We practiced ALIVE
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You know the pleasure when life presents you with the perfect soundtrack for exactly this present moment? I recommend you play this before, during and / or after reading.
We are all strangers to ourselves. No kidding.
https://open.spotify.com/track/6ibiAgBvPvnAZsMr6e32IH?si=75d6cdfb45b64cdf
Here in the northern hemisphere the days are getting shorter and shorter, the trees have almost shed all their golden, copper and red leaves, sometimes it is rainy, misty, grey and sombre, at other times it is crystal clear, sunny, with bright blue skies. We are slowly and surely descending into the darkness. On a lovely date the other day I learned that around the equinoxes, the loss/gain of light is more drastic than around the solstices. Fascinating. Who would have known?
We are here today to keep exploring the darkness, exactly those parts of ourselves we so often desperately and at times more or less successfully keep hidden, locked away, exiled and disguised. Interesting time to be writing about this, as we are approaching Samhain, Halloween, and Día de los Muertos. Different cultural heritage and tradition, all with similar flavour - the light makes space for the dark, we connect with ancestors, welcome winter after the harvest ends, when the veils between the living and the dead are thinning. At the threshold of winter, the living get to make space for the dead. This might be a great moment to say hello to our monsters, our inner monsters, too. And maybe the darkest thing about you isn't your monsters, but how desperately we try to hide them. So, welcome, meet the monster.
You think it’s easy for me to always feel ALIVE? Hell no. Sometimes it’s really hard work to remember that. And having someone around on the regular to remind you, that’s gold. Let me be that someone for you.
I have space for 3 leaders.
For the places where you already know something has to move- your body, relationships, sexuality, power, creativity, LIFE. To get my attention on it, apply to work with me privately. Before winter begins.
Today is an invitation for you to be with what you consider monstrous in yourself. And there surely is something. Maybe it is so deep down inside of you, maybe it has never ever seen the light, maybe you completely deny its existence, but let's be honest for a moment: we all have them. We all have monsters. And often what we consider monsters ourselves are not even that monstrous from the outside. Again, who says what is good? Who gets to decide what is bad? May it be jealousy, greed, cruelty, neediness, rush, lust, rage, entitlement, self-involvement, possessiveness, hatred, faith, delusion - who decided those parts were unacceptable?
THE STORY
Last week you had the honour and privilege to meet my inner entitled bitch. Hand kiss, my pleasure (NOT. Blushing, winding like an earthworm flushed out onto the sidewalk in a heavy fall rain, dying of shame on the inside, digging myself a deep hole in the earth to burry myself in). Ciao. Auf Nimmerwiedersehen. Hasta la vista. As you can tell, my monsters scare the shit out of me. I do have a strong sense of entitlement, of taking, of this belongs to me, obviously. Ask my parents and my sister (please don't). I used to use my knowledge and expertise of the nervous system against the ones I love. I am manipulative, refuse to take responsibility and I am highly avoidant. I have times when I am needy af or simply an asshole. You still with me? Because I'm kinda out of here. Are those traits mere ways of covering what's happening underneath? My deepest existential fears, what makes me wanna die? I think so. To me it seems way easier and doable to claim what is not mine instead of being vulnerable and asking for it, for example. I am extremely attached to plans, and I have very set expectations of how things should go, of how plans should be made and be followed through with. Flexibility is extremely hard for me, and yet, I often pretend to be cool about it. I am not. Show the fuck up. This can be monstrous, for sure. When I returned to the lands of my ancestors for law 2.0, I began acquiring a deeper understanding of the nervous system. The teachings and practices I got to study and explore first and foremost removed me even further from connection. After the first retreat in those modalities, I did not follow through with the plan of meeting up with my partner at the time, took a solo decision to extend the retreat experience with friends from there, and simply presented him with my decision. Zero conversation to be had. I had decided. Period. I did a miserable job in communicating. That retreat made me realize how much we had connected on a surface level only, and it disgusted me. Once we met again in person, I tried to apply what I had learned. My level of piercing presence scared him shitless. He did not recognize me. And I can see now how I abused my newly acquired skills to push him away. Avoidant? Me? No fucking way.
As we're already here, I might as well introduce you to another monster of mine: passive aggression. Hello. Another hole in the earth may open, please. This one is a specialty when I speak with members of my family and or feel violated by strangers, eg in traffic or public transport. Good luck. She's a bitch.
Not wanting to live? Feeling suicidal? Dig my grave.
Financial recklessness and incapacity to manage my money sustainable? Another grave, please.
You think it’s easy for me to always feel ALIVE? Hell no. Sometimes it’s really hard work to remember that. And having someone around on the regular to remind you, that’s gold. Let me be that someone for you.
I have space for 3 leaders.
For the places where you already know something has to move- your body, relationships, sexuality, power, creativity, LIFE. To get my attention on it, apply to work with me privately. Before winter begins.
Having wanted solid partnership for years, and still running away? Feeling magnetized and wildly attracted by unavailable people? Keep digging.
Building a business, a personal brand, having no fucking clue what I'm doing? Yes, another grave, please.
Wanting more, more, more, always? More money, more love, more sex, more connection, more time, more play, more presence, more adventure, more chocolate? Being insatiable? You're still digging, right?
As we now have dug an entire graveyard, let's keep it at that.
You see, there are many monsters inside this beautiful shell. Do I like them? Definitely not. Do I try to hide them? Definitely. I do try to hide them from everybody, including myself. They are buried, some deeper and better than others. it causes a lot of stress, this effort to keep what I consider monsters in the dark. Don't ask me who or what decided that those monsters were unacceptable. Perhaps simply the fact that they are not nice, not neat, not pretty, makes them menstruous enough. You know that feeling when someone calls out one of those monsters? On a date last week someone named my sweetness, and innocence, and also my avoidance. Hearing the avoidance part definitely wanted me to disappear. But I stayed. And that feeling of having a monster seen, that created intimacy. That brought me closer, to myself, what I consider as monstrous, what I don't want in myself, and to that person.
THE PATTERN
Monsters tend to share a sentiment - they are deeply misunderstood, no matter if in fairytales, Disney movies, or inside our own selves, our psyche, or folklore. And what do we do with something or someone we cannot understand and perhaps fear? We exile them. We shun them. We disbelong them. We outcast them. We lock them in. We build precise, high walls so they cannot enter and disturb the seeming peace and light and love. Bullshit. They will, eventually, rock your world. Exile is not helping. It makes the monsters grow, fester and become really, really mean. Chances are that they are in the drivers seat. Chances are that they are making us take decisions which are not in our best interest. But they cannot be ignored. They cannot be silenced. They need your love and attention. The parts of ourselves we refuse to see, the parts of ourselves that we refuse to offer a seat at the table, they often run the show. Because we are trying so, so hard to not let them. And changing the seating order is really hard work. Who wants to offer the monsters a seat at the table? Yeah, exactly. I'm getting inspired to rearrange the seating order at my inner banquet. After all, the monsters are just hungry, too. Let's bring another couvert for rage, lust, entitlement, neediness, sluttiness, aggression, one for the whores and the pimps, another one for greed, laziness, slowness, the desire to end your own life, one for fear, one for desperation, and whoever else needs a seat.
The monsters want to be met. No need to unleash them, but meet them. Light the candles, pull out the chairs, and meet them. This might be a very beautiful first step in letting them life, soften, relax into them, into letting them be, instead of acting from them. This might be the invitation to have compassion, simply by letting exist, coexist with accountability.
You think it’s easy for me to always feel ALIVE? Hell no. Sometimes it’s really hard work to remember that. And having someone around on the regular to remind you, that’s gold. Let me be that someone for you.
I have space for 3 leaders.
For the places where you already know something has to move- your body, relationships, sexuality, power, creativity, LIFE. To get my attention on it, apply to work with me privately. Before winter begins.
Continue to INVITATION, SOCIETAL REFLECTIONS and EMBODIED INQUIRY.
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