We love nothing better than feeling proud of what we’ve created in larger becoming, and all the wonderful and life-changing results that produces! Like the representational heroic characters in The Wizard of Oz, the required elements to succeed and overcome are the innocence and revealed woundedness of a child, the limits of courage that can only come from accessing the furthest corners of core fears, the facing of a broken heart and the empty loss it brings, and the humble, emerging wisdom that explodes when one admits one’s basic foolishness.
My Moving Story of Radical Transformation
It has been a while since I have posted – about two months, to be exact – in the wake of my first move in 25 years, and to downsize – a very big deal for me leaving the house where I raised my children, where I held my two oldest daughter's engagement parties, baby and bridal showers . . . and had calling hours when my mother and my oldest daughter Anna passed . . . making the decision to move was both obvious and very, very hard for me. I did it because I felt I had no choice.
Moving was also very hard for me, and I had surprisingly (to me) amazing and extensive help in just about every way I needed and beyond. Now I am really adjusting to where I've landed, also with a lot of wonderful help – a one bedroom apartment coming off of a four bedroom, 2500 square foot house with a quarter acre yard – and I couldn't be happier. I am happier in some key related was than I have been in my adult life, free, lightened up, resolved, unburdened, with a rooftop terrace and the most wonderful views from my top floor location from Rochester, NY that I have ever seen in a lifetime of residing here.
The Challenge to Transform of Our Times – and How That Keenly Challenges Us in Our Lives
Lots of extremes and intensity, like our times, I feel; the challenge of our times affecting us each uniquely and in key ways to support transformation, empowerment, and self-healing . . . all of which takes a lot of work! None of this is handed to us – we must earn every step of the amazing and unique journey it takes to come to that "pot of gold", which does not include a preceding "rainbow".
Instead one's life and sense of core wellbeing feels profoundly threatened and actually is at stake. These are, too, what I call "coming of age" challenges – core opportunities and crises designed to mature and actualize us to take greater responsibility for who and what we really are as we come to know that, and then in radical ways learn to dismantle any faulty belief systems that get in the way.
Revealing the Root of Codependency, How It Guarantees Failure and Kills Our Souls
The most common faulty belief system I deal with in my Centering Tools practice is the "good little girl/boy script". This is the foundation of codependency, a regressed attempt to take care of anybody and everything other than responsibly providing for one's own true well being, and supporting unconditionally one's authentic self. The abusive dictates of this script include endless people-pleasing, walking on eggshells, blaming a designated Other for all one's troubles ("If only He/She/It would do ______________ everything would be great), endless self-blame and apologizing for one's existence, addiction to delusional perfectionism, passive behavior which always leaks out to include aggressive behavior – including towards oneself, perseverating/obsessing about the future, forcing by any means one can access the designated Other to understand what one decides must be understood, endless expectation with sneaky related demands to achieve these, lack of any wherewithal to be freely present, and a pervasive delusion that one can foretell the future . . . and there's more, but I think I covered more than the highlights!
This is a tough, mean-spirited, soul-killing script that diminishes whoever becomes caught in it, and casts especially whoever one is closest to in equally diminishing roles (in other words, never as a whole, equal human being with similar imperfections, challenges, gifts, scripts), which sets the stage for never-ceasing conflicts stemming from related and ongoing power struggles. This is for sure a very stressful way to live one's life, and guaranteed to also kill one's cherished dreams and real capacity to create fulfillment, support the greater good, and freely be present.
The Real Cure, and What is Required to Access It
What to do?? First of all, face what's real by facing the results of insisting on "running the script", as I call it, as the primary operative of your emotional life: which are everything fails and falls apart sooner or later. That acknowledgment allows letting go, which understandably precipitates what is rightfully called a healing crisis, designed to end the dysfunctional behavior and clear the way to recover staying present with what is, as your now-released, authentic self.
This is a lot to understand, digest, and lay as the real foundation for self-healing, empowerment and development. It takes a lot of work, and involves facing what is metaphorically called many dragons, which are representations/personifications of unhealed wounds going back to childhood trauma that in turn create core fears.
How to Achieve Greatness Along with True Resolution, and Resolve Despair
These journeys understandably in their unfolding, organic stages do not feel safe – but at one's core there is growing realization that they feel right. All my work is geared to supporting people on these heroic and paradoxically unique journeys that require and engage corresponding and unique new ways of understanding, responding, creating and choosing that we all, in achieving such profound transformation and the better life it produces, end up feeling rightly and immensely proud of ourselves for.
We love nothing better than feeling proud of what we've created in larger becoming, and all the wonderful and life-changing results that produces! Like the representational heroic characters in The Wizard of Oz, the required elements to succeed and overcome are the innocence and revealed woundedness of a child, the limits of courage that can only come from accessing the furthest corners of core fears, the facing of a broken heart and the empty loss it brings, and the humble, emerging wisdom that explodes when one admits one's basic foolishness.
The Key Role Desperation Plays in Recovery, Self-Healing and Actualization
We take these journeys through all our "coming of age" life challenges. That was my "moving" story, which I think allows and provides me with a deep level of compassion and understanding to whoever comes to see me searching for resolution and transformation, always initially beyond knowing; instead driven by an inconsolable and desperate need for change and unwillingness to continue staying the same in a life that can't and therefore doesn't work.
These are amazing journeys of discovery that include realizing, like the revealing of the Wizard of Oz, much is the opposite of how it's presented or appears. There is always great and healing release as these outcomes occur, which I believe in many key and peaking ways currently describes and defines the real challenges of our times.
How We Are In Turn Free to Support the Greater Good and Create a Better World
As we solve our own problems, we turn naturally to support the greater good, with earned wherewithal to solve problems around us, which brings tremendous, very helpful impact. Such are the expanding circles of achieving true Centering, which then becomes a much wider offering, and win-win outcomes.
It goes without saying through these realizations any designated "other" evaporates and, as multidimensional spiritual beings of activating consciousness – each with our own unique and equal place of belonging as free, authentic, creating selves seeking to contribute in fulfilling ways to both provide for ourselves and share in the world – we restore balance, like the Star Wars myth, and honor the divine "force" that is our soul's core. That becomes peace on earth, good will, and safety and prosperity that works for all.