My Receiver

She’s very tired of hiding, of downsizing, of shape shifting and trying to please.

In my last IFS therapy session, I discovered something very interesting. We have been unearthing different aspects of my being, different fragments of my personality that have been hidden underground. In some worlds people use the term Shadow aspects, and I guess that would be accurate here. In my previous blog, I mentioned The Mean Mommy, but I want to correct that statement. I don’t want to judge this fragment of me because clearly she has a purpose and wants to be known. By calling her mean, there is implicit judgment. I do have a name for her now and although I’d rather keep that to myself, what I can tell you is that mommy is not trying to be mean.

She was trying to protect me. She was trying to keep me safe from bodily harm, emotional harm and set me free. She just went about that in a very harsh way. When I say harsh, I mean brutal.

But today I want to talk about someone else. I discovered her in the last session, and although I don’t want to name her either, for the purpose of ease, lets for now just call her The Moon. You could say that Moon has really taken a beating from Mommy for most of her life. She has been shamed, guilted, made fun of and harassed. She’s been delegated to menial tasks and horrid feelings, like getting the groceries, bathing, hiding under the blankets, depression, humiliation, the list goes on.

I’ve sat with Moon all week since my last session and given her a chance to come out of the shadows, and what’s become very clear to me, is that Moon is not weak at all. Moon has been put in a corner and told she’s weak and bad because of a deep internalized patriarchy that has rotted within me and the culture in which I live. Even people I admire and deeply respect, who are on a spiritual path, have found a way to minimize Moon and try to change her essence. One seeker told me, “ You are not a branch on someone else’s tree, you are your own tree.” Well this would be Moon’s response to that now,

“ I know I am not a branch, but I’m not a tree either. That is way too erect for me. I’m the earth honey.”

So in this new 2022, I have no real new year’s resolutions other than to allow Moon to come out of hiding and shine a little brighter. Her radiance, her watery, feminine essence gets the spotlight right now. She’s very tired of hiding, of downsizing, of shape shifting and trying to please. She just wants to be who she is and because who she is has been so wrong for so long, she needs time and space to figure that out.

She has no desires right now to conquer the world, invent something brilliant or save humanity. If that happened, it would be a by product of her total commitment to rest. She definitely wants to lie on the beach and breathe in the ocean for a while. She desires the protection of strong arms to hold her down against the sand, enveloping her with warmth and love she so rightly deserves.