How to navigate situations after we’ve spotted our adaptation
A community-member shares: ‘Simona, you asked about frustrations, here’s mine: I spotted the adaptation, but I’ve already roped myself into a situation’
That’s such an important question because, more likely than not, we will encounter situations like that on our path forward.
If you are new around here, you may also want to check out the Remothering Roadmap article.
The Healing Paradox
Even though it can feel cringy and uncomfortable, it’s actually good news. According to Lynn Fraser, senior teacher in the Himalayan Yoga Meditation tradition, and founder of the Stillpoint Method of Healing Trauma, another way to say that is, “now I can afford to see it clearly”. As Lynn shared in the 2023 reMothering Masterclass, “the reason we can afford to see it is because we are well regulated enough that we can stay present to ourselves”.
Caught In the Past: What to do in existing situations
Once the pattern is out of our blind spot, we have more choices available to us. Which is helpful for moving forward, but what happens when we’ve already gotten ourselves into a pickle back when those adaptations were in our blind spot?
To answer that, I’ll share a personal story.
I had moved away from home when I graduated from high school. At the time, I told myself and everyone else that it was for the weather. But just because my loyalty-conditioning wouldn’t allow me to consciously see the emotional dysfunction, that didn’t mean it wasn’t impacting the way I showed up in the world.
Fast-forward a decade, and a confluence of circumstances brought me back to my home town. From there, because of decisions I made while I was running unseen adaptations and patterns, I ended up living near my parents as I was raising my children.
While it’s not something current me would have chosen to do, living in proximity to my FOO (family of origin), offered me many important lessons and opportunities to identify outdated patterns. And once I spotted them, I had CHOICE.
In this particular situation, choice didn’t mean I was able to pick up and move (which is story for another day). But what it did mean was that I was able to step out of the outdated pattern and be more intentional in how I navigated forward.
Don’t get me wrong, I spent a long time feeling trapped and helpless (the healing journey can be bumpy in spots). But over time, with the help of many of the strategies and tools that are now more widely-available in the reMothering Masterclass, I began to shift from outside-in circumstances to inside-out clarity.
Once my center of gravity was inside of myself, I was able to notice what choices I did have. And, the shift also created a greater sense of internal safety, which allowed me to look more closely at the driving motivations underneath those outdated patterns that got me there in the first place.
For example, I was finally able to see that there were generational patterns that were so “normal” to me, that I didn’t even realize that I was leaking some of my outdated programming onto my kids. So, spotting them meant cycle-breaking. And because the remothering work supports us to hold ourselves with kindness, I didn’t fall deep into a shame pit when I began to see the ways that my misguided patterns inadvertently impacted the people I love most in this world. Instead, I was able to move into repair, where it was appropriate. And I was able to model something new moving forward.
Navigating Forward
What I hope that story illustrates for you is that while navigating forward through situations we’ve inadvertently created for ourselves can be messy, when we can be there for ourselves, we have greater access to solutions and choice.
While we may have some outdated programming to update, and we may have some tough terrain to navigate as we do, we’ve got this! Here’s to updating the patterns that no longer serve. Here’s the rewiring with intention. Here’s to the remothering journey!
My wish for all of us is that the harmony we are learning to cultivate between our own two ears ripple out into the world in positive and beautiful ways.
For more on the healing paradox, check out: Uncomfortable side effect of growth and healing
