Why is committing to doing the inner work so challenging?
Have you felt ready to dive into the unknown, peel back the
layers of your unhealed wounds, and discover once and for all
why you are stuck where you are?
Only to wake up the next day and backtrack?
If this is you keep reading….
I lost track of the countless times I declared, THIS is it! I want to
feel better! I want to get stronger! I want to find the courage to
leave my toxic marriage! I want to understand why I’m allowing
this to continue. I want to figure out who I am and what I want
and need! Only to do nothing about it. I would “negotiate” with
myself. “If this happens again, then I’m leaving” “If he talks to me
like that again” that’s it”!” When my child is older, I will have the
time to figure this out.” “When I have more money I will get help”
Why did I keep avoiding reality? Why didn’t I get help when I
knew something had to change?
The real question: What was keeping me from doing the inner
work?
Today I know why. After years of healing, I no longer negotiate
with myself. I’m committing to staying in the healing lane, and not
avoiding any of my feelings. Discovering my root cause and my
why.
So many why’s.
It was hard to get started. I cried so many tears. There were so
many challenges. In the beginning stages, I had days I wished I
was back in my “safe” cocoon of the “known”. My brain and my
nervous system felt safer there. Out here in the wilderness, I had
NO idea what I would uncover next. My brain kept telling me it
wasn’t safe to be out here. That being in the unknown was a
terrible idea. My brain did what it is designed to do. To keep me
safe. Guess who won the battle this time? ME!
I now understood, unconsciously that I wanted to protect the
“young me” that little girl, from feeling any more hard feelings, by
staying detached and dissociated as I had for most of my life. It
was my survival tactic. If I didn’t allow myself to feel it couldn’t
affect me. Growing up in a toxic alcoholic chaotic family, I
learned early on to be the caregiver and people pleaser. To push
my own needs and wants aside in order to take care of evervone
else. Guess what I discovered? I was still the people pleaser. The
caregiver, who took care of everyone else. The person who was
always completely depleted. I didn’t like feeling this way. I knew
others didn’t live like this. But it was all I knew so I stayed in my
comfort zone and told myself it was fine, until one day it wasn’t.
You might be thinking, how did I know it wasn’t fine anymore?
What changed within me? And how did I stay on the path of
healing? How did I keep moving forward and not backward to the
familiar?
Well, I had a nervous breakdown. Turns out it was what I needed
to find my breakthrough. I finally understood education without implementation is useless, It didn’t make a difference that I had become an expert on narcissistic abuse from all the research I had done.
It didn’t matter that I understood why I kept repeating the same pattern I had seen in my family system for generations. I wasn’t doing
anything about it. I didn’t do the work. I didn’t apply it to myself.
To my life.
Once I did everything changed.
It will be different for you. When it’s your time to stop living a life
you don’t deserve, you will have your awakening and there will be
no going back. It doesn’t mean you won’t have days that seem
impossible to get through. There will be many times, the thought
of returning to what you know, the old way of living, will be
tempting, and many of you will go back, and there is no shame. It
means you were not fully ready. You dipped your toes into the
unknown. You might even have reached out for help or signed up
for a course, but right before or as you are starting doing the work, it might seem too overwhelming to your nervous system
and you take a step back. That’s ok! It just means now is not
your time. When you are ready your teacher will appear, in
whatever form or shape is right for you.
In closing, there is no timeline for healing. You will get started
when you are fully ready.
Stay tuned for an announcement coming very soon. It has to do
with support, help, and being in a community of women who
understand what you are going through. You will know if it’s right for you.
It might help you dip your toes into the unknown.
More to come….
In healing
Ina