I support the leaders and lovers and livers of life who tend to forget themselves as they pour into others and into the world to create the simple shifts that move them steadily and lovingly in the direction of more peace, more ease, more energy and more goodness in their lives. My Soul-Centered Email Series is filled with inspiration, information and valuable tools, tips and practices for consciously creating a life that feels more fully yours without having to blow it all up.
Disrupting patterns causes disruption
Published about 2 months ago • 7 min read
Something I don't think we talk about enough in healing circles is how disruptive it can be to embark and continue on a path that runs counter to all we've ever been taught; all that we've ever received validation, attention and support for; all that we have known during this lifetime (and maybe beyond) - it’s not a benign process to to disrupt the long-held patterns that have been running in the background of our lives because pretty much everything has been organized around walking out these patterns (the more deeply-held the pattern, the more firmly entrenched the supporting cast of characters).
So many of our choices in life have been informed by these patterns - whether we realize it or not. That's some very serious influence that we set out to question and challenge and potentially turn away from.
We hear a lot about the benefits of breaking the patterns ...
🪄 release your people-pleasing tendencies and get to know what lights you up!
🪄 change your relationship with food and feel more freedom and less guilt around enjoying your body's sustenance!
🪄 step away from people and situations that are unhealthy for you and have more energy to invest in the people and situations that support you!
🪄 set up better boundaries and feel less pulled this way and that by life's circumstances!
🪄 learn to say no and have more time to say yes to what you truly want to do!
... we don’t hear nearly as much about the waves that the process will create within us and how they will ripple out into our lives as well.
We don’t talk a lot about how upsetting it will be for us as we begin releasing our people-pleasing tendencies; how we will feel like we’re selfish and we’re awful and our mind will convince us that no one will like us ever again (and some people will fall away from us which our mind will point to as evidence that this is a very.bad.idea).
We don’t talk about how exhausting it will feel to hold more honest boundaries with ourselves and how challenging it will be to be kind to ourselves when we slip into that old familiar pattern and say “yes” when we really want to say “no!”.
We don’t talk about how much energy it takes to override the unconscious choices we've made 1000 times, how difficult it will be to politely turn down the dairy-filled dessert that Aunt Sofie made "just for us" because we've always l loved it (but we now know that it tears up our insides) and how activating it will feel to open ourselves to new options and potential outcomes.
We don’t talk about how freaking scary and unsafe it can feel to try a new way, to be by ourselves, to not go back to the thing we know (even if we also know it leads us to an outcome we no longer wish to experience).
And we don’t talk enough about how brave it is to even try; how loving it is to want to create something different for ourselves; how amazingly generous it is to want to leave our lineage, our community and our world a little better off for us having been here.
When I start working with people, it's often after they've tried all. the. things. that "everyone" says "should" work to get them from where they are📍 to where they want to be 📍.
When none of it has worked for them (or it worked for a bit but just didn't stick), they are left wondering "what's wrong with me?" or "I must not have done it right."
🚨Spoiler alert - there is nothing wrong with them and they followed the guidance as it was given - it was simply incomplete.
And the missing element isn't self-control or self-discipline or willpower or anything like that - it's capacity ... having the resources (time, attention, energy, support, emotional, mental and spiritual bandwidth, etc) to weather the storms that consciously shifting these patterns kick up - in our lives and in ourselves.
Our minds will tell us some messed-up stuff while we are trying to make even seemingly small changes.
Our bodies will feel tired and shifty and sometimes like we just want to jump right out of our skin.
Our emotions will be all over the place, or absent; we'll feel aggravated and ready to burn it all down and we'll feel nothing at all - numb, disinterested, vacant.
And the content of our lives will show us where we continue to walk out the old pattern; where we are still believing the old story; where we're still asleep.
None of this is a sign that anything is wrong - it’s simply the impact of the process of disrupting something that has had free reign in our lives for decades.
Sometimes we start down the path of healing, of shifting a generations-long paradigm, of disrupting a long-held pattern and we realize that we don’t have the resources that we need to complete the journey - that we’re on an arctic expedition having packed for a beach vacation; that we’re traveling by moonlight when we thought it’d be sunlight; that we’ve stepped off on a marathon at a sprinter’s pace - and so we decide to stop ... for now.
Again, that’s not a sign that anything is wrong or that we aren’t meant for this journey - it’s simply that we’re new to it and we need some rest and recovery so we can consider our next steps and maybe find some guidance, some direction, some additional skills and tools to make it feel more possible.
It can be tempting to quit here; to believe that we’re not up to the task but experience has shown me that the people who start the journey - of healing, of breaking generational curses, of disrupting patterns, of adopting new, more nourishing ways of being in the world - are here for it. They find their way back ... eventually and right on time.
Not everyone feels the call to make a change (and that's okay) and it's not something that we can force on others (the path to our individual sovereignty will show us the boundaries of everyone else's sovereign space as well ← this can be a tough one to accept and honor after a lifetime of being applauded for being a helper and "knowing what's best" for everyone else; like Russian nesting dolls, we discover yet another pattern to disrupt while we're in the middle of disrupting a different pattern).
So cut yourself some slack if you are one of the souls in this world who has a desire to shift something within yourself and within your life. There is no one, perfect way to move through this part of the journey (it's a lot more feeling your way through the dark than skipping through wildflower meadows, in my experience).
Understand that when you identify a pattern, you may not yet be prepared to disrupt it- and that’s okay.
You don't really have to disrupt it until you feel like you have to disrupt it ←it’s all operating on your timeline (you are the author of this story).
And then it may take you awhile to gather the necessary supplies for the journey ← it takes as long as it takes.
And then it may take you awhile to reach the point where you feel like continuing to walk out the pattern is more disruptive in your life than disrupting it will feel ← not a problem.
And there may be a lot of starts and stops in the process ←again, not a problem or a sign that you’re doing anything wrong.
The work of change - especially consciously creating the space and conditions for deep inner shifts - is not easy. Please extend some grace to yourself and anyone in your world who is trying.
And remember that you are not alone.
Be kind to yourself. Love yourself first.
Sending you Love,
Tawnia
PS: This topic came up during a recent Community Connection Circle in The Wellspring membership and here are the thoughts I shared at the time -
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I support the leaders and lovers and livers of life who tend to forget themselves as they pour into others and into the world to create the simple shifts that move them steadily and lovingly in the direction of more peace, more ease, more energy and more goodness in their lives. My Soul-Centered Email Series is filled with inspiration, information and valuable tools, tips and practices for consciously creating a life that feels more fully yours without having to blow it all up.
