Holding the Change
“We are changing, growing and constantly evolving. Don’t you love that!”
– Louise Geary
As you learn to recognise your qualities and all that lives within you, once you realise how freeing it is to acknowledge the darker qualities and bring them into the light then your life expands and so many possibilities and opportunities arise.
Then in comes the doubt, the fear, the resistance to growth. “Will I be able to hold the growth out in the big wide world?”
Yes you will if you:
1. Keep practicing.
Keep doing the things that you know work for you.
Keep connecting to your inner being, your feminine energy, ground in your body, feet on the earth and fill the space around you.
Hold an awareness of your shadowed self and continue bringing these qualities to light.
These things might seem hard to do.
Really all that’s required, is your attention within and your intention to live consciously.
And keep returning to this.
2. Check in with yourself often through your day.
This doesn’t need to take a lot of time.
Slow down. Take some time to sit and allow yourself to feel. Just listen and observe how you’re feeling. There is no right or wrong, no good or bad.
You don’t need to have a solution or to fix the problem, feelings are just messengers, they don’t need to be shut down, cleared, changed, let go.
Usually feelings that are stagnant or feel overwhelming, are feelings that are being ignored, not heard, pushed away or suppressed.
When I try not to feel, I either:
Deaden my energy and my self expression. This can result in me not being able to connect to others, not being seen, heard and sometimes not valued or
I might start to feel like a pressure cooker, never knowing when the lid will blow.
and
c. Both of these are exhausting.
When I allow myself to feel without judgement or story, I start to become more present.
This is the way to be fully in my body and fully and deeply connect to others.
3. Be kind and gentle when you lapse…because you will lapse.
That’s part of strengthening your willingness and building your new skill.
Your spirit is just prodding you a little to see if you really know this stuff!
One of the best ways to remember gentleness and kindness is to bring attention to your thoughts, your body and your energy.
If you find your self speaking in the voice of critic, judge or angry parent, if you feel the emerging sense of let down or guilt, if your energy seems to wilt, disperse or explode then bring your self fully into your body here and now.
Your awareness is in your pelvis and your feet are firmly on the earth. You fill the space around you like you are a light. When you are anchored in this space there is no room for unkindness. You are embodied.
From this space a lapse is a gift from spirit to help you practice being grounded and embodied in you.
4. Accept that you are not perfect and imperfection is a gift.
In imperfect you gain compassion, self understanding and others recognise themselves in you. Not many people want a guru.
If you are a coach or a practitioner, you know how powerful your own story of overcoming the odds is for your clients. It gives them hope, they see themselves in you and they know that you can help them get there.
So embrace your imperfections. They teach us, they reach out to others and they keep us humble.
5. Surround yourself with friends, colleagues, mentors and others who see your value, who support you and sometimes challenge you.
It is so much harder to do this alone. And it can be very easy to think that everyone else has got this, that they have no problems.
Create or find a community that helps you hold the charge…and the change…and the growth.
Go for it.