Three voices

My voices cried within this morning, and I listened to them. Three voices rose up, from three locations in my body. And with three I conversed. To them I answered, one by one:

To the hurt and fear in my belly:

He that hurt you did so in ignorance, unwilling or unaware, or ignorant that his attacks on you, his intent on damaging your emotions, was an unconscious reflection of the damage and hurt he had earlier received. Jeers and mockery reflect only external opinion, which is capricious and unreliable.

When another aims to damage your emotions, know that you need not comply with their aim. We may set a boundary that denies access into the soft reception of our being to approaches with harmful intent.

Know also that we can nurture and cure ourselves. Here, my inner carer, my woman, my feminine in my soft lower left, front and back, shines a signal. She wishes to care for you. How does that feel?

Comforting. Nurturing.

We always have this energy in us, available to care for, and love, and hold, whomever within us requests for help. Help from external sources, which you sought at the moment of damage, are secondary to the help we can give to ourselves. Inner care can more clearly feel and see the details, the texture and energy of the damage, and can thus better know where to channel love, which area to shed the light of awareness unto, and how much and for how long to place the love and attention.

"You can be nourished with your own love. Love strengthens and nurtures."

It probably happened that, as you grew up, you learned that expressing certain emotions, or at a certain level of intensity, was undesirable or rejected by others. Perhaps you learned to hide the love and care you previously offered, especially in your role as a male. And perhaps in a moment later on, people rejected you, pushed you, bullied you, mocked you and your choices, and delighted in seeing your confusion and humiliation. And perhaps in that moment, with your emotions freshly injured, you disallowed your inner love and care from showing up, from helping you heal as it so very candidly desired. And perhaps thence arose the fracture in your emotions that still vividly hurts and cries.

Thank you for helping me feel, what still hurts and remains unhealed.

To the eagerness to write at the bottom of my left ribcage, 4-5 cm away from my solar plexus:

You've been active as I spoke with belly. What do you want to do?

I want to find good words that accurately depict what is happening. I want to remember the moments that feel significant, the words, the lines in the conversation that feel key, that would present a good summary, that won't miss out any important details.

And you want to write all that is happening?

Yes, I believe the experience is significant, and it can be very helpful to others if they read it, because then maybe if they read it, they can relate to some of the feelings and the processes here, and some may be curious and choose and introspect closer, deeper, as you do now.

And you think that this experience is unique, and hasn't been said before?

Yes, well, our exact experience is certainly unique. And maybe others feel it and say it too, ok, but I don't think I've seen it described as I write it, in minute detail, with unabashed openness. I like my writing style and I think it can be useful, so yes, I want to write this what is happening now.

I feel also some anxiety in you. Do you have another drive that compels you to write?

Well, I also want other people to read what I write. I want them to like it, to use it, to be helped and instrumented by my writings in their lives. And if they like it and share it and love it, they'll point at my writing and deem it with value. And I'll know it was me who wrote what they love. And then I'll know that I have value.

The question that drives the anxiety is: "Am I a good writer?"

And you will know that you are a good writer if others like what you write?

Yes! At least a little. I mean, "good" is known to be that which people like. I like some things and I like to share them, and those things are famous - to be like that, you know... it feels good.

And when others don't like what you write, you feel bad?

Yes, that too. I don't want to feel bad, and if others like me for something, then I don't feel bad. I avoid the bad. So I'm excited if I find something to write that I feel has good value.

Notice you are feeding an internal lack with an external resource. This can at times sate the thirst that you feel, yet the source is unreliable. Public opinion shifts like the weather, and people's focus of attention turns like a wind vane with a tiny breeze. Fishing for fame is a gamble where we bet much of our own hope, and the reward is only wispy. And most importantly, the reward is never truly yours. It is only a circumstantial loan.

Know that glamour is an illusion. Your anxiety does not say "I want to be famous". It says "I want to be seen. Appreciated." And that we can also gift to ourselves.

Know that you seek to be of value, and you seek confirmation of your value. Know that value arises not from external opinion, but from the life you pour into each action and moment. And the energy that fuels your search for external approval can be redirected, and repurposed towards your own truth and creation. And by thus barring this thirst for external approval from nourishment, the thirst eventually weakens, dries, and dissolves.

"Having your value depend on external approval is unreliable and deleterious, for it keeps you addicted to, dependent on, what you do not control."

To the angry warrior in my solar plexus:

As we spoke, a housemate walked beside me, and I felt my solar plexus triggered to alert, to defend, and to prepare packaged responses for imaginary words he could say to me. My body felt stiffer, some of my energy focused as a shield. I felt fire within.

Why do your burn, solar plexus?

He's here in the room and I don't know what he's going to do. I don't want him to talk to me, I don't want him to approach. So I rise to prepare ourselves. If he speaks or if he engages, then I can produce one of these packaged responses that will move him to leave me alone.

And how are you going to do that?

My prepared responses will show him that I have no interest in talking with him. And not just that, but that I have an active repulsion towards him. That will have him leave me alone.

Why do you have such an active repulsion towards him?

He hurt me. He and her got together one night and told me that what I was doing was wrong. And I didn't even know that I had done anything at all. I felt attacked and ambushed by them without any intent from my side. And this makes me feel that not even doing nothing, not even being simply as I am, is acceptable to them. That my natural self is incorrect.

And you feel he can hurt you again?

Yes, maybe. I don't trust him now. So if he approaches me, I want to be prepared. My responses will be sharp, unexpected, and will stun him enough that he'll stop approaching me. That he'll leave.

It feels like you want to hurt him too.

Yes, that! So he knows I can stun. So he knows I'm not limitlessly pliable. So he knows I have boundaries and I'm strong to keep them. And if he doesn't respect me, I want him to know I can bite!

And then, he'll be hurt like you are hurt? And he'll replicate this patterns towards you or towards others later on?

Yeah, well... he started it! I'm not weak! I'm strong! If I don't show it it's because I restrain myself for the sake of others, but I do not want to be pushed and coerced beyond my boundaries because others mistake my permissiveness for weakness. So I'll show strength! By hurting him, I show strength!

Hurting others is not necessary to prove you are strong or to set your boundaries. Though it may show aptitude at some attribute, like wittiness, physical prowess, or some measured superiority, it also feeds your satisfaction on the detriment of another. This satisfaction is a dangerous one, for it can grow into a thirst that damages whomever it comes into contact with, whether willingly or not. And if hurt is answered with hurt, the feedback loop created can quickly escalate and spiral into a whirlwind of hurt, blame, and anger that engulfs all the participants and upon which neither has any control.

But I'm the solar plexus, I defend. If I don't defend us, how can we be safe?

I do not ask you to step down as our defender, nor to dim down your fire. Your power drives and impels us through so many activities and efforts each day, and I continue to value you in all of these. What I offer is this: when you are triggered to defend, when you feel a threat is approaching, pause. Consult with others in our body, verify whether the threat is pertinent to you. My mind and heart have learned, and are learning, to avoid most physical and emotional danger to us: danger that could be neutralised with your power. I ask you to trust that mind and heart are guiding us along a path with physical safety.

And as regards social and emotional interactions, I ask you to trust that my throat can express the necessary truth, and also keep us safe, without the need to hurt another and to push him back.

"You need not hurt others to keep yourself safe."