The Next You (written 10/27/07)

Hello Travelers - this week along the path I discovered something about : Battling Brothers, Seeing from All Angles, and Allowing Ourselves to Believe we can have What We Want. It's true. Hold on to your hat, let's go!

This week, Sawyer took to using his hands as little, talking people - sort of like puppets only without the puppets. He calls them "The Brothers" and each hand talks to the other. And he talks to the two of them. His pretending in this way became so intense that it persisted during his swim lesson - to Bill's distress-and carried on into much of dinner ( and beyond). At dinner, the Brothers received understandable mixed reaction from the family. Bill had already expressed his distaste for their disruptive ways during swimming class and Sawyer was trying to understand why no one seemed to like them. After a bit, he tearily began to talk about how they felt; it turns out they want to make friends (at school) but are afraid.

Bill had told me that he and Sawyer had seen Angelica (Sawyer's original preschool teacher who adored him) on their way to swim class, and that she was amazed at how tall he'd gotten, and how exited and pleased Sawyer was about this. So, I asked Sawyer how it felt to have Angelica comment on how tall he is now, and he said it felt great. I explained that, that's because he wants to grow and change and get stronger and when she said that, she was saying that he WAS. And wanting to make friends is part of wanting to grow and change also - that great sense of expansion that is so important. With tears in his eyes, he explained his feelings of not wanting the other kids to "bug" him, wanting to be able to be alone, but at the same time, wanting to make friends. So, his distress (and the Brothers) was coming from wanting to make friends and at the same time doubting he CAN without losing his ability to be alone. And so, he'd resorted to pretend (as is his way) to cope with feeling bad from those conflicting thoughts and also, perhaps, to have some "friends" readily available that aren't so challenging to the way he's used to being.

I've been watching myself struggle in a similar fashion.
Over a month ago, Bill interviewed me for an on-line magazine he's starting for the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. They're going to video tape author interviews and have the videos available on the website. I was nervous about being video-taped as I have a lot of self-consciousness sometimes but I decided to do it for Bill and for me as I knew it was the right direction for me to go. When I saw the footage, I couldn't bear it. I thought I looked awful. I will not go into the reasons because it feels lousy to drudge up all that insecurity and painful thinking, but I will tell you that my unhappiness with how I looked was so piercing that I wanted to keep it from being seen. I knew in my heart I wasn't going to do this, but I also knew I felt terrible and wanted that feeling to end. Over time, as I've worked on letting it go, I've realized that even though it is not what I want, I can let it be, and, in doing so, let myself become whatever is NEXT.

I had great fear that I was going to be STUCK in the place of how I was seeing myself in that video if others were to witness it too. And so, I wanted to try to control that. But I also realized that, that approach was never going to bring me peace. The only thing that was going to bring me peace was to ALLOW others to see me from all angles, always. It is the striving to control that makes me weary and sad because it is impossible. But letting it go and allowing others to see me however they see me, actually frees me to move on from the spot I don't want to be in. In trying to control others and keep them from seeing what I think is deficient about me, I am actually (ironically) holding on to to seeing myself in the way I don't want.

Like Sawyer, I am wanting to grow, move on, expand, become something new and better and am afraid that I cannot, and am afraid of losing control. In Sawyer's case, he's afraid of losing control of being alone. In my case, I am afraid of losing control of how I am seen. Both of us are feeling a strong pull to become more, to expand, and both of us are doubting our ability to do it. And that's the real source of the pain, and that's what the Brothers are actually arguing over, not over losing a kind of control we never had in the first place.

But how great it is to grow. And although letting go can feel dangerous, what a huge relief it is to allow ourselves to move on to the next thing. Always better to be more of who we really are.

Here's to letting go of the way we're used to seeing ourselves, in order to find the relief in being our new selves. Cheers!

Lots of love.
All is Well,
Jen