I’ve been sharing over recent weeks about my drop into feelings of failure, and I forgot to tell you what happened next. It’s worth reading this so that you understand the value of the full cycle of these moments of fear within yourself. And the difference when you know they’re here for your expansion.
I realised last week that in my energy flow to share about the common misunderstanding about a silent mind, I hadn’t shared the after-effects of my previous weeks.
First I’d shared about the permanent background state of a spa day, and then — as though to test the reliability of that spa-state-permanence — I was thrown into old patterns of self doubt and feelings of failure. Bigger than I’ve experienced in…a year…maybe more…or did it just seem bigger in contrast to my everyday baseline now? I’ll never know.
What I do know is that, always, after being thrown into the depths like this, things always look better and feel lighter on the other side.
It’s as though the process enables a system upgrade. A mini rebirth. We’ve contracted deeply, and then we come out more expanded than before.
In the Wild Fig Community we’ve talked of the metaphor of a house. It came to one of the members, Nat, during a Money programme I ran last year.
The idea is that the house is built with walls of thoughts and ideas. Ideas of who I need to be, what’s safe for me, what’s not.
For as long as the walls of thoughts and ideas look like truths. For as long as it looks like they are required to keep me safe. For as long as they are believed as true, that I really am that terrible and not-enough, then we keep away from the walls.
If we walk towards them it feels worse, they get louder, so we assume it’s a bad sign and keep away. Staying within the confines of the mind-made walls. Not looking more closely. Not venturing towards them.
Until…we get curious.
Curiosity is a natural by-product of being in alignment with our essential nature. So the more we settle into the knowing of this essential nature, the more curious we get.
We see these thoughts for what they are — just thoughts. Absent of power. Certainly not sentient. And so we grow our capacity to go towards the walls. To look more closely at them. To be with the feelings they bring up as we walk closer to them.
And, as we look, the walls disappear into thin air. The feelings dissipate into nothing.
Then what remains in the absence of the thought-wall?
The feeling of expansion — because that’s our nature, absent of believing limited ideas.
The spa-state feeling of ourself becomes more evident again with a greater sense of alignment, because a layer of thought-wall that was previously, seemingly, obscuring it has fallen away.
And so that’s what happened for me.
I came out the other side with renewed vitality and energy. Excitement exceeding any fears for the #100DaysOfTransmissions challenge that my friend challenged me to (and which I challenged her back with!). A joy with life. An aliveness.
Did it last?
Now, to be fair, energy then dropped again. There was a day or so of feeling low, apathetic, ‘can’t be bothered’ , what am I doing? But it was nothing like the week before, and aliveness returned spontaneously, on and off, during this time.
It was almost like the final waves as the energy dissipated from the system. Imagine it like a bathtub of water and you’ve stopped swooshing the water back and forth, so the waves subside, and subside, until the water is still again.
And through all of this , the spa-day-state of our nature is there. Present. Being. Still. The permanent stillness that never swooshes with the water. Unaffected and unperturbed by any of these foreground waves.
So if you knew…
That the next time things felt tough, it meant you were moving towards an upgrade.
If you knew that the strengthening discomfort was an increasing labour pain ahead of a rebirth.
If you knew that the fear getting louder was the opportunity to look more closely at the thought-wall, and not a sign to turn away.
If you knew that who you really are is the ultimate contentment and OK-ness — including this experience of waves.
And that on the other side of the contraction you’d feel greater alignment, expansion and freedom…
How would you feel about the discomfort of fears and suffering then?
With love, Helen
P.S. I love walking with you through your difficulties, discomforts and fears. It’s my innate gift because my capacity to hold you safely in your experience is phenomenal, and it enables you to move through the experience with more capacity for it than ever before. Meaning there’s more expansion on the other side. Do you want this? Book a call to meet.