There will come a day when you stop believing in your own smallness.
The great suppression that you were colluded into, when you played small to stay safe, when you played small to get paid, when you played small, played the part of the extra in someone else’s drama. Hiding your gifts, hiding your voice, hiding your immensity, chasing love, chasing one more thing to something other than a gnawing sense of inner tiny.
In stormy waters you are going to feel small, and those who want you to feel inadequate, ashamed, powerless, guilty often keep chucking the stones into your pond, or start up the wave machine, or turn the water into acid, gently corroding you bit by bit. For some, you born into a pond full of nasties, creatures roaming in the deep, heavy rocks, and tiny little vulnerable you, barely able to breathe as the water around surrounds, swallows and tumultuates.
You cannot see yourself when dodging the rocks, trying to swim, trying to stay alive and afloat, your concentration and energy is on staying alive and afloat – whatever it takes, and colluding with their small opinion of you is one such way. You have to believe your parents view of you, because you require them to feed you, or your partners view if they’re threatening you, or the places of escape and safety from these, jobs, churches, whatever, when you’re in need of a rescuer or saviour, you’re also vulnerable.
One storm after another, and the great collusion continues, small you rages in the corner like a jack Russell at a vegetarian ball. The great suppression erodes so much that if you can’t believe it when you are believed in, or it feels uncomfortable, or it is dismissed and denied. Believing in our own inferiority, self oppression, and all of a sudden the stone thrower has won.
John O Donahue writes about the different ways of sight we have, and in considering how we might have an inferior eye, as we look at ourselves we might say:
To the inferior eye, everyone else is greater. Others are more beautiful, brilliant and gifted than you. The Inferior eye is always looking away from its own treasures. It can never celebrate its own presence and potential. The Inferior eye is blind to its own secret beauty. The human eye was never designed to look up in a way that inflates the other to superiority, nor to look down reducing the other to inferiority
John O Donohue – Anam Cara
I lived for so long small. Feeling weak, small and inferior on the inside. Feeling shame for having needs, feeling shame for my body, shame and belittled for having emotions, others upset internalised as my fault and responsibility, and carried all of this from childhood into adulthood, carried on the ongoing wings of various incarnations of faith that required me to stand small inside in the face of the all powerful God, and still continually feel inadequate or a sinner, on a constant loop of need, fuelling my inner smallness and insecurity, and giving me far too many reasons to stay feeling small inside. God perfect, me inadequate.
When we forget our own immensity, or we have been conditioned from birth never to have it, it’s a long road to find realise it, because its not trusted, its not just self care we need, but self trust is harder to find. When we act from self smallness we are desperate, needy and tossed around on other peoples waves, unable to see ourselves, looking out for others – approval, acceptance, protection…
Lovingness and Compassion alone dont produce insight. They smooth the waves of emotions. When those waves of grief, pain, lamentation, worry, fear and anxiety, envy, jealousy, dislike and resentment have finally come to rest, there is a clear reflection without any obscuring ripples in it, like a mirror, the mirror of the mind. That mirror of the mind makes it possible to get a clear vision
Ayya Khama- Being Nobody, Going Nowhere.
Safety comes first, emotional safety. Then feeling all the feelings, the grief, pain, envy etc have come to rest, they are not avoided, dismissed or sidelined, they are felt. Beyond the rage and tears, and in the place where you can ride the stones, if they can’t be avoided or escaped from…yet.
In the place of rest is a clearer reflection.
When we don’t believe it when someone tells us that we are incredible and beautiful, we need to be angry about those who have convinced us into feeling small.
Once you stop making yourself small to fit into others.
Once you stop agreeing with their insecurity, because they have to coerce you into staying small.
Once your small thought is given the redundancy slip. That job is not required anymore.
You realise, tiny step, by tiny step
That inside you is huge.
Divine, Universe, Consciousness in its expanse
No apologies for being you darling human.
The dawning of your new large inner age is upcoming.
The best way for me to describe this is to tell you a story.
Last Sunday morning I had fun with my camera.
But. I had to make a choice to do this.
Because, the previous Thursday I went out, hoping to have fun, a relaxing walk, mixing some bird watching and photography. But for some reason it wasn’t fun. I had got to a point of digesting a few days worth of new knowledge about photography skills and practice and then went out armed with this knowledge.
On a grey uninspiring day. I also went to go nature walking.
There wasn’t much nature, and there wasn’t much of interest. It was a bit bleak.
Here’s a few examples from the day. Grey light mostly.
In short, I got back and felt as though I was trying to do too much.
Rushing. And over thinking.
Was I enjoying the walk..? No.
Was I chasing a bird or moment of nature? Yes
Was I trying to use my camera and look at scenes , sometimes..
Was I trying to practice a new skill, walk and find places, or see nature?
Too much going on. Over thinking.
Anyway. A few moments of fun in the sunset. Nothing is wasted, absolutely.
But I got back and thought id wasted a day, frustrated.
But on Sunday things were different.
I went to a place I had only been once before, HedleyHope Fell, just outside Tow Law, last time I was there it was wet and cold and looked like this:
Though I also realise that this photo doesn’t give any indication of how wet it was that day. Its just a tree. But trust me it was wet here in November.
On Sunday I went, the sun was hazy and out, and I decided that I would solely use the space to walk and try taking interesting photos, try some different angles and settings and just have some fun. I also thought I would take seriously the suggestion that I would tell a story, and the simple story of my photos was that it was me going for a walk.
So, in 8 photos, here’s me going for a walk at HedleyHope Fell.
Im not going to write this 4 days later and make out that I was gliding around the setting, in a beautiful flow of human with camera making beautiful art.. but I can say that I was having fun.
I was lost in the moment, yet present in the moment. Observing landscapes, light and scenes in front of me, trying to look, feel and sense the place.
Being present.
Enjoying myself.
And, I could tell what happened to take me out of this.
A text message , just as I was about to climb up the hill to the car.
A message that took me away from the place, the fun and the enjoyment.
I should have turned off my phone, but I dont do that for emergency sake, and text messages are so rare…so, I
was into thinking again. Panic even.
In that moment I lost presence.
Even breathing and trying to ‘slow down’ I had gone. Only my body remained in the fell, my mind was elsewhere, panic anxiety or whatever it was.
I did have plans to go to a different nature reserve after this one, but instead I faced the challenge, knowing that avoiding it would only make me worry more. Though I had resolved that on my drive back home that the worst case scenario was unlikely. And, it was unlikely. It was and is something I can deal with.
So its all ok.
So in a way I am proud of myself for how I responded and reacted calmly to a situation..eventually.
But what im also aware of is how easy it is for the fun and enjoyment I was having to burst like a bubble.
My flow went, my mind raced, panic, but then gradually logic and calmness did return.
I did go out again later, and I did enjoy an afternoon of sunshine, but what I did on this occasion at the nature reserve, was focus on recovering calmly from the minor stress, walking, breathing and doing the nature thing. Doing one thing at a time. So just outside Darlington at the Burdon Community Woodland, I got these photos.
Maybe not the best photos. But that wasn’t the point.
But it was important for me notice that I had to focus on one thing.
Walking and being in nature is good for me for slowing down, for appreciating connections with the earth. It was what I needed to restore myself. Sitting and waiting for an owl, or the movement of birds slows me down. It was one thing to focus on. It wasn’t the time for me to learn a new skill, a new toy. I needed something different for myself, than I needed in the morning.
Fun in the morning, Slow speed in the afternoon. Nature in attendance.
So, that’s my slightly unwieldy story about overthinking. Im kind of over thinking whether I should even share it, because its probably not that interesting, or enlightening, just me going out for walks and realising when I’ve been present in them or not, and I would imagine that’s just like any one of us.
It has been these words that I have reflected and mediated on this morning, waking up early enough to see the sunrise and to hear the birdsong through the mist.
Take time to notice your very presence today.
Awaken to the mystery of being here, and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses
Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.
Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.
May anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror and inner dignity of soul.
Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
Be consoled in the quiet symmetry of your soul
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.
Have you worked out the Greatest Challenge in Life yet?
The easiest thing, is to be doing something. To be continually doing something. To be planning to be doing something is still doing something.
To be doing.
Last week I got over 40 ‘likes’ on a facebook post about something I had been ‘doing’ – 3 days of safeguarding training with the Methodist Church btw.
Doing something.
It may be physically impossible to ‘do nothing’ for an hour – our bodies have to breathe, our senses listen to the sounds from outside, or music playing, but what if being was valued more that doing?
What happens if you try and sit and ‘be’? What creeps in? – A task, a worry, a thought? A distraction – the voice that says ‘ you should be doing something’ ‘ dont be lazy’ ..its always a critical voice – and what I do when I hear that voice – sometimes give in, sometimes try and distract from that voice…by doing something… ugh, and so it continues.
And there’s no option for this when in the moment of survival in abuse, the mind is utterly active, and my body just wants to be active to compensate. Thats why I anxiety clean. Its why I needed EMDR to rewrite my brain, so I could sit.
But- back to this moment.
Here,
Now:
Sitting still, just for a moment.
The greatest challenge.
It takes a fight to sit and just be.
It takes courage to be.
To sit and breathe.
To listen.
Not just to the externals of some music or the sounds from outside- that are tempting to go and see
But listen to the noise of my internal breath
Listen to the sound, of quiet, of silence
And notice myself.
Just being.
How good are you at being? How are you in your being today?
What if I ‘just’ sit and be? and its not even just sitting, that makes it out to be something secondary, what if ‘being’ was valued and important, what if being me, being you was the ‘most’ important thing. What if it wasn’t a luxury to have a moments peace and quiet, but something valued, and treasured by all, and encouraged in each other. I could easily do a million and one other things, but the most important and difficult thing.
Just to be.
Realising the life in every breath. In every moment.
Giving your self time. Time for yourself.
Its not about getting off one rat race and finding another, but noticing the being inside. Bringing awareness to your very soul, and being, and heart. Its you that matters.
So just sit. And be.
Be with yourself for a while. Sense the life within. Sense you.
James Ballantyne 