Let me Clear my Throat
I have to be honest…. I’m kinda wishing I was inside your mind right now to hear what your first initial thought was after reading the title of this latest edition to my typed up heart space.
If you are in my age bracket- I bet you may be pumping your fist in the air with DJ Kool to his hip hop crowd pleaser of the same title off the 3rd Jock Jam’s album from 1997… or you may be thinking I have a cold… or maybe you went the wooey direction of thinking my 5th chakra needs balancing to bring more clarity to my communication and self expression.
If you thought any of those things… you are correct. I have been known to revisit my inner 90s child in all of her fabulous glory… and that includes DJ Kool. With three school age kids there is always a cold kicking around, and well, I was in fact informed on Saturday that my Throat Chakra was in fact suffering a bit.
I’m in the middle of a powerful transformation in my personal growth journey as a perfectionistic people pleaser. I’m learning ways to own my full power, learning not to play small, and working through feeling the need to apologize for being who I was, who I am, and who I am becoming.
In my coaching session with my powerhouse mentor, Laura Wieck, earlier last week, she dropped a truth bomb on me while we were discussing identity and becoming. Even in its simplicity, the seismic vibrations that jolted my fault lines really released some clutter from my brain.
“It’s what I do with who I am and my identity that matters.” Laura Wieck
We were talking business and yet it gelled so many other themes together for me. It dovetails with this theme I have been working on with my therapist around being a people pleaser… and what happens when the people pleaser stops pleasing. I permitted myself a moment to lament over how upsetting it can be to be in constant transition. Not just for me, but for everyone around me. Of course my lament was more for others than for myself which he so gently pointed out that I was “doing it again”. I’m a work in progress, I said. What I was sharing at the time was as much as I’m a creature of consistency, I am enjoying the process of change. Up until this season of life, I think as much as I wanted to embrace change when it happened, I resisted it in equal measure since the modulation is inevitably inflicted upon those around me and not everyone is ready for a drastic key change. For those not being ready to accept the shifts that happen can cause conflict. I am very conflict avoidant. Because I want everyone to be content and satisfied and pleased in their existence… and that includes pleased in relationship with me. I want to keep being the good girl that gets the pat on the head for doing what was right.
What happens when you have two equal and opposing forces of energy? In science class you learn that nothing happens. The force is neutralized thus the object in which the force is applied is not affected. In the case of my embrace and resistance to change and self transition, fear was added as a turbo charge to my resistance and ultimately I remained on an amplified course in the life syphoning direction I didn’t really want to be going in.
Are we picking up on this exhausting trend? I’m tuckered just typing it out and I have caught myself sitting here, shaking my head and wondering how the hell I have pulled off living this way for so long and not keeled over. Living to keep everyone else happy around me is a tiring effort and is completely of my own doing.
Who I was, up until now, served a purpose for people. I served a purpose that could be relied upon for myself in my life, in your life and the lives of those I love. I could be relied upon for a lot of wonderful things. If you know me personally you may be listing off a few right now! I could also be relied upon to bend over backwards and be too available to meet the needs of others at the expense of myself and even my family because saying “No” wasn't really in my vocabulary.
Having clear boundaries wasn’t my strongest suit because I was more afraid of not pleasing other people, so they would stay happy with me and not risk the loss of relationship, than I was of losing the very essence of my truest myself in the process.
The past nearly 4 years have revealed these layers to myself and, little by little, I have been shedding them to reclaim the essence that was lost. I learned that “no” is in fact a word that IS in my native language and it turns out that I am aloud to say it, just like everyone else, AND it can be a complete sentence! Learning what boundaries needed to be in place and how to put them where they need to be is a powerful skill. One that takes persistent practice. I have learned that I am also allowed to enforce the boundaries that I develop for myself…and that I need to, even when it’s hard. It is mind blowing to think that up until now, I thought boundaries were rules put in place by everyone else around me, that I was happy and content abiding by them and yet I didn’t have the notion that I too was allowed to have my own and expect others to respect me in return by abiding mine! (Anyone else’s eyes getting wide and a bit flabbergasted that I seem to have been waiting for permission to have boundaries for the past 40 years??? Welcome to my world.)
Tony Gaskins says, “ You teach people how to treat you by what you allow, what you stop, and what you reinforce.”
Boundaries are a loving way of teaching those around you all of those things. Without them, you are essentially a doormat. And I was. I was my own doormat and I laid myself out for others. To some my mat read “Welcome” to others it said “Tread on Me”. There is no blame to be placed on anyone but myself for that. People were only getting as far as I would permit and I would often permit a lot depending on how much importance and value I placed on the relationship and how little value I placed on myself. It was a survival and coping mechanism that I didn’t even recognize that I was utilizing. To myself I extend forgiveness and grace. I was essentially doing what I saw modeled most of my life and lived the lessons I learned as a white, cisgendered, Christian female: Everyone else comes first. Service to others above self. You’ll upset someone if you don’t_______. Do your best so you don’t disappoint _____. Do more than your share so others don’t think you’re a slacker. It’s your job to make other people happy. Following your dreams is silly, you should really measure up to these expectations over here. What kind of wife could you possibly be if you _______. These weren’t all explicit lessons taught and yet they were still managed to be picked up along the way and I have begun to recognize their echoing in my soul. These layers of thinking and being need to be let go.
Shedding those layers upsets the apple cart though. It sends the message that you are “all of a sudden” not as freely available in whatever capacity you once were, and people can no longer depend upon you to be who they have always known, been comfortable with, and in some way may need you to be. Access is limited. WT ever-loving F I’m sure some may have muttered. I know I have. I have been comfortable the way I have been. It has allowed me to live on autopilot for the past 40 years not having to think. Just going through the motions with little effort. I was essentially asleep to myself. Sounds a lot like complacency, doesn’t it? That would be my comfort zone. All warm and safe even though its limiting my zeal for life.
Some of what I have been shedding in my life has a lot to do with how I’m choosing to identify in this world. I am not just a woman. I am not just a mom or a wife or a Christian or a massage therapist. Even in my band- I finally just about had it with the label of Belter that was lovingly attributed to me, and I accepted it for a long time and was flattered for the attention, but that’s not ME! It’s what I’m capable of… but it isn’t who I am. These parts of me have been in loving service to those around me and they are regenerating into being something that is ultimately going to serve myself more than them… and that feels selfish. Ultimately that isn’t what it is and I am now able to lovingly walk myself through an authentic cycle and realize that:
Permitting myself to change and grow into who I am truly meant to be without the tainted input and expectations of who others need me to be to show up for them isn’t selfish. It is the most loving gift I can offer. I can show up more powerfully capable of serving in my fullest capacity. And that is freaking AMAZING.
Like Laura said, “It’s what I do with who I am and my identity that matters.”
I won’t be a people pleaser. I will be a person that pleases. And there is a huge difference in that.
I know I am about to make a powerful shift in my life when when everything in my mind feels like turmoil and pain- it’s a birthing sensation of sorts and any woman who has birthed a baby knows that ring of fire and the intensity as that first shoulder that passes. It is insane and you just don’t think a human can survive that. And if you are a human that hasn’t birthed a baby- I imagine putting your hand on the hot stove is quite similar. Either way- the pain sends you reeling if you can’t find a tether to hold on to or something to help ground you into the present moment. That something for me has always been this roar inside that up until the past few years I hadn’t really let out. I just felt it building.
That discomfort is my new neuro pathways being born from my old people pleasing comfort zone creating a new path. One less traveled by. Each effort that is practiced on this new pathway gives way to new myelin beginning to wrap around it to seal them in place and create an effective conductor for the electrical impulse. In English it means that- each time I practice this new way that is difficult to do now, I am beating down a new path that will be so much easier to walk along if I just keep doing it. It’s a jarring sensation while you are in a larger shift of this process, but the sweet release when you are through it…. There is nothing like that relief and ease.
So the long and the short of it is this: I can stay the same. I am pretty great as I am all considering. I love who I was.
Or I can embrace healthy change. That healthy change may be uncomfortable for a time. That change may no longer serve others in my life in the way that they (and I) were accustomed to and that will alter the relationship moving forward. But my growth isn’t about anyone else but me. Ultimately, this process is so that I can be of greater service to others- this time I’m focused on including myself in the equation. I love who I am becoming.
Most importantly, I love who I am. In all the messy transition. I love who I am.
What shifts are you feeling coming through in your life? What might support get to look like as your comfort zone releases old beliefs and births a new way of being in your life? Maybe the first step in supporting yourself is speaking up to someone about your journey. If so, I’m all ears!
In case you need a pick me up, Go listen to Katy Perry’s Roar. She sums it all up perfectly!
I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath
Scared to rock the boat and make a mess
So I sat quietly, agreed politely
I guess that I forgot I had a choice
I let you push me past the breaking point
I stood for nothing, so I fell for everything
You held me down, but I got up (hey)
Already brushing off the dust
You hear my voice, you hear that sound
Like thunder, gonna shake the ground
You held me down, but I got up (hey)
Get ready 'cause I've had enough
I see it all, I see it now
I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter
Dancing through the fire
'Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar
Louder, louder than a lion
'Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar
You're gonna hear me roar
Now I'm floatin' like a butterfly
Stinging like a bee, I earned my stripes
I went from zero, to my own hero
You held me down, but I got up (hey)
Already brushing off the dust
You hear my voice, you hear that sound
Like thunder, gonna shake the ground
You held me down, but I got up (hey)
Get ready 'cause I've had enough
I see it all, I see it now
I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter
Dancing through the fire
'Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar
Louder, louder than a lion
'Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar
You're gonna hear me roar
You're gonna hear me roar
I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter
Dancing through the fire
'Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar
Louder, louder than a lion
'Cause I am a champion, and you're gonna hear me roar
You're gonna hear me roar
You're gonna hear me roar