22 Mar How You Become You
How do we become who we are?
The question has percolated in me for over thirty years as I’ve explored this subject. Joseph Campbell was famous for talking about how the acorn is programmed and designed to become an oak tree.
How do I become fully me? Authentic, genuine, safe in my body and mind to express myself without hesitation or fear of being shamed. This is the underlying dilemma people come into therapy with, especially when the trauma has cleared somewhat and larger, issues come forward to be explored.
Let’s break it down a bit.
Some of you have heard or read what I’ve written about why trauma takes a big foothold into body and mind.
That mostly happens (to be overly generalized) because there wasn’t an attachment relationship to hold and process and integration the trauma. Two elements were missing: having a relationship which provided a “safe haven” and a “secure base.”
One of the biggest choice points in healing that anyone has comes when they realize – often with a great deal of distress, resentment, and 
frustration – that what they have always wanted can’t first come from outside.
Of course we all want it to come unsolicited from the outside. That’s the way it should have happened if you had had the most ideal upbringing. Most of us, unfortunately, didn’t. The research says it’s 3 out of 4 of us hasn’t had that kind of ideal, secure base/safe haven upbringing.
Now, I’m not saying this to bum you out.
Rather, it’s an invitation to take responsibility for your healing and move toward where you want to go.
Every child should have had the world come to meet its needs in exactly the right way. Children should have been met from the outside in.
Yet time has passed and it’s now time for a different model. As adults our developmental task is different.
As adults we need to grow from the inside out. Sometimes we’re lucky and life blows in and gives us something from the outside in without a lot of internal preparation.
But frankly, in my personal and professional experience I have to say that is extremely rare, happening mostly when we don’t have a lot of resistance to receiving whatever that is.
Here’s where it often gets confusing though.
Yes. It is something to cultivate from inside, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.
Okay – what do I mean by this? There might not be an actual person but rather, we’re cultivating the qualities
Yet, there’s something more that we often have to make explicit in talking about this important subject.
We all have infinite assortment of possible combinations which set up and orient us to who we are and who we will become. Some of us come into this life with genetic predispositions, some with physical limitations or physical ways to excel.
More importantly than those, though, are the “seeds of being” that we can actively cultivate. By consciously – or even unconsciously – cultivating certain qualities we allow those qualities to grow. Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman did an encyclopedic handbook and classification of character strengths and virtues in 2004
By actively, and deliberately, cultivating these qualities we nurture what the Buddhists call our “view” – our perspective on life and on our relationship to life. This bigger subject is one that I’ll be dipping into during the one day workshop happening next Saturday Integrating Parts Using Yoga and Meditation.
In the meantime, if you like, you can dip a toe into the water with us.
Click on the link: and find one of the qualities on the list that appeals to you. What feels like something you would like more of?
Now, take the one quality and write about it using these questions to open the inquiry:
– What would it look like to have that quality?
– How would you move in the world if this quality was fully embodied in you?
– How would people respond to you differently with this quality in its full expression?
– What perspective does this quality offer you?
– What resistances and blocks do you feel to opening to this quality? Are there thoughts? Feelings? Body sensations? What might you be afraid of?
As always, I want to hear about your exploration! Take a moment and comment.