Hey Wild One,
Woah this one is from the vaults. I've been writing for years and whether it is old blog posts or old handwritten journals I like to take time and revisit them. Real talk now, a lot of times I still meet my past self with a cringe, but I'm proud to say I am getting better at meeting her with compassion and love instead. There are also times when my past self will surprise me with entries like the one below, that are both deeply profound to me and a damn good reminder for present Kenzie. And if it can be a good reminder for me, I hope it can be for you too.
One thing I wanted to note before diving into the past is that I am STILL working on implementing the rewritten beliefs. I've been tested on them since I wrote this and FAILED. Hard. As in full-on mental breakdown hard. And, with support, I picked myself up and kept going, kept growing. That's what life is about. Healing and Growth are a journey, not a destination- Yes I know it is cliche as all hell to say but it's the truth. So, after reading this today I hope you can move through your day with insight on your ninja beliefs, but I hope you can do so with some self-compassion. You're worth it ♥️.
Written: September 2019
Fall is almost here! I can practically smell the pumpkin spice already, although that could be because it’s been here since June. Autumn is my absolute favorite season! Giant oversized sweaters, cool crisp air, and caramel apples (with nuts of course-duh).
With fall being so close at hand I’ve been finding myself reflecting on this past summer and all the life changingness of it. I quit my corporate job, moved, and started writing a book. All that change and yet the biggest change that keeps coming to mind during reflection is my most recent Rising Strong experience.
The Rising Strong Practice is a three-part process coined by Dr. Brené Brown. The three parts of the process are The Reckoning, The Rumble, and The Revolution. In her book Rising Strong Dr. Brown explains the goal of the Rising Strong process is to “rise from our falls, over-come our mistakes, and face hurt in a way that brings more wisdom and wholeheartedness into our lives.”
Facing and rising above past hurt has been an ongoing theme for me this year. I’m not going to lie there are times when it hurts like hell but, it has been unequivocally been worth every tear. My hope in sharing this story with you is that the next time you are wrestling with emotions and trying to overcome old hurts, you know without a doubt that you are not alone.
The Reckoning
The Reckoning is all about becoming aware of what you are feeling and getting inquisitive about how that effects our behaviors and interactions with others.
This particular reckoning began recently when I took a lunchtime class on the Enneagram personality test. I LOVE personality tests (INFJ’s Unite!) so I was very much looking forward to finding out what Enneagram number I was. I had heard a great deal about Enneagram but had not dove to deep into it.
To be fair, one can not dive very deep into Enneagram during an hour and a half long lunchtime meet up but we did take a variety of tests to find out our numbers. If you aren’t aware your Enneagram number is one of nine different options. The different numbers identify nine different personality types. Now, that is grossly over simplified but for the purposes of this article that description should suffice.
I knew what my number would be as I walked into the room because up on the screen there was a diagram of all the numbers and in all caps next to the number eight was the word Lust. Well, shit. Sure, enough all 3 tests we took pointed me towards the number eight. Could that have been confirmation bias? It sure could have been, however due to how accurately the eight pegged me I’m inclined to believe it is legit.
Ah yes, the eights, also known as the challenger or the leader. Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational (Enneagram Institute, 2017). In other words, powerful as fuck. Which sounds awesome, but I felt uneasy. Power isn’t always used for the right reasons. To give some perspective Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was an eight but so is Donald Trump-nuff’ said. So, I found myself with a familiar knot in my stomach and a scrunched-up nose. I turned to my table of strangers and said in a disappointed tone “I’m an eight. I don’t like it.” There was an uncomfortable silence and I added as an afterthought “I don’t think other eights are bad, but I am not happy that I am an eight. That’s interesting.”
After clarifying that I didn’t in any way think all eights were horrible, power hungry, ego maniacs (some of my best friends are eights) and that the dis-ease I was feeling was purely with myself there were several understanding and empathetic nods around the table. There was no denying then that I was uncomfortable with my own power. I was a life coach and an entrepreneur who feared her own capability and influence. There is no going back from a realization like that. That’s what the reckoning is all about.
Realistically, that particular comprehension probably should have scared me. A sane person might have wondered if they were cut out to own their own business or entertain the idea that perhaps they weren’t meant to lead others but fuck that I’m an eight! Nope, I wasn’t afraid, I was irritated. Irritated because I knew I had just been given the key to what would be a paramount mindset shift in my personal growth but what good is a key when you can’t find the god damn door?!
Thus, began the Rumble.
The Rumble
The Rumble is the messy part of Brené Brown’s Rising Strong Process. Dr. Brown defines the Rumble as “Getting honest about the stories we’re making up about our struggle, then challenge these confabulations and assumptions to determine what’s truth, what’s self-protection, and what needs to change if we want to lead a more wholehearted life.”
Let’s review, shall we? I am an Enneagram eight, the Challenger if you will. I like control, clarity, and decisive action. I. HATE. RUMBLES! Look, I can take the whole getting real and honest about my bullshit thing, it’s the sifting through the bullshit that I am not particularly fond of. You know the scene in Christmas Vacation where Clark hands his son Russ a basketball sized knot of Christmas lights to untangle? That’s the rumble.
This particular Rumble brought me to four distinct points:
1) As a child I believed I held more responsibility and power over my world than is healthy or reasonable for anyone.
2) I didn’t have the tools to articulate this to my parents or the gaggle of therapists I went through and so those beliefs went unchecked
3) When inevitably I would fail at controlling the outer circumstances of my life such as my parent’s divorce, my sibling's physical and mental wellbeing, or my dad breaking his back and becoming disabled. I would blame myself and it became another piece of evidence proving that I could not handle my own power.
4) And most painfully of all, I began to believe that the people I loved most in my life were the ones who ultimately suffer the most from my incompetence.
Ouch. That’s intense. And that kind of responsibility is painful for a child because it is not always based in any sort of reality. I used to lay in bed at night when we were at our mom’s house and pray. I would name off every tragic, catastrophic, and horrific thing my creative and thorough little mind could think up and I would pray for that thing not to happen. I sincerely believed that if I forgot to name something off it would happen and it would be my fault. As you can imagine I was quite an anxious child.
It would be really easy to off load my hurt and blame my parents for all of this. How dare you not be able to read my young and irrational mind! But honestly, what the hell good does it do? One of my favorite quotes of all time is by You are a Bad Ass Author Jen Sinsero who said “It’s not your fault that you are fucked up, it is however your fault if you stay fucked up.”
I love my parents and my childhood was not all tragedy and sorrow. There were a lot of smiles and a lot of love. Still, I’m not sure that I believe it is possible to come out of any childhood without being at least a little fucked up. We are imperfect people raising imperfect children and that is the beauty and the tragedy of life.
My parents told us when they got divorced that it was not our fault. They had no way to know that when mom moved out, I promised my younger sibling that I could get them back together because I couldn’t stand to see them crying (I was a cocky six-year-old, what can I say). They couldn’t have realized that when they told me how proud they were of me for watching over and protecting my little sibling that I took them as literal as it is possible and charged myself with protecting their very physical and mental existence.
Turns out, you can’t control the will of other people-who knew? All of this paired with the usual shame thrust upon strong minded women in our society as well as an ineptitude of shielding my inner emotions from my outer body and you have one immense fear of power and influence, packaged up all nice with pretty pink paper and a sparkly iridescent bow.
These were the unconscious stories I had come to revolve my behavior around despite knowing on a rational level that they were not true (that subconscious is a ninja I tell you):
♥️ In order to be in control of my life I have to be in control of other people
♥️ I have no power or control over the world around me
♥️ When I try to have power or control, I fail and the people I love get hurt
♥️ People don’t like powerful women; I will not be accepted or belong if I use my power or influence
The Revolution
Revolution indeed. That was a huge realization for me. The realization is important but the revolution is the part of the process where we rewrite our stories and work on implementing them into our lives.
I rewrote my beliefs to the following:
♥️ I can not control other people, I can only control my own actions and words
♥️ My actions and words matter, they hold power and influence
♥️ It is safe for me to step into my power, it is possible to do it with kindness and love
♥️ Some people don’t like powerful women, but fuck them it’s not my job to impress
them.
♥️ The right people will accept me for who I am, if they don’t, they don’t belong in my life.
♥️ True belonging comes from within ourselves, I belong where I believe I belong.
Yay! Believe it or not rewriting the old-school beliefs is the easy part. It is the actual implementing of the new beliefs that take conscious effort and time. Behavior isn’t usually changed overnight especially when it involves habits and stories we’ve embodied our entire lives.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”
I’m still working on it; I’m still working on a lot of things and you know what, I always will be. Perhaps the real power here is the refusal to stagnate, the refusal to let the past dictate who I will be moving forward.
Nuff’ Said.
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