I shall never forget one particular experience of Facilitating. We saw how everything in this woman’s life life: her body; her feelings; her thoughts; and her relationships with others ~ all were a harmonious whole, acting in synchrony with her deepest beliefs. This was news for her, as she had been seeing the symptoms in each area as being something “wrong”. What a different perspective it was for her to see how they were all acting to help her.
I first came across these kind of ideas when I was training as a Psychosynthesis Psychotherapist, during my twenties. Here, symptoms of any kind, including those of the body, were seen as callings from the soul, for us to listen to something that was not being heard…. I read books by James Hillman and Thomas Moore, such as “Care of the Soul”, where the latter says, “But in relation to the symptom itself… first of all listening and looking carefully at what is being revealed in the suffering….” p/10… In that training, we learnt how to listen to our bodies, our feelings, and our dreams….
During my Ph.D., and then when preparing to give birth myself, I learned the amazing and beautiful synchrony that happens between mother and baby; during pregnancy, during birth, and after birth. Another example of a system that cooperates together; and which responds, with amazing accuracy, to a change in one part.
When I came across Aware Parenting when I was pregnant with my now twelve-year-old daughter, I was amazed to find that tears were also something that fitted with this category – something that could be seen as indicating something “wrong”, but at another level, being something “right”; because, when held in loving arms with all needs met, a baby’s crying helps her release stress hormones, tension in her body, and uncomfortable feelings. Likewise, a child who is given loving support whilst crying or raging, is also doing something that helps his body/mind system, by also releasing painful feelings.
In Aware Parenting, there is the concept of “control patterns”; habitual ways that we protect ourselves from feelings, and which we pass down to our children. When parents practising Aware Parenting see that their children have developed control patterns, it is easy to again see that something is “wrong”; however, again here is the beauty of each being…. this is the child doing what is necessary; learning from their parents how prevent feeling feelings. Of course, seeing this, we may want to change our own relationship with our feelings, which means that our children are free to too; but this comes from seeing that nothing is “wrong” with our children, or “wrong” with ourselves for the way we were with our feelings or with our children.
How many things then, could we see in this different light? Rather than things that we need to get rid of, we can listen to them instead, and relate to them in different ways; whilst listening to the deeper messages and call that they offer to us.
When a dear friend of mine introduced me to Buteyko, here was another example of seeing things in this different way…. she showed me how excess mucous production, instead of being something “wrong” with the body, is actually the body creating mucous in order to limit the amount of air being taken in because of hyperventilation. Instead of trying to breathe more, or get rid of the mucous, or blow the nose, which simply opens the airways, which then allows hyperventilation to happen again; Buteyko helps people retrain their breathing so as to not hyperventilate, therefore the mucous and other “symptoms” are no longer required.
What a beautiful way this is to approach ourselves… to see that our bodies, feelings, and minds are always doing what they are doing to help us, and are constantly showing us ways to more health, wellness, and wholeness.
The session I refer to began with the mother expressing her pain that she did not seem to be able to connect with her little one. If she co-slept, she would feel restless; she often felt tired in the daytime, and so although she knew lots of beautiful parenting skills, she did not have the energy to implement them, and when she was playing with her son, her mind wandered off, thinking and worrying, and so she was not present with him in the ways that she wanted.
It transpired that she had a core belief that if she had the connection she was longing for, that this would be followed by overwhelming grief about all the times she had not had that connection in her life. Viewed in this light, she realised that all the things she thought were “wrong” with her, were actually acting beautifully to protect her from connection and thus overwhelming grief. She also saw that other things in her life, like not having the intimacy she wanted with her husband, and food allergies – which meant she couldn’t connect with others and enjoy what they were enjoying when she was eating out ~ were also part of her body/feelings/mind system acting to help protect her.
See what a shift this is, to know that the things that are bothering us most are actually our being doing things to help us? That listened to, and followed back to their core, these things that are most unenjoyable in our lives are direct routes back to a new choice, a new belief, and a new life.
This is what this lovely mother did.
When we ignore things in our life that are calling out to us, we ignore Life calling us to More. When we try to get rid of these things without first listening to them to what they have to say, to follow their map to the treasure lying within us, we miss beautiful opportunities.
I have an example here in my own life. About seven years ago, just as I was off to visit my parents, who then lived in England, I noticed that at the base of one of my teeth, my gum seemed to be rotting. I felt terrified. Over the next couple of years, I tried to do all kinds of things to it ~ I read alternative books about teeth and gums, I did many treatments, different diets, put potions on it; yet all the while I felt terrified to go to the dentist. A couple of years later, it began to become clear that something was rotten in my marriage…. and eventually, my then~husband left to be with another woman. After he left, I went to the dentist, and that tooth was so rotten that it needed to be taken out. In retrospect, I saw that my tooth and gums had been pointing me to look at what was rotten in my life, and I had been too scared to look. And just like the tooth, my fear actually meant the loss of my tooth; and in the relationship, the fear also meant I didn’t acknowledge the rot and thus address it earlier; lots of pain also ensued. The taking out of the tooth was a rite of passage experience (I learnt afterwards that taking out teeth is a real rite of passage in many cultures).
I’m sad to say, that just as children show us what we are not seeing; my daughter also developed rotten teeth; she also had a wobbly tooth in the front that she was not willing to let go of; it was a front tooth and she had it wobbly for a year, even though the second tooth grew behind it. Just as I was not willing to let go of the relationship, which had long ago passed its sell-by-date, so was she not willing to let go of that old tooth. Yet again, her being was simply operating by the beliefs that she had acquired from me. I’m glad to say that I have a new relationship with letting go nowadays, and I see that my children have too.
So, how would it be for us to live like this; to trust that Life is always showing us our next steps to becoming more; that there is never anything “wrong”; the things that we aren’t enjoying and that don’t seem to be “working” anymore are simply the entry points to a new way of life, which followed, take us further and further to the source of who we are.
Living more and more with this sense of trust and curiosity brings more joy, more wonder, and a deeper connection with ourselves and with Life.
Are you willing to see things that seem to be “wrong” as signposts pointing us to look at something we haven’t been willing to see?
Are you willing to really trust yourself, and your body?