September 2024: Rise to Thrive
After lunch on the back deck, I enjoyed soaking up the warmth of the sun while I read over my journal entries for the month of September. Once again, I was surprised at what was all “accomplished” internally. Several themes appeared appropriate for a blog – which is good in that my original idea was to blog about my newly defined Internal Family System – but due to a recent development, I am postponing that one for a later date.
One of this month’s more significant activities was having a table at a health & wellness event in a nearby community. This activity was significant for a few reasons. Firstly, I was inspired by my “table neighbour” and our discussion of her monthly ‘brain gym’ online meetings that also provide a sense of community and connectivity. It got me mulling over possible online support groups that I could offer without taxing clientele’s financial resources and my energy reserves, as I tend to overextend myself without proper compensation. But this is not a blog about healthy boundaries.
I put feelers out regarding what might be feasible and the general consensus was to offer a monthly discussion group based upon my blogs. For the fee of one counselling session ($125), a “subscriber” will have one-year access to the monthly online discussion group to be held for an hour in the afternoon of the last Sunday of each month – and a receipt they can submit to insurance for reimbursement if they have benefits that covers counselling by a certified counsellor (not all plans do). If you need more details, please email barb@thewindingpath.ca.
This is significant for me as it is putting myself ‘out there’ on a level beyond online dating! It will also fill the void left by the absence of the online meetings of colleagues, as in spring I resigned from the two boards on which I was serving. It will be an experiment and yet another stretching exercise – much like the health & wellness event itself. I was pleasantly surprised how I wasn’t consumed with anxiety – which became a springboard for exploring my internal family system. While my anxiety may have taken a back seat, my chronic fatigue syndrome decided to show up unexpectedly – literally knocking me on my ass.
At the end of the event, as we were cleaning up our tables, I suddenly collapsed – creating quite the commotion – and embarrassment for me with all eyes focused in my direction. But I made a conscious effort not to entertain shame messages and simply got back to the task at hand with an offhand explanation that my ankle had given out (which it does do sometimes). It took a couple days to figure out what actually happened – my electrolytes and blood pressure dropped causing the collapse. I say collapse as I was standing still. I wrote in my journal that it felt like someone had tugged on my spinal cord and I sank like a bag of bones to the floor. It was quite bizarre. But it illustrates how chronic fatigue syndrome is multi-faceted and sometimes sneaks up on a person – especially if they forget to take their morning meds & supplements!
Onto the third impactful aspect of the event – that troublesome internalized shame. While in that particular moment, I was able to keep it at bay, I had other opportunities this month to face my shame messages – especially the one that fears judgement and getting in trouble. Now, how to synthesize all the lessons succinctly into a few paragraphs? I realized that when I am on the receiving end of criticism, there are two factors to consider: fear and power.
In the one instance, I felt shame because I failed to anticipate the person’s fear and protect them – their fear was projected onto me as my responsibility. Light bulb moment, as in my family-of-origin, it was my role to anticipate emotional needs and meet them before I got into trouble/to avert danger. It is not my responsibility to protect people from their own emotions – nor to take on their projections as mine to fix. A paradox: taking on others’ emotions as mine to regulate without any help to regulate my own.
The other paradox that surfaced is that shamers are trying to claim power by disempowering someone else and/or the perceived threat. From my journal: “Funny how it doesn’t actually work that way – taking away someone’s power to make yourself feel more powerful. In both situations, I hadn’t taken away anyone’s power – they projected that onto me and Abbie. So, will I allow them to disempower me or rise like a Phoenix?” A parallel thought process to empowerment is the trauma-recovery shifts from victim mode to survival to thriving – which can be explored further in a future blog and/or discussion group. But I will say that fear of disappointment and judgement is no longer necessary for my survival. I can release that belief as obsolete as I enter thriving mode.
In one of my entries processing internalized shame, this modified childhood taunt came to mind: “There ain’t no shame on us. There might be shame on some of you/those guys, but there ain’t no shame on us.” Shame is like pesky flies at an outdoor picnic. I am learning to swat those lil buggers away and move on – not get sucked in to their disempowering messages, not to take on the emotions of shamers/criticizers/complainers. Complaints and criticisms are just that – no more, no less. I can create a forcefield that does not allow in emotional projections that threaten my sense of well-being. I have only my own emotions to regulate.
It is going to take more practice to repel the projections. But they are no longer mine to fix. I relinquish that habitual role. I can use my personal power to burn old beliefs that no longer serve me and my healing journey – to rise from the ashes as a Phoenix, ready to thrive. What old beliefs no longer serve your healing journey? What needs to be burnt so you can rise from the ashes and thrive? Or like the image portrays: rising from the asphalt to reach for the sky.