#004 - Eclipse energy
I don’t know about you, but this eclipse time is hitting me hard. Or maybe it’s my PMS. Or maybe it’s just a challenging week mental health-wise. It doesn’t really matter, what the cause is - I just know it’s been tough!
The two themes that have been percolating around me in this have been the two that are very recurring themes, which in some ways can be boiled down to one.
Connection.
When I’m going through a tough time, it’s usually around this theme in one way or another.
The two strands of this, and the narratives that I feel come round and round again are around
1. My challenges with romantic love.
This is a familiar one that I imagine some of you can relate to. When things are hard, I feel the void of the missing partner - and it’s easy to go down the rabbit holes of all the painful stories around this. This usually involves reflecting on my own wounding and how that either makes me choose the wrong partners for me, or about how it makes it super difficult to have intimacy and closeness with someone. This is because the attachment brings so much activation and triggering with it (I relate closest to fearful-avoidant a.k.a. anxious-avoidant attachment style). Usually these stories come with a dollop of self-judgement and victim mentality as well. As somatic therapist Sarah Baldwin would say - I can hear my ”dorsal lawyer” saying things like
”You’re too broken, too messed up for romantic love”
”Your standards are too high, you’ll never find someone who’s all those things you want”
”You’re getting old, it’s getting too late for you”
Etc.
Having awareness that this is my ’dorsal lawyer’ is helpful, as it helps me not to completely identify with these thoughts. It helps me recognise that the thoughts are associated with a particular state, and are not representative of the thoughts I have all the time. The ”dorsal lawyer” is a metaphor for the types of thoughts we get when our nervous system is in a dorsal state, when we are in ”shut down”. It’s associated with the ”there’s no point”, giving up, depressive mood.
To explain the context of this metaphor a little bit:
On the other side we have the ”sympathetic lawyer” - perhaps a slightly misleading name as this is about the thoughts we get when our nervous system is activated in the fight-or-flight response. Ready for action, cortisol production increases, we get stressed, sweaty, ”I need to something NOW and FAST!”
And finally, there is the ”regulated lawyer”, when our nervous system isn’t activated beyond a ’green threshold’. We perceive our environment in a more neutral/realistic way, able to respond rather than react and refrain from creating painful narratives around what we are feeling or experiencing. This is the ‘lawyer’ I am trying to learn to give more of a voice in my inner dialogue, and recognise that if it’s either of the other two, I need to do something to regulate my nervous system.
2. Feeling disconnected from other people in general
There are two components to this as well. Firstly, to have connection with friends, family and the communities I am part of. Secondly, for this connection to be one where I can feel like myself, be truly seen and connected with for who I am.
Sounds simple, but it really isn’t. Not for me, anyway.
A big part of my life I had the first, but not the second. My subconscious programming was ”I need to be X, Y and Z in order to be liked and to have friends. These parts of me are okay, but these parts are not, and need to be hidden”. This would lead to that special kind of loneliness that you can feel in the middle of a party or a crowd. You’re surrounded by people, but you just don’t feel like anybody sees you, understands you or truly knows you.
Partly this can be due to not being around the right people - not being discerning about who you resonate with and what kind of energy in a person makes you feel safe to be yourself. But partly this can also be your internalised programming about the parts of you that are not okay, not safe to expose, thoughts or feelings that your subconscious thinks are not safe to express. It’s difficult for other people to see you, if you are not showing yourself.
And of course, there are reasons for this, for which I believe we deserve all the compassion in the world. Had you been supported and celebrated fully for who you are when growing up - had you witnessed the adults around you being their authentic selves around others and being appreciated and respected - had you been encouraged to express, to honour your feelings and desires, to perform if you wanted, to be quiet or rest if you needed it… Your programming would be radically different.
But if you were directly or indirectly taught the message that
”These sorts of behaviours are okay and we will love you if you exhibit these - these behaviours are not okay and will cause our love to be retracted”
”You are a good girl / boy if you are happy and don’t cry or get upset”
”We give you attention when you perform well in school or when you are sick, but otherwise ignore you”
”We ignore you when you are needy or cranky”
”How you behave or what you achieve isn’t as good as that of your sibling / friend / neighbours”
”Whatever you do , there is always something not quite right about it. You need to improve”
”Don’t be an ( attention-seeker / know-it-all / head-in-the-clouds / vain …) that’s not a good quality”
”We judge people who are too loud / quiet / rich / poor / beautiful / ugly / fat / skinny / uneducated / posh…”
”Other people judge us for … ”
… to name a few - then its likely you have some work to do in order to be able to bring yourself genuinely into connection. Maybe you received direct abuse of some form from the people around you - which means you learnt to be hypervigilant about others, their facial expressions and energy - which means its difficult for you to relax in the company of other people, because you are subconsciously constantly looking out for cues that others may have become annoyed with you and might do something to take it out on you.
———————
I feel that I have awareness about the root causes of these two challenges for myself personally. Some of it I believe to be ancestral - most of it is the programming and the experiences I had growing up. I know that these can be healed and this is where my focus is. With each day I am getting better at facing any trigger or challenging situation with more awareness, acceptance and embracing these as opportunities for self-inquiry and growth. With each day, I can catch myself a little bit earlier when I have gone down the ”blaming myself for my painful feelings” rabbit hole - and move back to a place of grace and self-compassion. With each day I am getting better at choosing to double down on my tools, rather than relying on vices and distraction. With each day, I’m getting better at not abandoning myself when I feel abandoned by others - but instead, bringing in more love and care towards myself in those moments. I definitely still have work to do in this area, but I’m grateful for all the support, the teachings and the connections that are supporting me whilst I’m going through it.
If you made it this far - thank you for reading and witnessing me taking another little step in exposing more of myself to the world! I appreciate you and am grateful for your attention. If you are also having a tough time during this eclipse season, I hope that it brings some comfort to know that you are not alone!
Photo by Altınay Dinç on Unsplash
