#11 Are you denying your Will Power?
The cost of putting everyone else first. The freedom of embracing your true needs and desires.
Last week I had a breakthrough whilst writing about the third Chakra. As I said I don’t know much about chakras but I do know that this third one if about fire, action, willpower. In my book the author says it's best when INTENTION and ACTION are aligned.
My Will and Power is always something that's concerned me. When I feel more energy, like this morning, I am more likely to snap at my husband or push on a subject we've already discussed or criticise family for doing a bad job. And I don’t want them to dislike me.
I have suppressed my free will to choose what to do and how to do things, trying to keep the peace, not make a fuss and not be a burden. It’s been going on since I was a child and I am an expert at it. So expert that I have to be fully present to know when I am doing it. It’s a default action/reaction that I haven’t been aware of until recent years. But I know for a fact that I have been suppressing my own life energy which has been pooling around my middle.
Last week recognising it's my own life force energy sitting there, I decided it needs a purpose.
Most of us don't have any great purpose in life. It's not obvious what our passions are. I have many passions. I am good at quite a lot of things. But having built my life around my family and my husband’s business, plus all the years of denying my own needs and desires, I had forgotten what I wanted. I had forgotten what sort of things I like to do. I have filled my life organising everyone else.
Sound familiar?
I had forgotten to organise myself around the very things that I have now discovered I love to do, like writing and painting.
I make it mean it’s less important. It seems frivolous. It’s not contributing financially. My husband’s work must come first as he’s the main earner. My eldest son contributes financially, so I can’t ask him to do things. My youngest son is head down finishing his Open University Degree so I can’t put any pressure on him. My other son has been really stressed and needs support to get himself up and running again.
Excuses!
What about me in all this!?
Prioritising the needs of my family above my own, all of whom are adults, is not healthy and not sustainable.
I know that!
Now this is not rocket science and it is the kind of thing that clients of mine would have realised through their coaching sessions. It’s the sort of thing I see other (mainly) mothers doing all the time but hadn’t quite included myself in this. Gently my coach and my friends have tried to point this out.
None of them are demanding people you see. They don’t mean to take me for granted but sometimes they do. We get along really well and have a harmonious life together. I don’t hold on to them. Two have been away and come back. But it is very comfortable for them. Very easy. And I love them.
It’s easier to be liked than to feel like I’m the bitch in the house.
I don’t even have 100% energy because of health issues. Most days I feel like I have 50-80% of my full energy potential. Some days 20%. That means that if I give them all that there’s nothing left for me.
How many of you also have health issues but still give all of it away?
Hit reply or
And that's why I (and you) need to Choose. And I realised I not only need to CHOOSE but also COMMIT and then channel that energy (when it comes) into the purpose and projects I have chosen for myself. I need to put in the time and my life energy into the things I love and into my writing career in particular.
If I don’t do it now at age 55 when will I do it!?
And let the family get on with the things they're doing in their way and stop worrying about them. Stop feeling like I have to be there for them at all times.
It all seems perfectly obvious but I have been through many layers and many spirals of this learning.
Learning about ourselves is never a one off event. We keep evolving.
I have known for a long time that it wasn't enough to know things intellectually. I knew that I needed to embody that information. Feel it in my system. Get it in the muscle. That's hard to do when the body has been essentially frozen for a long time. There's not enough space for the energy to be felt. Not enough space for it to move. And as it does begin to unfreeze all the suppressed emotions will need to be felt first. Otherwise it can be too overwhelming and that doesn’t feel safe. (More on this in later posts).
The last couple of weeks. I have felt a big shift in the solar plexus and it's caused pain in my back. Things are waking up in there. I've had tummy aches which is pretty new to me. Being Shut Down meant I really didn't feel anything much. My experience of IBS has been chronic constipation (unable to let go or let flow) and systemic inflammation caused by undigested food (which can cause a lot of pain).
Now I am thawing, I begin to feel old survival energy more in the gut where the actual stored stress is.
And many days I have a lot more energy. So much so I have trouble containing it as I’m not used to it. (That’s another story).
Reflecting on this journey back to myself and my break-through I remember conversations I have had with people. How I have bent over backwards to make things right for them. How I have tried to be all things to all people. How I have tried so hard not to disappoint, not to be a nuisance and not to let people down.
But not disappointing or letting others down means I am disappointing and letting myself down.
Over and over again.
I may have more energy at times. My system might relax and go Ahh--- and I begin a new project enthusiastically, then run out of steam.
Other times I would doubt myself and try to make practical decisions, to make a living, to contribute financially. Or I would make a huge effort (unneccessairly it turns out) trying to get my husband on board by 'selling' my latest inspiration in order to get his support.
But if it's not the right thing for me, it's never going to work because the energy won't be there to follow through!
And if it’s not the right thing for me, it won’t be right for my family either, because I will continue to feel resentful inside and that will bubble out in may ways.
It's obvious to me now. Again!
We all have free will. I have used mine to take care of others. To take on way too much responsibility. I internalised that willpower to suppress my own needs and desires over and over. To say yes, when I should have said no.
And suppressing my need for firm boundaries, to put everyone else's needs before my own.
I chose to do that.
Why?
All humans have a need to be part of a family. We need connection, we need a tribe. Within our families we work out from a young age what is acceptable. What is safe. We repress parts of our personality that don't fit in to that system.
And we keep playing that out through our lives, spending time with similar people to those we grew up with.
My husband doesn't want me to be unhappy. He doesn't want me to feel resentful. He wants me to do what’s right for me because he loves me and knows which way his bread is buttered. ;) But it's up to me to inform him of my desires and needs and not to expect him to mindread or guess.
I don't need to make excuses or give reasons for wanting to be a writer and an artist. I don't even need him to understand!
I just need to decide what I want or need, inform my family and do it.
I need to let the energy that wants to come through me, to do the work and expression it wants to do. I choose how that manifests. I choose what and how.
Aligning my mind and body, finding the courage that sits in the third Chakra, committing to my self expression, I feel in flow and a sense of joy that has evaded me for years.
If you want to understand more about the cost of constantly putting everyone else first, read this book: When the body says no by Gabor Mate. If you’re a caring person without boundaries, you will likely find yourself on every page.
When the Body Says No -- Caring for ourselves while caring for others. Dr. Gabor Maté video.