Awareness adds to life.

Happy New 2023 Year everyone!

This blog, is inspired by something I heard watching David Letterman interview Ryan Reynolds. Ryan shared how he & his wife's goal with raising their girls, is to support them in being self aware, for their parents focused on them being happy, and they feel that is limiting. 

Firstly, as you would expect, working in the field I do, hearing that was like Eureka for me. And these are the emergent thoughts as I wander down this rabbit hole....I mean, it reminds of the vast amount of books that have been written in the 1000s on happiness, which highlights our preoccupation with being happy as a society. Which, when you look at it that way, addiction is a normal extreme consequence of a goal to be happy. Kind of limiting really, for it automatically drops anything in our experience that is not defined as such.

Wanting your child to be self aware feels so much more expansive, more possibilities of wellbeing and resilience, where the experience of something then becomes more about what I discover about myself, The greater possibility of accepting sadness, anger, upset, when it happens, as part of the rich human experience, rather than the judgment that because I am not happy, I must be doing something wrong. In this light, the hedonistic quality of chasing the dragon of happiness, becomes more illuminated to me. And perhaps for the first time, highlights the happiness goal as that of an immature ego. 

This brings to mind the unexpected joy I found, when I started to allow myself to lean into the emotions arising within me, like sadness, upset, anger, to let them flow on the pages of my journal, in the movement of my body, in the sharing with a safe person. Though they weren't pleasant, they freed up that which had been stuck in my body, in my being, allowing for a greater experience of myself, and the present. A reclamation of parts of self that had been denied, an experience of wholeness, that was infinitely more fulfilling than anything before. 

In wholeness, we find acceptance for every facet of our being, not needing to project or discharge it out into the world. We recognize the ego has its place, and in wholeness it can sit in that place, on the round table, knowing it was never made to lead, but in being part of the team, there is peace. 

There is so much confusion created in our world of what healthy self esteem is, evidenced to me, in the interchangeable use of selfish & self-centred. And yet, to me they are two very separate concepts.
Self-ish, feels limited, preoccupied, childish....and I have experienced do-gooders, who come from this place equally as much as people who are constantly seeking their own gratification. 
Self-centred feels grounded, expansive, childlike, It is the ego joining with the Soul, heart, body, knowing it is part of something bigger than itself. 

So, this leads me to share my wish for you, for 2023. May you find the courage to lean into greater awareness of  your internal world, to make time for this to happen, and to engage with the world with a bit more emotional honesty than you might've done last year. 

with love & warmth,
​xanthe