03 Mar Where are you on the Developmental Path?
When an infant arrives in this world it requires the blessings of those around it to care for it. This is true for all mammals, human or not.
As we grow up, though, we are expected to take care of ourselves. Of course, that’s part of the natural order of things. It’s what I describe as the Developmental Task of Becoming an Adult versus staying a child.
Part of taking responsibility of being a conscious adult, living from the inside out instead of demanding the world to take care of us, means many of us exile off those parts of us that were never emotionally or psychologically (or in worst cases physically) taken care of.
Becoming whole, healing, requires us to integrate those same parts…parts that we previously didn’t have the capacity to be with.
There are stages, of course, in the Developmental Task of Becoming an Adult. We can’t leapfrog over the unmet needs previously neglected.
Our first order of business, the first stage, is being able to be with ourselves, becoming mindful of the places where we are disorganized (or maybe being aware of just HOW disorganized we are) so that we can, step by step, organize ourselves in the way we want to – to live the lives we want to instead of the way the disorganized imprints design for us. This is what I teach in the Becoming Safely Embodied Skills Course, now available as a self-study course.
The second stage, once we’ve got some internal organization, is recognizing that the reason we were disorganized, the reason we’re protesting so much, so upset about life, is that we have needs. This recognition asks us to be compassionately brave enough to be with them, to inquire into them.
This ushers in a third stage, perhaps the most painful cauldron of the healing journey to move through. Once we know we have unmet needs, wounds of pain from the past, our task is to welcome them, to be present to them, learn how to be with them….INSTEAD of requesting, demanding, cajoling or unconsciously manipulating others into meeting those needs.
This painful cauldron is the horrible mosh pit of becoming an adult.
To use another, more graceful metaphor: when a caterpillar spins a cocoon around itself, the transformational process of becoming a butterfly. In the cocoon the caterpillar becomes mush, dissolving itself of caterpillar-hood to transform into a butterfly.
We talk easily about the transformational process, but let’s pause for a moment. Going from one form (caterpillar) to another form (butterfly) means dissolving what is known.
That’s the transformational process of becoming an integrated Self.
It’s the process of knowing what we need (love, compassion, care, connection, mentoring, reassurance, comfort and so much more), welcoming in those needs while compassionately being with the pain of NOT having it at some point — so that (and here’s the important part) so that we can have those needs met in this time and space. The experience of self-compassion is critical here. I have a free guidebook: Find YOUR Path Home to Yourself. The guidebook helps you transform suffering into compassion, healing, loving and living YOUR Purpose.
Please do drop me a note and share your experience with me.