The Power of Regret

I live my life pretty powerfully aligned with the philosophy of ‘no regrets’.

That means:

1) Everything I’ve ever done/experienced has lead me to where I am now, the person I am continuously unfolding into, so therefore, there is no point regretting anything, because I could not be this person without those experiences.

2) There is no point regretting, because what’s done is done. Better to make changes for the future to rectify any current uncomfortable situations rather than rolling around in a past that can never be changed.

3) Live truthfully now, in alignment with your fullest desires. Take a chance that scares the hell out of you, because who the hell wants to end up eighty asking themselves ‘but what if?’

HOWEVER

I have had (correction, HAD. I’ve done some serious torch shining on that shit in the past week), for a number of years now, a deep, gnawing regret that made itself a dream marriage with a debilitating, correlating fear relating to the future. This regret and fear were setting up camp, making themselves well and truly heard in relation to anything to do around my career as a creative; an actor, performer and creator of new work.

Not only were they telling me that I’d waited too long to study, that I was now too old (at 27), that it wasn’t certain I’d ever be able to offer my creative gift to the world… and even if I could, how, HOW was I going to make that happen????!!!! But through their presence and power, I felt totally debilitated and too demorilised to go out and MAKE my dreams actually happen.

Total self-fulfilling prophesy self sabotage shit going on there!

So, I’ve been doing this daily, seven week workbook course with a friend. The workbook is called ‘Calling in “The One”‘, and is an AMAZING book (by Katherine Woodward Thomas) that takes you deep into looking at your belief systems and behavioral patterns that sabotage you actually having healthy and fulfilling intimate relationships.

Day thirty-something asks you to look at the regrets you have. Seeing as I live my life in a way that is in total creation of a regret free life, I couldn’t really find any.

Except that ONE.

That big

ONE.

Glaring at me disapprovingly down its long nose which was attached to its strong sense of superiority.

The one that had been sitting so heavy on my shoulders and gnawing out my belly for YEARS… God, the ENDLESS hours spent obsessing over ‘if I had just started school when I was 22, no, 21, instead of 25… if I had just gone straight to arts school, instead of avoiding FULL COMMITMENT by going to Uni… If I’d studied while I was in Edinburgh, instead of just living…’ and then the flip side would kick in ‘and HOW am I going to make my stuff happen? Everyone says it’s so hard to be an artist,. Everyone struggles to be an actor… but I don’t want to ONLY act, I want to perform, I want to create my own company. I want to tour internationally. I want to write films and act in them.. but my acting teacher says you can ONLY be an actor, and that no-one takes people seriously if they’re trying to do everything. But I LIKE being creative through various mediums, it comes naturally…. but what if? What if..? WHAT IF I CAN’T OFFER MY CREATIVE GIFT TO THE WORLD???!! IT’S THE ONLY THING I HAVE TO GIVE! What if… what if I can’t be ME? What if I end up working in a cafe for the rest of my life?! Or worse. In an office job. I think I would shrivel up and die inside. Then die outside as well…’

And on and on and on and on and ON!

Yes, I am dramatic.

POINT.

So I’m looking at all of this, considering the fact that I have wanted this for so long (precocious  six year old Courtney announces to Halsted family gathering

“I’ve decided what I want to be when I grow up. I’m going to be an ACTOR!” Throws hands in the air dramatically….

One Aunt says laconically

“Yes, that does seem like something Courtney would do…”)

I’m considering the POWER and the WEIGHT and the DEBILITATION I have felt from all of this regret and anxiety about the future.

And I think to myself…

“There is no way I could have been wanting this for SO LONG, with so much passion and from such a place of deep yearning if it wasn’t a true desire. If it wasn’t a part of my life purpose. If it wasn’t actually coming from my essence. The reason all of this hurts so much is because It’s the truth of myself and my purpose SCREAMING to get out. If this is my essence, then I am THAT right now, AND it’s who I am meant to be in the future.

“Not only is that who I am meant to be, ergo, I can create that myself, but the universe always aligns to help people to be in their essence of who they are. So it stands to reason that all the forces outside of myself will help me be the person I am meant to be. AND my whole intention of using my creativity and performance and media, is that I use them as tools to help wake people up on this planet. Awaken consciousness, reconnect people to their truth and humanity.  The universe always helps people help others, so OF COURSE I’m going to be able to make all of this happen. OF COURSE I’m going to be fully supported by the universe and people around me to manifest my dreams of AWESOMENESS!”

It was a truly powerful and pivotal moment in my life, releasing something that had held me in its teeth so tightly for far too long. What I felt was deep relief and an absolute trust, the likes of which I don’t know that I have felt before, ever.

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT.

Not only that, but

EVERYTHING IS PERFECT RIGHT NOW.

The evidence of this world as an abundant one, supporting people to be that which they truly are (which we sometimes run away from for a long while… I did. I realised a few days before this realisation I’m writing about that for YEARS I had been fully committed to not being committed to anything… for fear of being trapped and loosing my freedom. This also meant not committing to my career or meaningful relationships) Is that in the three days following this realisation,

I was contacted out of the blue by one of Melbourne’s biggest casting agencies to come and audition to be on their books (I didn’t apply for this, it just came from nowhere)

I was put on the books by said agency

I was offered work doing a commercial through a totally different agency I hadn’t done anything with in over a year

I was offered a free ticket to a show at the Melbourne Festival (my favorite time of year for the inspiration it creates in me, and something I hadn’t attended this year due to lack of funds).

I found someone to mentor me as a theatre maker

I decided to do a government program next year, which will fund me to live for a year so I can do a Cert IV in business and set myself up as a creative artist, with a strong, grounded business sense.

I received an invitation from a friend of a friend to come and act in his theatre company next year.

AND

I got an offer from a friend to exhibit an installation I did, a film I’ve just finished making AND perform at an installation space he is creating later in the year.

Being in alignment feels so good, and it feels good because when you’re there, everything flows.

These emotions and feelings that we quite often spend so much energy trying to run away from or suppress can hold the keys to our empowerment.

In my case, they weren’t there to tell me to cower down and find a different career path;

They were there to tell me that this is absolutely MEANT to be my career path.

Sometimes, all it takes is looking at something from a slightly different angle for the terror to become the gold. The bliss. the absolute trust and relief that everything is

WORKING OUT JUST THE WAY YOUR HEART WANTS IT TO.

Hoorah for that!

🙂

 

If you got something out of this, please feel free to share it with others. 🙂

Feminine and Masculine: Perfectionism, Control and Needs.

The perfectionist and control freak play a huge role in the embodying of disordered eating behaviour. It is these qualities that require that you be a high achiever, the thinnest person in the room, be in total control of your diet or punish yourself if you loose that fascist like control. It requires that you not be too much, don’t be too sexually demanding, and most certainly NEVER have a negative emotion.

To paraphrase Dr Anita Johnson from her excellent book (perhaps the best I have read thus far on the subject) ‘Eating in the Light of the Moon’, an eating disorder can demonstrate an unhealthy and overbearing masculine aspect trying to be in complete control of it’s reflectively unhealthy feminine aspect.

What does this mean?

To define my terms ‘Masculine’ and ‘Feminine’ I do not mean ‘man’ and ‘woman’. I mean Shiva and Shakti of the Hindu Tantric traditions. I mean the Yin and the Yang of the Tao. I mean the Animus and Anima of Jungian psychology.

I mean

Feminine: flow, feeling, intuition, what is physical and energetic… what when out of balance can be the total chaos of an emotional ocean.

Masculine: consciousness, perception, groundedness, centredness, insight, structure… what, when there is too much of it can turn into control freakism, judgement, lack of empathy and spontaneity.

Every man and woman and person in between on the planet embodies both of these qualities to one extent or another. They are internal attitudes and influences as WELL as existing outside of us in the world we live in.

(If you want to learn more about the Masculine and Feminine, I highly recommend David Deida as a great and accessible place to start.)

In terms of disordered eating (or insert favourite avoidance mechanism here…… drugs, alcohol, sex, Facebook, video games, TV etc etc etc) you could say the feminine is the emotion/feeling arising and the controlling, perfectionist masculine is the mentality that tries to control those feelings by smothering them with food. Or by starving them away. By purging until your physical insides feel as empty as you want your emotional insides to feel. Or by compulsively exercising until you’ve burnt every last calorie you could possibly have consumed that day. It is the unhealthy masculine that tries to control your experience of life rather than just allowing you to be in that experience. To feel it.

ANYWAY

Bringing it right on back to my original point.

Over controlling masculine. Unexpressed feminine.

So, about a month ago, I was reading Dr Anita Johnson’s book and considering some of the many pearls of wisdom within. This one regarding the masculine and feminine within really spoke to me. On a day when I was feeling rather overwhelmed and anxious about not being ‘successful’, not being ‘perfect’ and ‘in control’ of my career and (apparently) my body, I decided to have a three way conversation between my feminine, my masculine and whoever the ‘myself’ is who watches the rest of me rise to the surface of awareness.

Walking in the freakishly warm Melbourne winter sunshine, I checked in with what I was feeling in regards to these two.

I felt my masculine self in total control mode, trying to structure the emotions and feelings arising from my feminine self (I’m going to refer to them as ‘he’ and ‘she’ for convenience sake – I’m a lazy typer). My feminine was feeling anxious, out of control, pressured, afraid, and all of that whirlwind of emotion (which is energy, which is power and therefore POWERFUL) was really frightening and incomprehensible to my masculine. He was trying to make order out of what she was feeling, control it, shut it down, and the more he did so, the more she screamed in pain at her feelings not being heard and acknowledged.

Through all my years of meditation – especially my Vipassana practice – and trying to practice conscious relating with those around me, I have really come to understand that one of the base needs of everything/everyone (including all the sub-personalities that make up our whole personality) is quite simply to be heard and acknowledged. When we shut others down or shut down the voice within ourselves that is screaming to have its needs heard, we inadvertently create a pressure cooker situation. The lid of silence is covering that voice, but the force of energy and desire for itself to be heard grows and grows and grows until that lid bursts off – the pressure cooker explodes. And then, instead of having a tasty home cooked meal of wisdom, self-realisation, ease and joy, you’ve got pain, resentment, projections and blame splattered all over the walls. Eewk!

It was quite funny that in my mind’s eye, when I saw him he looked like an ex partner who had been very controlling and invasive. I made a note of how my mind was representing my own inner masculine to me and tried to move past any feelings of rejection I had towards him. I could see that he was afraid. That was why he was going into control mode.

So I asked him

“Hey masculine consciousness. What do you NEED right now in order to feel relaxed, nourished and acknowledged?”

He looked at me and said, sighing deeply that I had asked him what he needed, rather than told him how to be (it all comes down to needs)…

“I need to be able to understand”.

Oh. That’s pretty easy. He just needs to be able to understand what is going on over there with the feminine.

I turned to her and asked

“Did you hear that?”

“Yes. But he can’t have that. I don’t trust him! He’s poked and prodded and whipped me and been hard on me for so long. He’s tried to force me to share my feelings with him instead of just letting me express them when I was ready. I’m not going to give that to him.”

Woah!

This, for some strange reason surprised me. I guess I expected to have more difficulty with the part of myself that was being all controlling. But really, it wasn’t surprising as everything she said had been true… I’ve spent so long being hard on myself, trying to control myself into being the ‘perfect me’, of being capable of doing everything and anything at once (and then collapsing in a heap at the end). It’s no wonder she didn’t trust that it was safe to open up her most vulnerable parts to him.

I asked her

“What do you need to feel trusting?”

“Time. Space. I need him to allow me to be me. I need him to allow me to feel the things that I feel. I need him to allow my feelings to be valid. I need proof that he will be this way with me and only then will I open up and be trusting of him.”

At that moment my inner masculine’s appearance transformed and took on an appearance that looked more like what I guess I would look like if I were a guy with a massive beard. He became a healthy masculine figure.

He communicated to her that he was going to do his upmost facilitate these things for her and that he loved her. That he would wait patiently, on her terms, for the day she was ready to fully open up to him.

He, I, was letting go of the need to control the feminine self, letting go of the need to be ‘perfect’ (which is an unattainable state by most people’s standards and therefore a way of creating self-sabotage and misery in one’s life… how can you ever be good enough in your own eyes if you can never live up to your own (unrealistic) standards?).

By checking in with the needs of my inner self, represented through my masculine and feminine, I was able to come to a place of understanding in how to treat myself better. I was able to trust myself and be more fully present in the ocean of emotion that was arising. Because I understood that there was a part of myself that was trying to be heard through the expression of these feelings I could be more patient and compassionate towards myself. And, by listening to what my feminine had to say, I was able to fully hear the wisdom she had to share, the inner truth that only I can access for myself, and from that wisdom make my thoughts and actions align in a way that was/is of greater benefit for my happiness and well being.

It has taken a few weeks of me consciously creating regular dialogue between them, but I can feel that she has opened to him now. There is a love and harmony between them. I feel more unified, balanced and connected. I am patient if I feel the control and the perfectionist clicking into go mode and can quickly as these different parts of myself what their needs are in order that they can be heard and acted upon.

That, essentially, is what I believe most disordered mental and behavioural patterns come down to… they are the manifestation of some part of us, somewhere deep inside, trying to make its voice heard that it’s basic needs can be acknowledged. That it too can feel that it is important, loved and cared for.

That’s what we all want. We have to do it for ourselves first.

xx.