Do you ever feel like there’s no safety net? If you fall, no one will be there to catch you? Perhaps that you’re all alone in the world (when it really, really comes down to it)? Or that you can only depend on yourself?
Ironically, you’re not alone.
These beliefs, if we boil them down to their essence, often come from a lack of trust. Basically, you’re wearing a potent essential oil of fear and mistrust and then wondering why everything stinks. Fear and lack become a thick haze around you, tainting your experiences.
That lack of trust comes from a pretty old place inside of you. It may stem from something you experienced as a young child…our most core beliefs often do. Maybe it was witnessing your parents divorce, or a major life event that caused (and continues to cause) you pain. We all have those.
Or maybe something completely innocuous shook you — like an older sibling not sharing with you, or another event or time of your young life that your grown-ass self can look back on and logically dismantle, convincing yourself you’re JUST FINE, OK, GEEZ?!
And here’s a thing: that lack of trust may even come from your parents or ancestors. Generational trauma is so real. Think about your parents. Do you know what their childhood was like? For those of us with baby-boomers as parents, let’s consider that their parents lived through the Great Depression, WWII, and other human atrocities which sowed insecurity on the deepest psychic levels. No wonder their shit is all screwed up.
Baby-boomers became the bearers of those collective traumas. And we, theirs.
This isn’t an excuse for bad behavior, it’s just a nudge to get you to pull your compassion lever. Like the Wizard of Oz, you’ve got a lot more levers to pull than you’re probably pulling. Which is why you find yourself stuck in destructive patterns (another subject for another day.) And pulling your compassion (not enabling or condoning) lever will trigger transformational shifts.
Circling back around, if you doubt you’re protected/secure/safe and believe that the rug is always about to be pulled out from under you, that there is no safety net, no one and nothing has your back, that you are all alone…then you will experience your life just like that. Remember the stank oil you’re slathering on every day?
P R A C T I C E : Noticing.
- See if you can first notice where you may be in lack of trust or fear that you won’t be held. Be gentle with yourself in this noticing; self-judgment and guilt have no value in this exercise (or anywhere, really). Give yourself permission to go back into time.
- Practice pulling that compassion lever today/this week. Maybe it’s with yourself. Maybe it’s with your parents. Hell, maybe it’s a co-worker! It’s possible that just by bringing your attention to this lever you learn something about an ancestor that explains SO MUCH. Be attentive.
Stay tuned for part 2…
Photo by Dorothea Lange