Tag Archives: self discovery

In The Now

Mindfulness,

I’m reading Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chodron.  I started to take notes, underline and highlight words, phrases and sentences and even fold the corner of a particularly interesting and compelling page – marking my spots. Ironically, a major theme and premise of the book is the reality of impermanence, change and uncertainty, summed up by this quote from Chris Hedges, “the moral ambiguity of human existence.”  Here I am trying to make the book into something permanent, as if to say, “this is something so important I cannot, I will not forget it – I will have it forever and return to it over and over again.”  My journey in reading this delightful and meaningful book is to experience it, to allow myself to go on the journey with it, to make something relational between it and myself.

I’m going to go to my reading of it now…

Primary Wounds

Being seen and heard,

Perhaps it is because I am a parent and believe it is a very difficult job, that most parents try their very best to nurture, guide, and push on the small of the back of their child towards growth and adulthood. However, being the imperfect and fallible creatures they (and we) are, children will not get everything they need from their parents and adults in their life, or worse they will be actively hurt, wounded, neglected, abandoned and even abused.

All children will have “Primary Wounds.”  Think of these wounds as potholes. Some will be shallow, where you can see it’s dimensions easily. Others might be deeper with jagged edges, while others might be profoundly cavernous – where you can’t see or sense the bottom.

It is my clinical belief that a significant piece of therapy is to know your Primary Wounds. To know them is to revisit them, to know their topography, to become quite familiar to and with them.

The journey of knowing them can be a painful, even traumatic one. If traumatic it may take getting close and then stepping away from these wounds – back and forth, back and forth – to know and tolerate the journey. Be careful and even protective of re-traumatizing yourself.

As you come to know your primary wounds, you will know your legacy better, even intricately and ultimately know yourself better. This knowledge can help you better understand your emotional and behavioral responses.

The intimate knowledge of your Primary Wounds, of the potholes on your personal self-named street, will help you navigate around these potholes, or the need to slowly, with attentiveness and curiosity, drive over them. By courageously driving your street , with all of its potholes, you will hopefully get somewhere you want to go, with a life that reflects more of the wishes, desires and passions of the now.

The DNA of Knowing

Being seen and heard, , ,

To be seen and heard is not simply to be noticed or to have others agree with you. It is something that lands more deeply upon and within you. It is something that feels more intimate with yourself and more connected to others. It is something that becomes a place of knowing. Knowing becomes something that is yours – a psychological or identity DNA. Knowing can be shared by others but is specific to you.

There is a Difference between Confidence and Knowing. Confidence is something that you can wear, like Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Coat. Something that you can take on and off. Knowing is something that is yours, a language with yourself, the strut in your step, and the glow that surrounds and follows you.