This Mindful Museletter: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?!?

In last week’s Museletter, we began to dive into my entrepreneurial journey towards the development of This Mindful Muse, a new business that I am excited to share with the world!

After years of normalizing the fight-flight-freeze-or-fawn trauma response in my nervous system, I had a LOT to unlearn. I was navigating intense feelings of fear while wanting to welcome healthy change. The desire to control the outcome was strong, and I sensed it was time to relinquish that grip. I just wasn’t sure how.

Ever the clever parent, the Universe gave me opportunity after opportunity to practice letting go. It. was. tough. I even found myself stubbornly questioning why I couldn’t just know this already. Intellectually, I got it. As an educator, I especially valued the importance of taking theoretical knowledge and then applying it practically to hardwire the learned experience.

For example, someone can express in great detail what it feels like to touch a hot stove, and the appropriate steps to take while caring for a burn. A student can even have a scientific understanding of what occurs when human skin reaches a particular temperature, how pain receptors communicate with the brain, and how that causes a cascade of chemical reactions in the body that can result in various sensations and physical responses. They can even study first aid procedures and have a kit prepared in advance for emergencies.

However, experiencing the shocking heat at just a touch, the searing pain, and the uncomfortable healing process is a different level of embodied learning. Attempting to move through an activated adrenaline rush and cortisol spike while trying to calmly dress your own wound, or even someone else’s, is different.

I felt the Universe was putting me through my paces while providing me with safe environments for uncomfortable learning. Triggers, though deeply upsetting, were offering insight and opportunities for mending by bringing forward the most unhealed aspects of myself, craving to be held, loved, and released. Despite the desire to look away, bury, numb, or ignore the discomfort, I had an intellectual understanding that I needed to “feel it to heal it.” Ugh. Can’t I just think my way through this?

For many who have deregulated nervous systems, intense emotions feel deeply unsafe. They can even trigger the protective inner child, who will send red flags of discomfort from the subconscious mind through the physical body in hopes that it will grab the attention of the conscious mind to influence choices and actions to follow recognizable, known patterns, which are considered safe, rather than anything unfamiliar. This can manifest as various symptoms of anxiety, including: a racing heart, sweaty palms, flushing, light-headedness, nausea, hyperventilation, spiraling thoughts, catastrophizing, and more.

As Bessel A. van der Kolk mentions in The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, “Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.”

The immediate instinct of many facing the discomfort of anxiety is to push these uncomfortable feelings and sensations down and away. Inhabiting a society that provides numerous options for distraction, numbing, and ignoring makes this route feel even easier in the moment. Additionally, there are social expectations thrust upon many identities to not feel emotions as a way of keeping the peace and putting others at ease.

The desire to be accepted runs so deeply as a human survival mechanism that many learn as children, whether through the home environment, the school system, or media consumed, that it is safest to appear neutral or not to feel at all. Additionally, the fear of triggering an unstable reaction from another or of losing access to acceptance and care is both palpable and motivating.

As a result, the inner child may learn that it is safest to conceal uncomfortable emotions and to live outwardly as if “all is well,” no matter the internal turmoil. The risk of being interpreted as weak, unlikeable, unhinged, or threatening is tangible, so heavy, difficult, and “ugly” feelings get buried down deep inside an emotional cavern, where it is assumed that they’ll never see the light of day.

On the flip side, you have emotionally reactive individuals who have learned through a patterned set of behaviors that their intense conduct is more likely to get their needs met. These are two sides of the same coin. On either end of these extremities, the lessons were learned through the repetition of modeled action, personal experience, and affirmed reaction, before it then solidified as a patterned behavior and into a belief.

Sets of reactions, tactics, and coping mechanisms (mental, physical, and/ or emotional), no matter how toxic, unhealthy, or destructive, get hard-wired into the nervous system as familiar, which is often interpreted as safe. In a world that feels triggering, chaotic, and unsafe, any anticipated system or set of actions can create a sense of comfort. The nervous system will then have been trained to choose familiarity, even if it is harmful, over the fear of the unknown.

Over time, however, patterned sets of coping mechanisms and behaviors that originally kept someone feeling safe can become outdated, thereby outgrowing their usefulness. Suddenly, what felt tried-and-true rings false, and there may be an internal or mental awareness that a shift needs to occur. The inner child, however, may feel threatened by the unknown of the unfamiliar. As a result, the inner child can use the nervous system to send sensations of anxiety through the body in an effort to guide the conscious mind towards choosing what is known, familiar, and trusted.

This situation often occurs when someone is in the process of moving through a big life change. Imagine an individual having spent their entire childhood in one way of being, only to leave home and find that the patterns and systems that once served them no longer apply. It can be quite a shock to the system and may feel like their internal computer is running outdated software. An update can better help it navigate, however, this can often feel like a crossroads. The desire for change may be present, but the inner child may feel terrified of the unknown, which can result in physical discomfort, sensations and thoughts of anxiety, and frustration.

In this scenario, it is far too easy for someone to blame the self and/or the inner child, or to fear that this can never be fixed, or worry that there is something inherently wrong or broken within them. Even if these intense sensations, thoughts, and fears have felt limiting in the past, they do not have to stop anyone from enjoying their life in the future. They do not define who we are, and rather, offer an opportunity for introspection, healing, and transformation.

It is important to remember, in moments of frustration, that our misguided inner child is making these choices out of fear, protection, and love. What they absorbed in the early years of our development is not their nor our fault. When we can begin to lovingly sit with, curiously question, and nonjudgmentally work to understand where our anxious inner child is coming from, we can move mountains.

Understanding this was a life-changing step forward in my healing journey, and I simultaneously recognized that there was further unlearning and rewiring to be done. I imagined my neural pathways were following the most well-trodden path and that asking them to take a new course was like requesting they take a machete to the jungle of the unknown. I would have to carve new paths, and though it might feel intimidating at first, I knew that these were going to be intentionally crafted to get me where I truly wanted to be.

In the next Museletter, we will continue to explore how we can come to understand the needs of our inner child and start building safety and resilience in the nervous system.

Stay tuned for a continuation in the next Mindful Museletter!

Find out more about Irene and This Mindful Muse at: www.thismindfulmuse.com

Follow: @thismindfulmuse