purpose in life is simply to love and be loved. But this includes loving and being with ourselves. It’s about being honest and opening those dusty dark closets within us that we’ve been avoiding because they contain hurt, sadness, fear and guilt that we don’t want to deal with. Doing so is cathartic because you begin to find truths that realign you to yourself and your purpose. What’s challenging is when your internal world and your external reality are not lining up. It’s why I believe people abandon their dreams too early and settle for less than what they want.
For me it showed up as this theme in my personal life of people not reacting well to my truth; being dismissive, combative, angry or defensive. It feels like such an emotional risk to let people know what I’m really thinking that my initial reaction was that maybe I should stop doing it. The options for me felt like either stop sharing your truth and keep your relationships or keep expressing them and lose your relationships. I chose to keep going. However, after one of my oldest friends stopped speaking to me after what I felt was me just expressing in a respectful way my own beliefs and asking to be treated with kindness and consideration, something in me finally broke.
It’s maybe the most painful thing I’ve experienced. I was confronted with something I had been avoiding; the feeling of utter rejection for just being me. That it wasn’t safe to be me. I understand through my hypnosis work that these feelings we carry with us are likely from our childhood. It was dark. I’ve never consciously felt more alone or such despair. But I made the decision to stay with myself alone in the dark and processed these old emotions. I’m not going to lie. Letting go of old emotions is more painful, frightening and unfamiliar than just processing your everyday emotions. That being said, it’s also incredibly healing and cathartic and the release, joy, clarity and lightness that you feel on the other side is almost indescribable.
I finally understood what I had been doing. I was subconsciously not wanting to be rejected but realized it had been me rejecting myself all along. I realized that I had unknowingly been showing up in my personal relationships as less than myself in order to be accepted, acknowledged; essentially loved. Considering all the work I’ve done on myself (literally looking for things to work on i.e. self-improvement) and with others, I was surprised that I still had this thing that I had unknowingly carried.
I know it’s my hypnosis journey that has generously brought me this lesson. It’s accepting that being rejected and alone is a possible eventuality that released me from the fear of it. That the alternative of being less than myself for others is much worse. This learning, the clearing, insight, love and natural movement forward has motivated me even more to help others release themselves from their old hurts. I have more love, acceptance and compassion in my heart and am clear about being intentional where I put my energy and what is important to me.
Not rejecting myself has included trusting myself completely, trusting my intuition even when everyone around me is telling me something different, being honest with myself, taking notice and accountability for what I’m feeling and letting people take accountability for what they are feeling. It’s taking care of myself and my energy, forgiving myself, speaking my mind or choosing not to even when I know by doing so, it may have an impact on others and make them feel something negative or uncomfortable. I realized how much I’ve saved people from feeling bad just to take on the feelings myself and how much that has negatively affected my state of mind, my health and my well being. It’s also a disservice to them and I’m making a concerted effort not to do that anymore.
It’s easy when you’re alone but I still want to be in relationship with other people. I’m given permission in my work because my clients want to know. It’s not as easy in my personal life but I’ve accepted something that has made a profound change in my life. I accept that I will no longer be less for love and if that means I will eventually be rejected by others and alone I’m legitimately okay with that. I like myself. I love myself. I accept myself. I am proud of myself and feel profoundly grateful. It’s with this beautiful foundation that I can truly love and appreciate the people in my life with compassion and an open heart. Love asks us to be more of who we already are. It’s our purpose.
When your life has been cleared of these old relationships and old ghosts it creates a lot of space. At first, the space feels daunting as you don’t know how to fill it. But my job is not to fill it, it’s to keep it empty and open for whatever ideas will show up, whatever people or events will show up, and with an open heart and mind trust that when they do, I will know what to do, I will be able to handle whatever comes my way and I will share this journey with whoever wants to walk this path. I’m the most at peace that I’ve been in my whole life. Every day my understanding of love keeps expanding. Joy is my friend and wonder is my constant companion. Although the future isn’t clear, I am clear about the kind of person I want to be and the work I want to do. If something were to happen to me (knock on wood), I wouldn’t have any regrets and feel only love in my heart and gratitude for the amazing life I’ve been blessed to have and the amazing people I’ve met along the way.
Here’s my truth: In my opinion, when we remove too many barriers for people, we are doing them a disservice. Although the purpose is for them not to feel bad, it’s often through feeling bad that we have the greatest personal transformations; I know this as a coach and as a hypnotist; and most importantly as a person. The best way for us to contribute to bettering the world is to first and foremost deal with our own issues. Period. Other people are not responsible for our feelings. The best part is that this is simply a choice to make and something completely in our control.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. It means the world to me.