I wrote last time about the courageous choice of staying, breaking the pattern, the loop that I had been in of ‘getting on the run’ again when things got tough. That reflection has stayed with me, but I am thinking today may be the opposite! The courageous choice of not staying! Not staying in the same old stuck loop, rut, story, pattern.
Making a different choice.
I’m currently reading Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home by Toko-pa Turner, and one story has really stayed with me.
She writes about a period of transition when she was staying in a friend’s spare room. Her friends had given her no reason to feel like she wasn’t welcome, but slowly she convinced herself that she was in the way.
She tried to remedy that by do, do, doing more. The people-pleasing side of it, buying groceries, cooking meals, cleaning and then because she wanted to give them privacy, started spending longer and longer in her room – the withdrawing side of it.
The more she tried not to be in the way, the more disconnected she felt.
One day her friend asked if something was wrong, and although she initially tried to shrug it off, Toko-pa eventually managed to write on a piece of paper, “I feel in the way.” The author shared that she was expecting some kind, comforting, reassuring words from her friend.
But instead, her friend gently confronted her, pointing out that by removing herself from the day-to-day life of the home, she was actually the one doing the abandoning. She was the one withdrawing. She was the one creating the disconnection she was experiencing.
That really landed with me, and has done with others that I have shared it with. It got me wondering how often do we do the same thing?
We can look outward and think, “This place isn’t for me.” “There aren’t enough opportunities.” “Nobody invites me.” “Life feels repetitive.”
And yet sometimes, without even realising it, we’re making decisions that back up that story. We can withdraw. We can stop exploring. We stop reaching out. We stay with what feels familiar. Our protective patterns slowly make our world smaller, while convincing us the world/the weather/the community/the friends are the problem.
I went coddiwompling on Sunday – a drive with no particular destination.
I knew it wasn’t going to be one of my longer ones, but I’d still packed my thermos flask and some snacks and was completely open to whatever I found.
A few days earlier I’d driven around the coast for a friend’s birthday and found myself thinking, I haven’t driven 100 kph for ages! We got the driving tunes on, one of those ‘oh hello this-part-of-me moments! Hello joy!’
That really stuck with me.
I realised that my world had gradually become much smaller, not necessarily from withdrawing, but everything I was up to was in a smaller geographical place, and although that was great, I was still missing the feeling of the open road.
Some days I smile because where I dip in the sea each morning is on the same street as where I see people for coaching. My days can become this little loop between home, the beach and the coaching space, perhaps with something a little further down the road into town in the evening. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it made me realise that I’d stopped venturing much beyond it.
So on Sunday, I did my Inside-Out Check In. My body was feeling a little weary and my heart a little wobbly, soul spoke up and said, it knew what was best! That coddiwomple!
I turned down roads I’d never been on before. I stopped at two or three places I’d never visited. Bumped into an old friend and a new friend and at one point I found myself wandering up some steps, and walking around someone’s shed in their garden, because I really couldn’t understand where the path had gone!
It felt so good! I felt alive!
I found a couple of great books in a community library, and took one down to a beach I hadn’t been to and read while enjoying tea from my thermos and the snacks! Ah the sun, and then the rain, and then the rainbow!
My body was revived and my heart felt far more grounded, mind was curious once more and spirit was very much feeling connected to nature and the land. Soul had been right! It did know exactly what was needed!
It reminded me that you don’t have to travel hours to experience adventure. Sometimes it’s simply seeing somewhere familiar/closeby through fresh eyes.
It made me think back to Toko-pa’s story.
Once she recognised that she had been withdrawing, she had choices. She could sit in the lounge, join the conversation, become part of homelife again. She could be proactive with what had begun to feel like a constraint.
And I wonder whether that’s true for many of us, I so see myself in these reflections.
If we feel lonely, are we waiting for people to contact us while rarely reaching out ourselves?
If we feel disconnected from our community, are we spending most of time hiding away, same old, same old or could we try that new place?
If we are feeling trapped or stuck, when was the last time we explored somewhere we’d never been, tried something different or simply turned left instead of right?
If life feels repetitive, what routines have we unconsciously created that keep giving us more of the same? What would life feel like with a little shake up, spruce up?
If we long to feel like we belong, are we standing on the edge of goings on, because we are afraid of getting in the way, or could we take that courageous step…
This is not about beating ourselves up. It was a real game changer for me when I started to see these behaviours as protective patterns quietly reinforcing the very stories we’re longing to escape.
I like to think of them as ways, albeit outdated ways, that our nervous system tries to keep us safe, because it never got the memo that life can be different now, can be safe. Not only safe to stop running, but also safe to explore, to enjoy, to adventure, to step up, to lean in, to connect.
The beautiful thing is that once we notice the protective patters, we have choices. We can collect different evidence – evidence that we do belong, that there are opportunities, that there is life outside our geographical day-to-day, that amongst the routine, life can still hold beauty, joy and delight.
That there doesn’t need to be some dramatic intervention, it is simply about us taking some of those small steps to participate in life again.
A question that I have been asking myself more and more – What story have I been collecting evidence for… and what small step could I take this week instead, to collect evidence for a kinder, truer, more connected, more joyfilled story?
Alongside,
Liz
PS – I love sharing more about the protective patterns with people, the dot-joining, the relief, the compassion, is so beautiful to see, and as I say was a real game-changer for me.
