Betraying my Own Sweet Self?

I’m thinking a lot about self-betrayal (and self-responsibility - which I also call sovereignty). Because this is where I am right now.

And I’m thinking it might be helpful to you if I share my thoughts and my process.

(It’s deeply satisfying for me to share my own thinking FOR ME - to remind myself, in video format, of what’s important and where I am.)

I define self-betrayal as saying yes when it’s really no. And saying no to something that’s really a deep yes. It's running against our own alignment, with what we most deeply desire, with what we most deeply need on a day-to-day basis, with what lights us up, and what brings us pleasure.

I'm calling that self betrayal.

I have been in a bit of self-betrayal around how I spend my time! One of the things I have not being doing, as is clear, is coming here, to talk to you (and myself) about what is important, and what I’m seeing and thinking at this stage of my life, because I find so much pleasure and so much join in sitting here on video and talking to you. And I have not been prioritizing it!

We have these internal indicators we can feel - internal emotional indicators that flag us over and over, to say, “Hey, we're out of alignment! Hey, we’re a little cranky! Hey, how about some rage?”

And then we get to go “Oh, hey! I’ve been sort of betraying myself. I’ve been saying yes to things that I don’t want to say yes to, which means I’m saying no to this very important thing.” And I get to reset myself. And show up and make a different choice this morning. Did I have to work through some emotional content before I got on here? I sure did. I was in a bit of a mental battle with myself around how I was going to prioritize my day.

But here I am. In alignment with myself, making the choice I needed to make, which is to come sit here first and create my share on the MIDS.

Let's talk a bit self responsibility, which is one of my favorite topics. I've been really thinking about sovereignty, which is this:

We are independent beings. We are free in a lot of ways, in most ways on this planet. (Particularly someone in my position.) And we are ultimately completely responsible for our own happiness. The one thing we can control is our inner response to things, very hard things included.

Does it mean that we can just quickly shift and feel, like in a Disney movie, so delighted about everything? And be surrounded by butterflies and birds? No! It means that we work through things emotionally as they arise. It means that we sit with ourselves as we manage difficult feelings around things.

But ultimately in our processes, we can realign over and over and find ourselves over and over, and find our joy over and over, and choose how we want to think about or approach or see a certain situation. That is what we have control over. We cannot rely on outside people to behave consistently or do a certain thing to keep us happy.

You can try! I try! I do it over and over. You can make requests of people - the people that you choose to be around. You want to choose to be around people that love you in ways that feel like love to you, that respond to you in ways that feel like connection to you. You can make that choice. That's where you have choice.

Earlier I made a request of someone very beloved to me and said, “Can you help me? I would love it if you could show up this way for me, because I'm having a hard time, and when you do, that feels better to me.”

And if he chooses not to do that, that's fair. That's his. And I get to then manage that and decide what I do with it.

But it's my responsibility to manage my emotions, to decide how I want to see a thing and to make choices around what makes me the happiest. Right?

And I can’t say that enough. TO MYSELF, because over and over I have to rediscover that.

Then when I come up against a conflict or a hard moment, and I'm wanting to put things on the outside of myself, I get the opportunity to come back and ask “Wow, what does this say for me? What growth am I being invited into here? How do I really want to feel in this moment, or going forward? And what am I going to do about that?”

Over and over and over we get the opportunity in life - because life is the perfect school for this - we get the opportunity to meet ourselves and say.

Where do I want to go?
Who do I want to be and
how do I want to feel
and how do I want to act?
What's in highest alignment with myself?

Now, backing up:

Figuring out your alignment takes some time. If you are in a place where you don't have any idea, or just barest ideas of what feels good to you, of what you want, of what lights you up, then that's where you start.

Often that takes clearing your nervous system. I talk about that in other videos. Whatever practice you choose to use, or person or protocol you choose to engage - there's lots out there - to get you settled back into yourself so that you can start to sense yourself.

I know what to choose because I have a body-based experience of my inner YES and my inner NO. That took some practice. We all come in enculturated by culture and family to behave and think in whatever certain way.

This is the beauty of midlife, this is why I'm talking to you now, is because here we are, with this shifting hormone cocktail that lands us in a place where we care less about what other people think. We start to really want what we want. We start to feel our younger selves before the hormonal veil landed on us and we became very other-oriented. In this time, we come back to ourselves. It’s such a great opportunity to say “Wooo! What is in here? And what doesn't it want??”

If you don't know what your alignment is, this is where you start.

This is also too, where you can begin the process of taking radical responsibility with each piece of it. To say to yourself: “I've identified a thing. I’m going to go for this. And so how do I stay in alignment with it over and over and over? How do I choose this thing I’ve learned about myself over and over?” And then it expands on itself.

What I'm finding is the more I do that, the more deeply fulfilled I am in my life with just the simplest things. Just the experience of being can be the most delightful joy-filled thing. And it's come through somewhat radical, and more now, more and more radical acts of choosing myself and not betraying myself on a moment-to-moment, day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, year-to-year basis.

So anyway, I hope that helps. It's clearly something I'm working out. I'm proud of myself for choosing this.

So what’s up for you today? Think about your day. Where are you are in alignment with what lights you up the most, what you need, what you most deeply need? What you want? And where are you not?

Even just recognizing is a beautiful thing. And if you choose to make one shift - even a tiny one - it'll be interesting as an experiment to see what that does for you.

Thanks for listening! (And reading!)