I have been writing for months and I knew it didn't quite feel right, there was a wrongness to it I just couldn't pinpoint. It's like, its almost me but not me. Its a very very clean, constructed, edited version of me that I think everyone will like. I guess it all starts in childhood, as it always does. From how I walk, talk, hold myself up, it all starts from there.
I remember Kate (a mentor) once asked me if I was afraid of speaking up in meetings. And I said no, I just don't say anything until I have something valuable to say or add. And she said you often see things that other people don't. If you spoke up even with a half formed thought, you might find that people are interested in what you have to say and what you can add is valuable even if you think it isn't. Or it was something like that. That was the first moment that made me realise that I was holding back but I didn't know why yet. I didn't even know I was afraid.
Then those years working with Karina (my personal coach) it made me realise how much I was carrying that I just didn't need to anymore. I would talk about something that happened at work, and how it made me feel, and then she would ask me one question - how old do you think that thought is? Jeeze, and how often was it that a 7 year old was running the show? Way too often, no wonder I wasn't getting anywhere in my career or relationships.
Relationships, that's a good one…how many friends, or should I say "friends", have I had that I thought were real deep connections, that turned out to be actually quite one-sided? Too many. And you know, maybe they didn't have the capacity to receive what I had to offer, and probably there were times where I did share and it didn't land. But really, if I dig down deep, there's a pattern there isn't there? I am so used to guarding what I'm thinking about, the connections I see, the thoughts that I am having, that they didn't actually know me and the depth that I had to offer at all. And maybe that's just part of my personality, I see patterns, I can see how things shape up, so I think I'm good at predicting relationship outcomes. And maybe the opposite of that, the relationships that were most familiar and safe were the ones where I didn't need to be seen? Because I know from past experience in all types of relationships what its like to try to let someone in and then be shattered because they misunderstood, or never actually got what you were trying to offer. Like they couldn't actually see how deep and complex I was as a person, so it was easier to just be simple. It didn't hurt so much.
And that's what happened with him (my husband), he is the most amazing person, I couldn't ask for a more patient, understanding and emotionally present partner to share my life with, but it took buying a house with him and my brother and his now wife. For me to realise oh crap this is my person and I want to be with him and actually have children with him. Like talk about slowwww. I just figured I couldn't trust anyone to have children with, because if you can't clean up after yourself, if you can't take out the rubbish, then how can you keep it together enough to be a father? And I had just dumped him in that category even though it wasn't true. It was just safer.
I keep trying to come back to listening to my intuition and just being in my body again. Not listening to what someone else is saying, or a story that you made up, but trying to find the tightness, the resistance within myself and figuring out ways to break through it by listening to what my body is telling me. And wow, just wow, the irony of the whole situation. Write to finally express my inner world only to realise that I'm still carefully curating the version of myself that is supposed to be raw and unfiltered. The ultimate expression of who I am.
I'm hoping that maybe this is the final test for this particular lesson. But I'm sure there is definitely more learning that needs to happen here. But I think, maybe (?) that final part of the block, the things that was holding me back has been unlocked, specifically for my writing. And hey maybe one day I'll be ready to share more of who I am.