Yesterday we did a fascinating exercise at my sacred dance class. We closed our eyes and then walked toward the center of the room until we sensed or bumped into a person. Then we felt their hands as though they were our loving mother, our home, really taking in all qualities of their hands, almost memorizing them. Afterwards we separated and mingled, again with eyes closed. Then we were to find our “mother’s” hands, again with closed eyes. If one person thought we were their mother but we disagreed, we should move on. I found the exercise interesting and enjoyable until the end. I felt very comfortable and found it easy to do the exercise until I thought I had found my “mother’s” hands but the other person disagreed. Then someone else experienced me as their mother but I had big doubt if she was accurate. My body immediately went from very calm to quite tense. Why? SELF DOUBT. I doubted myself, my ability to discern through sensation and I quickly let it flood me with a global self doubt.
I just heard the Pele Astrological Report and apparently self doubt is what is up; love to align with the energies, sigh. Yet I was very curious why I found the experience so unsettling. Others had a real hard time with it for varying reasons. Part of the challenge for me was one person neither understood nor complied with the instructions. We were not told if we had gotten it right. I found this even more difficult as I wanted proof that my instincts were right. Even the person that had looked could not give me a definite answer. So why did I let it bug me so much? My sense is because I gave it a global meaning i.e., if I got this wrong, how can I trust myself? What if my instincts are generally off , etc.
That is quite a leap from perhaps being mistaken in one exercise to not being able to trust myself generally. So I may have gotten this exercise “wrong.” The person who thought my hands were “mother” said she was strongly pulled to my energy and sought it out as she found it so nurturing. Was she accurate? Does it matter? Why did I make it so significant?
Ultimately I would say it was part of my soul plan to release a layer of self doubt. Here’s my take away. Part of me abides in deep faith of myself, the Universe, that all is well. An increasingly small part doubts and stews, wondering if I am capable of being wise enough, mature enough to financial support myself and my daughter, my remaining primary area of self doubt. I love how this exercise gave me the awareness to pull up, witness and thus release some measure of that self doubt. I am so ready to abide in deep rooted, cellular faith.
I love the quote below. I too had spent much of my life afraid of being afraid. I agree, the point is not to understand why, rather recognize what we can do about the feeling of self doubt, how we can nurture ourselves through that doubt. This to me is what matters, no matter what arises, how can we love ourselves through it, feeling safe in our own skin, safe with ourselves? This to me is the question that deserves our attention and care.
The main goal of being self-aware is to always be aware of your own experience, simply so you may then decide how to best support yourself through any particular part of it. I remember when I first became self-aware, and to me, it felt like being my own best friend and parent, all at the same time. Prior to the awakening of self-awareness, I would determine the quality of any moment solely based on how I felt about it. If I didn’t like how I felt, then I would usually consume my attention with looking for someone or something to blame. Once self-awareness dawned upon me, I would experience those same feelings as before, but with the question, “What do I need right now?” coming to mind.
Whatever it was that I felt I emotionally needed, I took the opportunity to offer it to myself. Whenever I did this, I could see from a greater perspective how that particular moment only occurred to deepen my own relationship with myself.
It’s like hugging yourself during a frightening part of your life’s ongoing movie. For me, the scariest part of my life’s movie was the realization that underneath all of my reactions and instincts to look for a scapegoat for situations that have seemingly gone awry, was a deep fear of being afraid. I was so afraid of the feeling of being afraid, I spent my whole life trying to anticipate moments that might trigger such feelings, and tried to avoid them entirely. When I began to give to myself what I actually needed emotionally, avoidance became totally unnecessary, and the enjoyment of the life I was both watching and acting out, happened spontaneously…. Matt Kahn