Broken foundations
The last 6 months have been a process of learning how to allow the fundamental shifts within that would turn out to pave the way for an incredible coming home to me.
When you’ve built foundations on rocky self-beliefs there comes the time when they must crumble. I have learned that while the undoing is near inevitable, the degree of suffering is directionally proportional to the amount you resist these necessary changes.
A deep and profound exploration of my relationship to “trust” has been the focal point around which my months have rotated. I found that I was harboring long ago experienced heartbreak; I perceived my trust to have been broken in romantic relationships, my relationship with “God”, within my friendships, my workplaces but most impactfully, was the broken trust within my internal relationship with the various parts of self.
With trust having been broken within each and every fundamental pillar in my life; I felt so deeply alone. I couldn’t stand in my own energy - my own gorgeous self, I couldn’t allow people in. I was trapped. Alone. Unsupported. Unable to see out.
I had built a fortress around me, without even realising. I couldn't see myself, the truth of me. I thought I was so “healed”, so open, so connected. I was confused by a string of casual romantic relationships; why could they go no further than surface level connection, why were they short in duration or lacking in emotional connection? Why was I drawing in people who were disconnected from themselves? I deeply understand that the world is a mirror to us - these people, I couldn’t see myself in them, I couldn’t see the reflection of my deepest hidden truths. I was fearful to be vulnerable, to allow a romantic partner in, to see me wholly as I am, to entrust someone with my broken heart seemed the hardest possible thing. I have come to realise that this was a rejection of parts of myself that I had deemed unlovable and unworthy, parts that would drive potential partners away. So I had locked them away, deep within. While I have yet to encounter one I would call my partner, in the full acknowledgement and integration of these parts of self, I now hold hope.
In my friendships, in amongst the gorgeous people I have been so fucking blessed to have collected, there were friendships that lacked reciprocity, friendships where I was not a priority, where there was competition and where I was afraid to be my full and glorious self. I dimmed who and how I was out of fear of losing these tenuous connections. I didn’t trust that they would stay. I abandoned me so that they would stay. Did they stay? No, obviously not. I wasn’t being authentic and it showed. One of the greatest repellents in life is a lack of authenticity. It is through the formation of a ‘group-coaching’ type trio that I encountered the greatest expression of true friendship that I have ever experienced. Within this trio we hold space, we acknowledge, we welcome, we celebrate one another. We are there with reassurance, accountability, support; whatever is needed. Together we explore the depths of our beings, the flow and the revelation of deeply hidden core beliefs comes with ease in such a safe environment. Through my friendship with these women I have come to know what it is to be a true friend as well. To genuinely love without condition. This space has healed my relationship with women. There is now a deep and profound trust both in myself as a friend and in others as friend.
My relationship with the concept of “God” was one that took quite some time to untangle. It became a gentle process of slowly, with curiosity, teasing out the mess of thread that was left in the wake of my experiences in the Catholic church and the evangelical christian community as a youth. I think that the heartbreak I experienced when I came to feel that the “God” I had followed unquestioningly in my younger days had left me, had abandoned me, this was the most soul shattering heartbreak of all. My fundamental life views had fallen to pieces, I was not yet worldly enough and awakened enough to understand that it wasn’t “God” but the folly of humans misled enough to presume themselves the messengers and gatekeepers that were the root of that heartbreak. This heartbreak, I now see, was the precursor to all the others. In addition to the deeply broken self trust - how could I trust me, I had loved “God” and been made the fool - it became my expectation that I would be abandoned, let down and left. After all, if I wasn’t worthy or loved by the creator how could I be loved by anyone else. From this point I minimised myself, I became as small as I possibly could. If I could become invisible then maybe I could get by in this life. Mistrust became my default. It has taken many many years of self-inquiry, self-love and self-appreciation to have built a safe enough internal space for this part of me to reveal itself. Over the years I have come to my own version of spirituality and reconnected with my soul. Through coming to recognise consistent themes that lay across all religions, spiritual orientations, philosophies and scientific understandings I have built my own truth of this life experience. Slowly I have rebuilt trust in my own wisdom and knowing of what is aligned for me. More recently via my trio I came to recognise that while I had built these new foundations I was still standing in a place of mistrust of my own beliefs. With this recognition this mistrust dissolved, a final tether to the old ways was let go.
Seemingly quite naturally through this process I have come to trust myself in all spaces of my life. I trust myself as a mother, I trust myself as a friend, I trust myself as an employee, I trust myself as an entrepreneur, I trust myself as a spiritual being, I trust that everything, every minute, in every moment is as it should be. Most of all though, I trust myself to look after myself in every way.