I love understanding the cause of our feelings, responses and behaviour, which is one of the reasons I love Aware Parenting so much. I’d love to acknowledge Aletha Solter, as I’m going to borrow her list of three causes of behaviour and add my own perspective to that.
I’m then going to apply it to responses that people might be having to masks, curfews, temperature-taking and sanitiser, in ways that also offer opportunities for psychospiritual transformation.
There are 3 main causes of our responses and reactions:
What we’re thinking/believing/telling ourselves;
What we’re needing;
What we’re feeling (including feelings that are accumulated from the past).
If you are feeling big feelings at the moment around the pandemic, and particularly around masks, curfews, temperature-taking or sanitiser, I wonder if you feel called to go through this list for yourself, to help have more clarity and understanding about what might be going on for you and how you might respond?
#1
WHAT WE’RE THINKING / WHAT WE’RE TELLING OURSELVES
(I find it can often be helpful, if we’re referring to the actions of others, to take out their name, and replace it with “they.”)
This might be things like:
I’m telling myself that they don’t care about me.
I’m telling myself that they are making me do things that I don’t want to do.
I’m telling myself that I’m powerless to take action.
I’m telling myself that I’m all alone.
Once we become aware of our thoughts, we might ask ourselves things like:
Is this a theme for me?
Am I familiar with this in my life?
Did I have these thoughts as a child in my family of origin?
Do I want to be thinking this way?
Are these my thoughts, or did I acquire them?
Is this what I want to be believing?
We might let that simmer for a while, whilst we attend to the next two:
#2
WHAT WE’RE NEEDING
At the moment, common unmet needs are:
Will-Needs – particularly agency, autonomy and choice,
and/or
Love-Needs – particularly connection, empathy and support.
Receiving empathy from others for the feelings we feel when these needs are unmet (or receiving empathy from our Inner Loving Presences), can be profoundly relieving. Once we’ve heard the feelings, we can then open space to connect with wanting those needs to be met. I’m so grateful to Marshall Rosenberg for Nonviolent Communication, from where I learnt to differentiate between universal human needs and the specific ways (he called strategies) to get those needs met.
So, for example, you might be feeling frustrated, outraged, or powerless, in response to regulations around mask-wearing or temperature-taking or a curfew, because your needs for agency, autonomy and choice aren’t being met. (Frustration, outrage and powerlessness are common feelings in response to unmet Will-Needs.)
Meeting those feelings of frustration, outrage or powerlessness with deep loving compassion, and acknowledging the beauty of those feelings, can bring relief. And yet, those needs might still be unmet. At the moment, meeting those needs in your usual ways might not be available. Even if this is the case, there are likely to be other ways to meet those needs for agency, autonomy and choice.
For example, choosing to perceive the way you are viewing this situation (from #1 – what you’re thinking) – you might choose to shift from telling yourself you are powerless, to telling yourself that this is a psychospiritual opportunity to listen to the younger parts of you who didn’t get your Will-Needs met, for example. You might see that your choice in the way you are perceiving this experience and responding to it is a way of deeply claiming your agency and choice and your true power.
The more we find ways to meet those Will-Needs, the more we are likely to feel our innate sense of power, what I call our Will.
The next opportunity is to turn to number 3.
#3
OUR FEELINGS (INCLUDING FEELINGS FROM THE PAST THAT ARE SHOWING UP IN THE PRESENT)
Most English-speakers, and thus people reading this, were brought up within colonised cultures and thus domination cultures. As part of these cultures, the Will-Needs of babies and children (as well as adults) are routinely not met.
Most of us would have had thousands of experiences in our family and/or school of:
Not getting to choose;
Not having autonomy;
Being forced, coerced or made to do things that we didn’t want to do;
Being guilted and shamed into doing things;
Our bodily and emotional “no” not being respected or heard;
Our natural frustration and outrage in response to these Will-Hurts not being lovingly heard and welcomed.
Therefore, most of us have accumulated feelings from the past because of these Will-Hurts.
They show up in the following kinds of ways:
Feeling powerless;
Saying yes when we feel a no;
Always saying no, even if we might feel a yes;
Not being willing to cooperate;
Big feelings of frustration or outraged in response to small things;
Automatically feeling outrage or saying no to any authority figures;
Rebellion;
Compliance;
Fawning.
I wonder if you recognise any of these?
So, experiences in the present around agency, autonomy and choice can often help us connect with accumulated feelings from the past where the pain of our unmet Will-Needs wasn’t lovingly heard.
If you’ve been feeling really big powerlessness or outrage, it’s possible that this is what’s happening for you.
With a psychospiritual lens, we can see this as an opportunity – to listen lovingly to those feelings from the past that are showing up in the present.
There are so many ways we can do this – with an empathy buddy, with a counsellor, mentor or therapist, or with our own Inner Loving Presences.
The more we get to express the feelings from the past, have them lovingly heard, and give those younger parts reparative experiences, the more we are able to respond to the present situation with a sense of our own Will – our sacred power – to feel an inner strength and capacity to both speak our Neo No when we’re called to, but also to be free to say yes and cooperate in ways that help others.
In listening to the feelings from the Will-Hurts of the younger parts of us, we unsilt our willingness channel, which leads to an increasing sense of vitality in our bodies, and true power to act in alignment from Love and Will in our lives.
(Another cause of big painful feelings can also be when our old ways of repressing our feelings aren’t available any more. If keeping busy or getting takeaway coffee every morning have been ways that we’ve used to repress our feelings, and the pandemic limits stop us doing those things, this can also help us connect with the feelings that those repression processes have been protecting us from.
Here’s another opportunity for deep compassion. Feeling flooded with feelings isn’t helpful. One way of supporting ourselves is getting to express those feelings that are showing up to people who have the capacity to lovingly listen to our feelings. Other ways can be to also replace those repression processes with other ways, if we don’t yet feel willing to express those feelings or don’t have the capacity or support to do so.)
We haven’t talked much about Love-Needs and Love-Hurts in this piece, but all of this is relevant for those too!
I want to acknowledge the privileged position to be resourced enough to attend to feelings and responses in these ways, and I want to acknowledge all the people, all around the world, who are in such dire straights that simply surviving is the primary need.
Yet, for those of us who are resourced enough, I believe that we are being offered a psychospiritual invitation – to meet, with loving compassion, the Love-Hurts and Will-Hurts sustained growing up in a colonised, domination culture, to express those feelings and to offer reparative experiences, so that we increasingly are able to live from our true nature as Loving, Willing beings, who feel deeply connected with all beings, desiring to contribute to the wellbeing of all, and who have a deep sense of intrinsic power, thus not needing to resort either to power-over, or a reactive No.
A true NEO NO is profoundly different in both how we feel in our bodies, and in its effect, to a power-over NO or a rebellious NO.
Each of us is called in unique ways at these times.
The more we attend to these three levels:
What we’re thinking – so that we are choosing aligned beliefs and look for information where we need it;
What we’re needing – so that we can value our needs and find ways to meet them, even in unusual situations;
What we’re feeling – so that we can receive compassionate listening for both our here and now feelings and feelings from the past, and receive reparative responses-
The more we are able to:
Think clearly, with a consciousness that is receptive to new and creative ideas to resolve the issues humanity faces;
Find ways to meet our needs in ways that also deeply honour the needs of others;
Care for our younger parts and hold our feelings with compassion and deep honouring-
And the more we are able to live from our true nature as Love and Will, deeply interconnected, and with true agency that isn’t reactive or power-over, but which is connected with the life-force of Life itself.
Does any of this resonate with you? Do you feel called to attend to any of these?
Big love,
Marion xoxox
P.S. If you resonate with these ways of thinking and would like more, I have a few different online offerings that you might like.
My Powerlessness, Power-over and Power-with in Parenting Masterclass:
My Power and Powerlessness in Parenting Course: