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Vol.20
CUTTING THREADS THAT HOLD US BACK
The other day I went from the gym, straight to an acupuncture appointment. Both have been helping me with my shoulder as I have been actively working to increase the mobility in my body since being stagnant for a few weeks. Between the gym, which is a more intense meditative experience and the acupuncture appointment, which is still and relaxing, I had the full experience of yin and yang, sun and moon… In a meditative setting, such as the gym and the acupuncture appointment, I was allowed to sift through ideas and experiences. So many thoughts were running through my mind, but the words that kept recurring were purging and detoxing. Now I am sure that this idea of purging was prompted by my own family. In the days I am writing this to you, my youngest has caught a stomach bug, and it's been a fanfare of everyone else getting sick too. So, I am witnessing this idea of purging firsthand – they are all literally clearing everything out.
In the last few decades, there has been so much focus on detoxing our bodies and ourselves, but there needs to be more focus on detoxing our energetic ties. We often hear talk about detoxing our homes from chemicals, dirt, or whatever. Then there is also the idea of detoxing our relationships, but I find that this one is a bit touchier in the age of social media, and I will outline why in just a moment. Because the truth of the matter: it isn't enough to say that you're doing a social media detox! This idea of detoxing (a bug, virus, illness or foreign pathogen) is so intuitive to the body but not so much to the mind. The mind analyses and reasons, so even if we know someone or something isn't right for us, we might still choose to engage with them even if it has been hurtful, even if it has not made us feel good. Because we've been taught to see the good in people, it's ingrained in us that this is taking the higher road, and we trudge forward in that way we always know.
We have all been intertwined in toxic relationships, whether it be with partners, family, or friends… but we often find it more difficult in this age of social media to completely let go of the connections that we have made. We've all heard the saying that we are the result of the five or so people that we surround ourselves with. Our outer landscape helps to determine our inner landscape and vice versa, but then I find myself wondering why this isn't applied? Why is it that we know what this means, and we know what we must do, but we find it so difficult to act? Why is it that we hold onto these threads with specific relationships (friends, family, work, lovers, exes)? We know they've done something wrong by us, they haven't treated us correctly and yet, we still insist that we might need them in the future. Why are we so afraid to wipe our hands clean and declare that we're done with this, that, or them?
In my own experience, I've found this idea of not being willing to let people/things go both hurtful and fascinating. Without going into too much detail, I had a situation a few years back in which someone was using my business name and running up debts with my business when I'd moved away. What made the whole experience more shocking to me at the time was that people who had told me about it still chose to socialise and associate with that person. Even within my business now, there are people who have brought things to my attention because I have connections all around the world, but they still engage with that person who did the not-so-nice things. And so it is that I find myself at this moment, pondering over why it is that, as human beings, we want change, we want things to be done differently, but we keep giving our energy away by keeping these ties and these threads connected to people who have made us feel like crap or who have made us feel shit. At the end of the day, how can you expect to feel any different if you're allowing anything or anyone into your domain?
I often say this in my teachings: our energy and our time are sacred; it is precious, and it's something that we need to ensure we protect. For example, I don't let very many people in, and I don't freely let people into my home either. There are only a very small handful of people who are allowed to come into my home because my home is my safe space, it is my sanctuary, it is my sacred temple – it is where I raise my family, and there must be a huge trust to allow someone into my space. But it becomes a different ball game when navigating social media.
I recently had a conversation about this with one of my dearest and closest friends – we've known each other a very long time and go back to a time when we were just babies in the industry. In our conversation, she asked me what it was that allowed me to not get triggered by other people's behaviours. Her question immediately reminded me of this quote from Brené Brown that I used to tell my clients in my private practice. From memory (I am paraphrasing) she states: Stop scouring people's faces for evidence that you're not enough because you will always find it, because you've made it your mission and your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods. We don't negotiate their value with the world. The truth of who we are lives in our hearts and our call to courage is to protect our wild hearts against constant evaluation, especially our own, because no one belongs here more than you.
This quote conceptualised all the things that I had learned over the years of studying different modalities and philosophies. What this idea sums up for me is: as we allow ourselves to be open for discussion with other people, we open ourselves up for them to negotiate who we are, and we no longer belong to ourselves. This is something that some of you might have already heard me say in some of the workshops and apprenticeships that I've done over the years. It ultimately means that we are no longer free. And if you really want to live life as a sovereign being and live through this lens of freedom, which so many people are talking about lately, we must let go of these things.
And this is the point I am at in my life. Saying yes to freedom and saying no to the shiny, glittery things that people work their whole lives to attain and which eventually come to them left of field and causes them that much more stress because they weren't expecting it. That shiny, glittery thing, may give you more status, but what does that even mean or matter? Let's see it for what it is: a distraction – a distraction toward your own creative agency.
So, this brings me back to the questions which prompted this whole piece. Why is it that I'm choosing to keep a line of communication open with someone who has caused me great sorrow and harm just because I think it's the right thing to do, is the polite thing to do, it's the higher road thing to do, when in fact the higher road thing to do is to wipe your hands clean and walk the fuck away! The image I envision for myself is me stepping into a Lamborghini (not that I want to buy a Lamborghini), putting the foot brake on whilst also putting the accelerator on and, you guessed it, doing a burnout so that this big smoke of dust blows in my rear vision mirror and I see all these people who don't make me feel very good about myself standing in my dust storm, as I speed off into the sunset, I speed off to leave them all behind, no regrets. This is the visual that I have when thinking about the fact that I must walk away from all this. I am not an in-between person. I am an all-or-nothing person, and I am proud of the integrity that I have – it's one of the biggest things about me, but it also seems to be the thing that makes me feel most alone. Because if I would just push that to the side, I might have better connections, better sales, better access to things that I never thought I would… It's a double-edged sword. But as I said before, I do not negotiate who I am with anyone. I will not chip pieces of myself away to fit into someone else's mould of who I should be or what I should do. I have recently said no to many big glittery things because they did just that told me to change little things here and there.
The only thing that you can change is yourself.
In saying this, I realise that we cannot sever every single relationship we have, but when someone has done something wrong to you, and the pattern keeps repeating itself, you must recognise that you cannot change anything about this person. The only thing that you can change is yourself. I can't expect this person to change or do better. I must accept them for who they are and where they are and understand that they're doing the best they possibly can. And if the best they possibly can is being a raging narcissist or an abusive thief, then so be it. You can only change yourself. That's the only thing you have control over, so then you must consciously decide to love it and leave it. Because in life, people are either lessons or blessings. And so, all those relationships, situations, and friendships that have left you feeling a little bit icky-icky all fall under that first category as lessons of what you won't tolerate, what you don't want to experience, or what you don't want to feel.
As I said, social media adds complexity to this dynamic because social media is a commodity of relationships. In thinking about this essay, there were people on social media who have replicated my work, or used me for their gain, but I was still following them because they had some sort of social status in my eyes and in my mind, it became that if I wasn't following them, then I wouldn't be included in the gang, so to speak (which I still don't feel like I am). It is so bizarre when I sit and think about this particular group of women, they run their own businesses, learning new ways of ritual, magic (all the things that I am) DM me for chats about things, attend my events and offerings, tell me they love what I have to say over and over and over. However, not once have they ever bragged about me, you know, shared anything about me on their socials, interviewed me for their podcasts on all the things they come to me for, not share a gratitude post or even tag me in a post about women who they are grateful for. And if I mentioned names you would be shocked, because they are all rather successful, published, much wealthier from there work than I. They have so many followers, attendees and yet those they do share and praise have nothing new to say its just the same things washed and reloaded. And so, I am again left to feel like the secret friend I appear to be, the secret oracle they come to for juice - and in writing this, it's rather clear and easy for me to see how toxic and abusive that is. This dynamic is reminiscent of a high school mentality where everyone is hustling for their worth, so therefore, if we stick together, we've got better worth – a kind of better-together mentality.
When you really think about it, it's ridiculous! Because our minds, our mental health, our mental state of mind and energy is so valuable and so prized, so why the hell would I let somebody take some of that away because of their crazy noise that hasn't got any value or backbone to it. Just think about how offended we become with someone not doing this or not doing that, often forgetting that we are also making a lot of things up in our head. There are the facts of what happened but we will never truly know or understand everyone's version of reality. To reiterate, stop scouring people's faces for evidence that you're not enough. Stop looking for people to wrong you because then they will wrong you because it's the intention that you are wanting to set. This is what manifestation is really about. Manifestation is using a state of mind to achieve something. It's believing something in your mind and allowing that inner landscape to change your outer landscape so they become in alignment with each other.
When we live life from a place of truth, as in true to who you are and what you believe in, and we are kind to other people, and we see people as those lessons (and some of them are really difficult lessons) or as pure divine beautiful blessings and we thank them, and we walk on, or we embrace them, and we love on, then we really get to live a life of integrity, and we really get to live in ecstasy. We experience the totality of the divine. We experience all these beautiful things. We start to realise that the possibilities of who we are and what we want to achieve are endless because we're not letting the burdens of others weigh us down. If you think of all these situations that are meant to be lessons, the ones that are difficult, as threads each weighing one kilo and you have 1000 threads attached to your back, then it becomes 1000 kilos of extra weight that you're carrying, so heavy you can't step forward you are constantly pulled back.
We repeat things because we are habitual beings. At the end of the day, we do all these things because we believe that it's going to make us feel better than we already do. It's this unconscious patterning or unconscious behaviour that reinforces the very reason why you're doing it. We do them because we're bored. We do them because we feel uninspired.
The alternative is choosing to forget about it, to cut them free and embrace the ones (even if it's one or two people) who have been those blessings and letting them know and really giving your time and your energy consciously to them instead of polarising yourself and searching for the wrong, searching for the adversity. Allow yourself to have this beautiful landing into this moment now. Einstein said repeating an action and expecting a different result is insanity. But we insist on repeating things. We repeat things on our phones, we repeat things picking up that second bottle of wine… We repeat things because we are habitual beings. At the end of the day, we do all these things because we believe that it's going to make us feel better than we already do. It's this unconscious patterning or unconscious behaviour that reinforces the very reason why you're doing it. We do them because we're bored. We do them because we feel uninspired. We do them because we're not happy. We do them because we feel alone. The because becomes this clutch that you keep going to, to reinforce this state of shame, which is a form of suffering. People talk about filling the void: we've got a puzzle in front of us, and there's one missing piece that I need to find! I need to find the missing piece instead of just forgetting about that puzzle and going to buy a new one.
This is why it's so important for us to have a slower way of living, and I don't mean waking up at 10 o'clock and floating through the day like there isn't anything to do. I think that there is this misconception about slow living that equates to laziness and no responsibility and doing whatever we want and answering to no one… This is not what I mean by slow living. Slow living is connecting with how you feel and being present, allowing yourself to connect to the day that surrounds you: the weather that surrounds you, the location that surrounds you, the tasks that you need to achieve for the day, and asking yourself from the moment you awake, how can you do them in a way that also honours the fact that you need to eat, or that you need to do something for your own well-being: choosing to have a nap, meditating, going to the gym, planting flowers in the garden, picking herbs to make tea, having sex…
Like I said in the previous musing: it is only when you're coming down the hill from the other side that you realise you're gracefully landing because it's all the little things that add up to be something so beautiful and grand. You need to hold who you are, love who you are because the mind and the body can't be evaluated separately. We can't meditate every single day of our lives but never move the body and expect different things from the body. We need to be able to see them both as two sides of the same coin that need to be cared for and nourished. This is how we move ourselves out of that stress state because we're changing our outer landscape.
I have come to a point where I recognise the many lessons involved in several of my relationships, and I am now choosing to do things differently. I am choosing to go onto another path. And this can be scary and terrifying. For instance, I have come to some big conscious decisions within my business that I know I don't want to do anymore, and the scary part happens when those things give me a good pay check—they helped to provide for my family greatly.
But it's not worth having to sacrifice a bit of who you are, a bit of your identity. In letting things go, you gain your integrity. When something is asking you to lower yourself or chip something off a corner to fit into someone else's mould, it isn't the right thing for you. When somebody sees who you are and wants that to explode even more, you know that they are the right thing for you because they see you in all your essence and all your divinity of who you are, and they want that to explode rather than seeing what they can get from it.
Where is it in your life, in your outer landscapes, in your surroundings, where there are relationships that have been more lessons than they have been blessings? Is it now time to let them go? And you don't need to let someone know that you're letting them go, it's an energetic thing within yourself: I am not engaging with this anymore, and they fall off the radar. Perhaps you can use this upcoming New Moon cycle to review the relationships in your life and their themes and decide whether they work for you or not (be it with family, friends, work, love…). Cross out those that just don't feel great, and be clear about what is not adding anything to your life and why you deserve better. This opens the door to allowing people to see you for who you are and who want that to explode even more for you. Don't be the oracle people come for a fresh squeeze when they feel thirsty. Allow those that want to support you to flourish. Allow those people to come into your life. They are not going to come when you're holding on to these heavy threads. It's moving away from that suffocating experience and allowing the amazing freedom that we experience within ourselves because of that conscious act.
And if you want to share briefly to me personally what it is your wanting to let go of, so there is someone to lighten the load, you have permission to email me so it's written, it's gone from thought to thing, to reality into the written word.
Thank you for being here and supporting me in filling my cup. I truly love writing so openly to you all, and in being here, you are supporting me and my family and Alessia, my right-hand woman, to also live a life of integrity, beauty and romance. There is so much romance in writing and expressing the soul, so don't ever shy from chatting with me.
Amoureuse,
Brooke x
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