September 15, 2023
Hellow Fellow Heart Traveler,
Survival can demand you to take on more responsibility than is reasonable or good for you.
When Papa was around 12 years old, Stalin collectivized Ukraine which meant his family no longer owned the land of their farm. They were required to move into the nearby village of Blumenthal. “Moving” meant tearing down their house, hauling the materials a few miles and rebuilding it. Papa’s father died when he was seven and Papa was the oldest male in the family, so this was his responsibility while his mother worked on a collective farm miles away, the only work she could get to feed her five children. He was responsible, and he accomplished the task, but in the middle of his task, he got a big sliver in his hand, and it got infected. His mother came home only once a week or so, and she was not there to tend to it. He was in so much pain he couldn’t sleep through the night, so he sat awake and stared into the dark horizon in the direction his mother would come, if she would come. The relief was palpable when he described how he felt as he saw her figure appear on that horizon in the dim hour of the morning.
I heard that story for the first time when I was in my 30’s while I was documenting all the stories Papa could recall. This story illuminated the source of one of my own survival wound patterns. Papa expected me to take responsibility beyond my development or capacity from as early as I could recall. It was always my responsibility to not get hurt while I was working on the farm. As a four-year-old, I was told to hold on tight when riding on a wagon or farm implement rather than someone holding onto me to protect me. As a five-year-old, when I helped to unload hay wagons, I was told to be careful not to let bales fall on me or to step off the edge of the wagon and fall. When I got scared, upset, or hurt, I was told there are much worse things in life than I just experienced. These kinds of daily experiences trained me to see life as survival and to take responsibility, even when it wasn’t necessary or good for me.
This particular pattern has been challenging for me to heal, because I generalized it to every area of my life, especially taking responsibility for other people’s reactions or emotions. Part of how I know I’m in this survival pattern is that I experience fight and freeze reactions.
- The fight can look like defensiveness, justification, or trying to “fix” something that I believe has caused the other person’s emotions.
- The freeze can look like looping thoughts that re-trigger my feeling of being responsible for their reaction, or it can look like shame, self-blame or any self-attack.
When I’m perpetually trying to survive my interactions, I’m not available for relationship beyond the transactional, this for that. I’ve not available to be vulnerable, to receive, or to flourish.
Flourishing requires us to look honestly at our patterns of taking responsibility and make conscious choices, rather than staying unconscious in the automatic sympathetic nervous system reactions.
It’s okay to have the automatic reactions, but moving into flourishing requires reflection and hindsight before we can begin to make new choices. Flourishing required me to discern that self-blame is not caring for the other person. When I take responsibility for someone’s emotional reaction, that’s not actually caring. I’m not available to be present with them when I’m in a fight, flight, or freeze reaction, when I make myself responsible for something neither they nor I can control. They can control their response or expression, but not their emotions.
This is my ongoing healing work, not something I’ve mastered. As someone committed to this healing, I see it in myself and in others around me every day. I believe we are a culture that can evolve and wake up to this emotional manipulation and confusion.
- People who control their emotions are not the healthy model.
- People who take responsibility for other’s emotions are not the healthy model.
- People who don’t take responsibility for caring for their own emotions are not the healthy mode.
Through becoming conscious of our own patterns of survival, and healing our own fight, flight, freeze reactions that fire when there’s no actual danger that needs to be survived, we evolve emotional intelligence. We are going to need this for the cultural changes we are facing (and will continue face) as our planet reacts to the imbalance our species has created. Healing survival wounds is essential to be able to access the intelligence and creativity we will need to find our path forward.
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As I write this newsletter, my back leans against the Atlas Cedar pictured above, it’s branches a cathedral, it’s pale, sage needles delicate and soft. This is the last newsletter I’ll be writing from England, home of beloved, sacred, vibrant, old, and massive trees. I’ve learned some amazing things from the time I’ve spent with these trees. I’ll be sharing about it in future newsletters.
I’ll be offering a six-week workshop series starting in November called, Sacred Writing: Creating a New Story for Humanity, aimed to enhance creative process through embodiment practices and a neuro-wise foundation. I’ll share more specific details in my next newsletter. Enrollment begins soon.
Would you like to schedule a free one-hour embodied writing coaching session with me to discuss a creative project you are working on or considering? I’m here for it! Email me.
Connected we shine!
Rose
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