We are shaped by how we are met.
These words, I heard from Dr. Steve Chee during an Internal Family System workshop several months ago, continue to echo deep within me. Re-informing what I believe, how I show up for myself, and what I am reverberating back out into the world.
These echoes bounce off the current walls within me, the shapes I currently am familiar with, and the various beliefs that are held by different parts of my internal system. At times an extremely uncomfortable, dare I say excruciating process as my current shapes reveal themselves and I sit back and observe them rather than continue wearing them and allowing them to blindly shape my behavior from the limited point of view that shape directs me towards. Okay, excruciating may be a stretch, or perhaps an exaggeration. But the truth is, to parts of me it is excruciating. It’s like gazing in a mirror and seeing habits and perspectives play out in real time that I am usually turning away from or unconscious of. It’s humbling, and activates many other parts that don’t necessarily like what they are seeing. While there are other parts of me that see the big picture and can hold and allow what’s transpiring with such tenderness and care. It’s all quite beautiful and deeply okay. Multiple experiences and perspectives happening simultaneously.
What’s my point?…..Well, that question comes from a part of me that desires efficiency, keeps me on track, and wants to ensure I am writing and sharing for more than just my own therapy, but for a wider audience. So, let’s land on my intention here, and then get back into this playful exploration of what is unfolding within me.
My intention is to share about a common experience that maybe you are familiar with, and to provide some insight around how we all might be able to lean into these experiences in a new way. Maybe, forging more gold and wise evolution from our own shadow; a spiraling up rather than the feeling of being stuck, repeating the same patterns and living from protective strategies to get away from our distress.
These words, stringing them together into a coherent thread is not something I was capable of 24 hours ago. I am emerging from another “dark night of the soul”. Several days of being with parts of me that feel lost, insecure, wrapped up in shame and feeling small, questioning whether I am capable of what I desire, questioning what I desire, and observing protective strategies - like a noisy brain, intense distraction and impulsive reactions, and numbing - take over my system as overwhelm continued to linger like a thick substance around me and within me. This is shadow work. It feels like being in the mush phase as the caterpillar dissolves in its chrysalis, and there are parts of us that work diligently to avoid this at all costs. And, this is what I am inspired to support others to experience, to trust, to drop into, and to allow. It’s an important phase of a much bigger and purposeful evolution. Many of us experience this kind of self-dissolution but it is often accompanied with fear, depression, lack of structure or understanding of how to be with it. And, for many of us, we have experienced being tossed into this against our will as life has a way of delivering what we need to grow whether we choose it or not. That in itself can feel traumatic, and again, parts of us will have stories that say “never again”.
I want to offer some ground, some architecture, so that we can surrender into the shadows and shed the shapes that are keeping us stuck. A re-framing of what it is to let go or shed these shapes in needed. The shapes that were forged for survival are to be met with respect, love, appreciation, and space to be seen and heard. The shapes that keep us stuck have helped us survive, and if we meet them in a new way, we are offering new shapes to emerge. Remember, we are shaped by how we are met. So, to re-shape, perhaps we simply need to start recognizing how we were met, how we are met now, and how we are meeting ourselves. This is relationality. A wise and ancient ontology that shares roots in many Indigenous traditions from around the world….the traditions that come from pre-colonial cultures from distant corners of this planet.
Releasing old strategies, letting go of limiting beliefs, and adopting an updated version of who we truly are is a relational process of making contact with what we have habitually turned away from or been so blended with that we thought it was just who we are. It’s in the chrysalis, the soupy-mix of all that we thought we were and all the survival strategies we have deployed in the past rushing to our rescue….this is the potent space where new shapes can emerge as the old shapes can finally rest.
I am excited to share more of this with those who feel themselves leaning in. I am in this work while I am sharing it and co-creating spaces where we can lean into this together.
Join me on March 21 to explore what’s possible as we look at the hero’s journey, the wise architectural playground of archetypes, and the seed of light that is the inner leader you sense within you but hasn’t fully taken shape yet. This experiential session is an opportunity to lean in and feel for yourself whether a three month exploration dedicated to re-shaping your internal system is something you feel ready to participate in.
Free online Session - 10am to 12pm MT on March 21 - sign up through this link.
Reach out with questions or to share what’s moving through you. From one human to another.
xo
Marin
marinmccue@gmail.com