ALL THAT WE DON’T WANT

Learning how to be intimate with parts of ourselves that we don’t want, might seem on the face of it to be a rather strange project. Common sense tells us to run, block or muscle down, but as you’ve probably noticed that never really works for long.

There’s always a good reason why we pushed parts of ourselves away, we needed to in order to keep ourselves together and relatively safe. All the pushing though, also creates distance and blank space within us, where we should really want connection, vibrancy and life.

There is a very subtle catch we have to be so careful of when we feel drawn to heal and that is not to try to fix ourselves or wish ourselves different. Again this feels paradoxical and it’s because, embedded in that very need is a subtle movement to further disown that part and not truly accept it. Which means we will always tend to stay just out of reach from that sense of wholeness we seek and furthermore, deepen the dilemma.

We take with us then, through our lives the ‘tendency to keep distancing’ from all that we don’t want. The insidious subtlety of this move can keep us in therapy for years and wondering why we still do the same things over and over.

Instead we can learn to recognise how the motion of reflexive ‘distancing’ actually feels. We can then identify it as a process that we unconsciously employ and choose to track it, stay close with it. Bringing curiosity to the disconnect - ing turns the whole thing around as awareness directs light and potentiality into well worn mechanisms of defence. We finally, simply, turn towards and welcome that which we have come to fear.

Disowned patterns from the past are kept in the dark and keep repeating over and over again, there’s no future available. When we resolve to move attention willingly into the very process of the darkening itself, something happens. The light that accompanies awareness illuminates choice and new futures can unfold as we become released from the past.

Imagining ourselves to be a different version or ‘improved’ somehow is different from embodying a felt sense of our potential. In the first instance we mentally project ourselves into the future and in the second we feel the future in the present – we stay close to ourselves and honour who we are. Then our future potential comes to us – we don’t have to do anything or go anywhere.

I’m writing this in relation to the practice of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. One of the reasons I’m drawn to this work is the emphasis on learning to sense more and more subtle aspects of ourselves whether as therapist or client.

And if only this work was easy! It takes time and practice and faith in our innate healing capacity. And as I write, the reflection is how much easier it is to describe in words than it is to do the work itself – I’m also doing my best.

If this post resonates and you’d be interested to explore more, please get in touch.