I had an argument with someone the other day. I usually never do. Probably because I am not good at that. I don’t like it. I don’t get ignited by it. This is absolutely not a source of pleasure or satisfaction. I feel uncomfortable when confronted to any sort of conflictual situation. I subsequently avoid conflict and so, let’s say it clearly, I really qualify as “conflict-avoidant”. When confronted to any kind of disturbance or a tensed and heated conversation, I usually run away. I do not have the capacity or the energy or even the nervous system for such interactions. It seems I am not wired for it. If confronted to anything or anyone that could eventually shake my ground, I go into frozen mode. Disabled. Unable. We all have our modes of dysfunctioning and they are all different from person to person but this is usually the one I am using. So, when that happens, I get ready to disappear, to be swallowed by the earth. I recently erased my profile on all social medias and one of the reasons was that.
On that same day, a little later on that evening, serendipity led me to a fascinating article from the excellent Erin Reese. Erin writes about consciousness, astrology, intuitive energy and other fascinating topics, all so dear to me. Specifically that piece1 , that day, felt incredibly accurate and so descriptive of my situation. It felt like the universe was sending me a direct message with precious information.
Anyhow, that day, before I even “received” the message from the universe, something extraordinary already happened: I did not escape the fight. That day, I stood my ground. That day, I engaged. Gently. Steadily. Even if it was a fight, I engaged with compassion. And apparently, I was fearless. I could not believe it myself. The planets were aligned. I was centered. It felt unusual, weird and unreal.
Baard, my beloved partner and husband, who was present at the scene, told me that it was the first time he saw me like this, that something very special had just happened. He said, I took the biting (Did I forget to mention that I did not start the fight and that I was actually being attacked?…), the whole thing in a quiet, paused and calm way. He said I looked cool, and that I responded gracefully! While he was praising and congratulating me in the kitchen, I was still trying to understand what has just happened…
Even though it was a victory (over my demons), I felt utterly exhausted. It is if I had lifted a whole mountain with my bare hands. For sure, I had lost a lot of energy in the process.
We all need to feel safe and it helps to be acknowledged by loving allies, who out of love and care, and truth, give us the opportunity to wonderfully reclaim our power. When someone doesn’t own their power, everything and everyone is affected.
Through the eyes and the authentic loving judgement of someone else, I woke up to something new in me.
In the last weeks, thanks to that event, and small others events, I understood a lot about myself. About who I had become in the last years. About owning my own power - not only as a fancy exercise of a new-age-online-zoom-course (I admit I have had a lot of those recently!) but as a real somatic and embodied action. It was actually possible to feel aligned even if I felt a strong wind howling in the cracks. I could actually stand there, be still, be fair. Express myself properly. I understood also that to the extent that we are not owning our full power, we are consciously and unconsciously trying to control and manipulate other people. Not willingly of course. Not always at least. But trying to pull others into enmeshed dynamics is something that comes quite natural for most of us. I have seen that again and again.
We think we make rational, fair decisions, even though it has been proved, particularly in the case of governance, that we are swayed by our unconscious feelings, embedded in and frequently manipulated by dominating belief systems. And specially from a place of victimhood, we think people owe us. From a place of victimhood, nothing is our fault. I have often heard my mother say “C´est pas ma faute!” (It´s not my fault!) whenever she messed up, whenever she feels she did not perform. In that way, she is never responsible, never accountable. It´s OK. I really don´t blame her anymore for that. I used to. But things happened to her. And it is part of her. So, all my life, I have been pulled into a save/rescue/care type of relationship, or even into control habits because of our own fear and internalised old patterns. And that did not help me own my power.
I often meet the same type of people; either the majestic narcissistic type or the type that is shedding internalised identifications with victimhood patterns. And in both these types, there is so much internal conflict, confusion and pain. There is in me too. I am not escaping the pain and the confusion. None of us are, I think. But what I want to point out here, is that when we create more awareness as to the state of our nervous systems, we are more able to notice our triggers2 and our dissociative responses. Creating the resources to increase our window of tolerance, we start to have more agency and autonomy. We can then be more responsive, rather than fully reactive with no choice in the matter. But for that, we need to work on ourselves.
When we do the healing work, we might feel that the story must dissolve in order to get better. But as we cannot bypass the body, it seems as if we cannot bypass the story. And as we need to be fully in our body, we also need to be fully in the story. What do I want to say here? I often think that we are trying to escape our stories, we try to push them away, to deny even that they are there. But until we own our “shit”, sorry to say, we cannot even start the process of becoming or un-becoming. And birthing anew. For sure, it bears risks for ourselves and for others; our persona and ego will die in the process. We need to search for our authentic selves and sometimes we had to separate from then early on. The whole system has made us separate from ourselves. Some have been and still are in the victim position and that hurts. Not only on an individual level but also on a collective level. Yes, when we get blamed or targeted, it reinstates the thing even stronger. And it is probably what happened in this specific case/event. But I sort of pushed it a little further.
Healing is on its way.
(If this piece feels messy to you, it feels messy to me too. I will not try to hide it! I left in my substack shelf for long and corrected it for long. But now, I feel I need to release it. It has an unfinished touch, an imperfection that I cannot perfect. It feels right to just release it like a feeling, something unachieved. Maybe it reaches something. Someone. Maybe not. Who knows!)
*If you are conflict-avoidant, or have passive-aggressive tendencies, now is a good time to have a heart to heart with yourself to see if you’re ready to drop an outdated coping mechanism. This will benefit everyone, collectively. Remember: as within, as without. ~ Erin Reese ~
Dr. Gabor Mate: “What is a trigger? If you look at a weapon, the trigger is a very small part of the mechanism, isn’t it? What there really is, is a weapon that is loaded, ready to fire, and it’s got an explosive in it and it’s got ammunition in it. That’s you. Then you see something or hear something that triggers you. Should we look at these triggers as a tiny little thing, or should we look at the loaded gun and the ammunition that we all carry and we are so afraid to actually look at?”