You are not the only one standing in your way

Enough with the self-disparagement (A rant.)

CARE.CHECK*: How often do you check if those catchy mantra we’re being bombarded with actually serve you?

How often do you reflect on how they make you FEEL?

How often do you give yourself permission to stare back at them and say “No. Absolutely not. No thank you.”?

How often has misguided advice put back on your shoulders the very burden that your heart has been trying to free you from for years?

Whatever you answered to those questions: It. Stops. Now.

This week’s letter is an invitation to reclaim each and every part of yourself and remember that love and integrity will get us a lot further that self-aggravation.

I love you—and we are done turning on ourselves when we need ourselves the most. Tell the others.

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Hi Care.Friend,

How are you? And I’m not just asking what your mind thinks, I’m asking you in your entirety.

Can we take a moment to check? 

Can you do a quick body scan? Just to notice, without judging anything. 

How is your jaw feeling? Your shoulders, your heart area, your upper back? How about your solar plexus and your middle back? Can you even feel it or is it so numb it feels like a void?

What about your belly, your pelvis, your hips, your legs? What about your hands, your forehead, your feet? What about your breath?

Discomfort, relief, neutrality, joy, anger, sadness, excitement, overwhelm? 

Do those questions feel triggering, unnerving, unnecessary? Can you let that be okay? 

Does it feel like a shower of love, as your attention and my intention gently travel through your felt experience? Can you let yourself receive it now?

Because that is the whole point of this love letter after all.

To check our capacity.

To tend to it, to HONOR it, to welcome it. 

To unlearn what we’ve been taught about self-care and understand what feels caring to US—what we actually authentically needed. 

Because that’s how our capacity then expands organically.

There’s no forcing this process. We can break our boundaries but breaking ourselves will never allow us to feel whole. Injuring ourselves will never get us into integrity.

And as a reminder, regulation is not about feeling good; it’s about coming back to our core and anchoring within our hearts.

And that’s why I want to write today about a very dangerous catch phrase that we all misguidedly throw at each other. Or maybe not so much at one another as to ourselves. (I know I do!)

And this is this idea of being “the only one standing in our own way”.

I came here today to tell you that there is no such thing.

This is just another clever treacherous way that we’ve been taught to divorce ourselves (by people who misguidedly divorced themselves). This is yet another way to pathologize, vilify, attack, disparage the ego. This is another subtle—and really hard to catch—form of spiritual bypassing. 

It is rooted in good intentions, and can have a VERY detrimental impact.

And most importantly: It’s. A. LIE.

Because you’re doing the best you can. And so am I. 

And the parts of us that are not doing the “best” job stirring our inner ships—at least according to the so-called experts of life—are doing the best they can too.

Now, are they misguided? Maybe. Are they unskilled? PROBABLY!

But do they think they’re helping us? 100%.

Self-sabotage is not a thing. No part of us, no matter how cruel, demanding, antisocial, demeaning, unruly or overwhelming, is acting this way to sabotage us. They’re acting this way to PROTECT us.

When we finally understand that, everything changes. Inside and out.

For example, there’s a part of me that remembers what would happen every time I looked up and told my mother that her accusations were unfounded, every time I would not do what she expected of me (or shapeshift fast enough when she expected me to do two completely opposite things at once), every time I would breathe when I was supposed to suffocate politely.

That part of me seemingly hates me. She’s raging inside my head all day long asking me to finally stay silent and get in the f*** line—where no one will be able to see or hear me as long as I follow each and every of her directions, no matter how angry or exhausted I feel.

That part of me will disparage me for days if I forget to turn on the dishwasher when it’s full. That part of me would use a whip if she could when I send an email with a mistype. That part of me wants me to be thrown into an acid bath until I disappear if I have the audacity to make a mistake.

That part of me is MEAN.

AND that part of me believes she’s thirteen and completely alone in the world. That part of me believes people have cancer because of me and that my birth ruined everybody’s life. That part of me also believes that she’s protecting a two year old who's facing an enraged mother who’s about to make that little girl pay for the “mess” she just made. That part of me believes that that terrifying woman is mad because of the mistake, mistype, inadequate breath I just took. That part of me believes that if I’m not perfect, that two year old will die.

That part of me is actually trying to protect me—DESPERATELY.

That part of me is beyond exhausted, gut-wrenchingly lonely, and dangerously flirting with despair. That part of me is not my enemy! That part of me is dying in my name.

That part of me is not standing in my way! That part of me needs my help.

Here’s the thing. Our heart is pure love. The embodiment of our essence. Our essence is pure love. Our own little spark of Life energy that holds no fear, no judgment, no trauma, no story. 

And it feels wonderful to live from Soul energy… fully anchored into our heart.

When we’re all able to do that, this world will be a very different place.

But we are also living in an animal body and under the spell of a human brain.

We have been taught ways of thinking that wound us and we have been led to disconnect from the saving grace of our feelings. We used to be very tiny beings surrounded by very tall adults (relatively at least) with highly dysregulated nervous systems. We have been molded into systems that are not meant to tend to our humanity and do not adapt to our humanness (starting with schools and then onto a downward spiral). We have been scripted in fear as children, by grown-ups who had no idea either that safely was available. We have unlearned how to cohabit with Nature and we have misguidedly cut ourselves from all our inner rhythms. We live in a culture that does not serve us and slowly destroys everything that Life needs to thrive.

We do not understand ourselves, and what we do not understand, we judge!

Let’s change that. Let’s change that right now.

Let’s change the narrative once and for all:

YOU’RE A GOOD PERSON. You’re NOT broken. You’re not self-sabotaging. You’re not standing in your own way. (And neither am I.)

Also, let’s pause a second and realize that it would be impossible anyway. How could we stand in our own way?

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Yes we have parts within us, but they’re all in our bodies. No we’re not our body, but we still live in it. We cannot be in front of us! 

There is not a you that’s stubbornly laying down or throwing a tantrum on the road in front of you, thereby preventing the other you to move forward! That’s ridiculous.

So if we really want to use that image, let’s build a metaphor that works:

Let’s say that our SUITCASES of trauma are the only things standing in our way. 

We are living in an animal body and under the spell of a human brain.

And that might be true! But that still doesn’t make it our fault…

No one chooses to have trauma. Come on now.

If given a choice between receiving the love, support, care, tenderness, guidance and co-regulation we need after a traumatic event, no one’s going to say: “No, thanks, I’ll pass! I’d rather feel helpless, isolated, filled with dread and horror and therefore shut down; I PREFER to repress and store it all under my skin where it’s going to fester, weigh on my dreams, wreak havoc with my relationships, destroy my sense of integrity and potentially lead to physical illness.” Of course not. That’s prepostorous. 

It’s not our fault. IT WAS NOT A CHOICE!

Enough with the shaming already. ENOUGH.

It is not our fault then AND it’s our responsibility to show up now.

To pause… To look at the suitcases! And to start unpacking what’s weighing us down.

Because you’re not standing in your way, you ARE the way. 

You are the witness that can look with endless compassion and fierce kindness onto your wounds and promise yourself: I am going to find the balm I need to heal them. 

You are the mother your inner child needs to know that there’s someone who loves them unconditionally in this world. 

You are also the father your inner child needs to know that there’s someone who will protect them NO MATTER WHAT while on Earth. 

You are the child your weary inner adult needs to remember how to play, laugh, create, and bathe unapologetically into joy. 

You are the teenager your inner adult needs to remember that the call is NOT to fit in; it’s to individuate. 

You are the adult your inner child needs for their dream to turn into life. 

You are the divine feminine energy that allows you to feel, know intuitively, nurture yourself and others and connect with the well of magic that stems from our dream and is meant to flow from our hearts and into the world. 

You are also the divine masculine energy that motivates you to plan, structure, organize, build and turn all that boundless creativity into forms that support us. 

You are a child of the universe meant to dance under the stars. 

You are a co-creator sent here to allow God/Love/Life/Spirit to create even more. 

You are the love that allows you to know that you are inherently worthy of all that you’re yearning for. 

You are not what you think and you are also shaped by the thoughts you hold on to, consciously or not. 

You are not your body and you are also led by the programming that your nervous system (which includes our brains) has learned to rely on to shield you. 

You are a soul and you live in a human body that feels its way into life and creates meaning through thoughts.

You’re the feeler who can turn anger into gold and grief into diamonds so that they can all turn into a treasure of wisdom.

You are not standing in your own way, you are paving the way as you go—either intentionally or reactively, depending on how much awareness you’ve been able to keep as a young person and/or to reembody as an older one. 

You are not standing in your own way, you are paving the way you’re walking on, and your job is to notice if that way is yours—uniquely, beautifully, magically yours—OR if it was imposed on you by circumstances or by the darkest curse ever cast upon humans, Expectations.

You are not standing in your own way, you are finally realizing that this way is yours to reclaim as your own. And that takes a minute to repave a road that was built on faulty foundations! Patience is of the essence on our way home.

So here’s the invitation:

We’re DONE turning ourselves into a problem. We’re done convincing ourselves that we’re only allowed to exist if we’re a solution. We’re done tolerating abuse (and especially when the abuse is coming from a glitchy program within ourselves).

We’re done turning on ourselves. AND WE ARE DONE FORCING OURSELVES INTO BOXES.

We’re made of fire and water, boxes do not stand a chance.

We’re going to be fiercely rooted on our sides and we’re going to promise each other to never abandon or shame ourselves again.

ENOUGH with the self-disparagement. 

We’re reclaiming our trust in our extraordinary bodies, our faith in our sacred emotions (yes, especially the uncomfortable ones), our sovereignty over the thoughts we hold, our sense of integrity and the power of our self-love. 

We’re not standing in our own ways. We’re awe-inspiring, brave, inspiring, tender, kind, vulnerable, powerful beyond measure souls on a journey back to wholeness. 

We’re more than good enough.

We can put down our armors and let ourselves be exactly who we are and where we are right now. Imperfect, holy, messy, beautiful, flawed, unfathomably lovely, fiercely intentional, fully surrendered, spacious, embodied, ready for what comes next and learning the power of not needing to know ANYTHING anymore, apart from the sound of our own heart beating its own sacred authentic songs.

ENOUGH with the absurdity already.

You’re not standing in your own way, you’re exactly where you’re meant to be for the way to appear.

I’ll see you next week!

With kindness, love and light—our most sacred offering to this world.

Always,

leo