Embodied lies

I had quite a full on, inspiring, mind-blowing and emotional weekend in Devon where I attended Jamie Catto’s workshop called “What about you?” If you want to find out more about Jamie and his workshops, please check out his website www.jamiecatto.com (and if you choose to book yourself on one of his workshops, please do mention my name as that might get me some free coaching from him ;-)

Some things that I discovered during this weekend weren’t new at all and the tools provided really helped me to unravel and transform some old baggage. What took me by surprise, however, was the discovery of my fear of rejection.

It’s amazing how we are able to kid ourselves to such a degree that we think we are a certain way when we are actually the opposite. I convinced myself that I was Miss Independent, “I don’t need anyone”, “I do what I like”, blahblahblah… Yeah right!

In actual fact (and I will spell it out here for the whole world to see so that it might cure me), I’m an approval junkie, I’m Miss Needy!

Now that I read it black on white, it doesn’t seem so far fetched anymore. It’s true. I love approval. I need approval and anything, that puts me in a position where people might stop loving me or approving of me, scares the shit out of me. The bitter pill to swallow was, that the one thing that scares me the most, is my own greatness (and I’m going to use exactly this word here because it sent shivers through my body as I thought of it and how people might react to it). Yes, my greatness, my amazingness, my awesomeness, me shining my light big and bright without worrying about how that might make other people feel. At the end of the day, isn’t that their business anyway?

It makes me angry to think that I am the sort of person that shrinks from being their best because they are worried about what other people might think and how they might react but oh it’s so painfully true. I can think back through my life of so many examples of how I made myself smaller than I was out of fear of rejection, when I took off the high heels and swapped them for flats so I wouldn’t look too sexy, when I dropped my grades in school so the cool kids wouldn’t reject the boffin, when I settled for the safe option that pleased others rather than the outrageous one. After all, who do I think I am? I can hear that question being asked of me when I was a child: “Do you think you’re special and better than others? Do you think you deserve better than others?” No, I don’t think I’m better than others but I think that we are all special and that we all deserve the best.

I think I also finally understand why I hunch and the cause for my neck and shoulder aches. I hunch because I try to make myself smaller than I am and my body knows that this is wrong and rebels against it with aches and pains. As I’m still struggling to come to terms with this discovery emotionally, I will start from the outside in and consciously try and stop making myself physically smaller than I am. According to everything I know that should have an inverted ripple effect and change how I feel on the inside.

I almost finished this post with: “wish me luck” but that would be seeking your approval again, wouldn’t it? So don’t wish me luck. Think that I’m big-headed, think that I’m arrogant, that I’m full of myself, annoying or whatever else it is you wish to think. I’m giving you full permission to disapprove of and reject me. See if I’ll care - literally - as I don’t know myself yet.