Describing yourself is hard - it involves a little emotional separation, a little self enquiry without getting attached to what you find. Ask others to describe you, and they worry they'll say the wrong thing and offend you somehow. I also like to think that I'm adaptable and that I grow - I'm not the same person I was last decade, last year or even last week. I'm constantly learning and growing.
However, I've been working on 'clearing' particular identifiers in my programming. Figuring out these codes that have been running and repeating, running and repeating, ever since they were set off by a particular experience, an unkind word, a particular trauma, a repeated message I somehow paid more attention to than I should have.
Here's an example. I find myself in conflict in a particular situation, and feel isolated and left out. Okay, so let's go into that a little further. Get out the thesaurus and dig deep into the meaning of that. Keep in mind that I'm trying hard to acknowledge that I'm the only one who can change things and there is nothing that happens in external reality that is to be blamed for my situation. Change yourself, change the world and all that. Okay - deep breath.
ostracised, shunned, exiled, frozen out, banished, dismissed, sidelined, undervalued, excluded, rejected, abandoned.
I feel a little ill even thinking about it. The exercise activates that part of me - the program inside me - that identifies with this experience, that constantly finds herself in the same situation. The trick now is to acknowledge it. What part of my programming chose to be in those situations? What part of my behaviour invited in these feelings? Is it a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts that I continue to follow these pathways where I find myself seeing all those cues that cause me to own the experience: I am that? Without going into detail, I can understand that perhaps my choices - how I see particular situations, how I respond to them, cause me to repeat, repeat, repeat - perhaps if I can see this when it happens, I can respond rather than react - stop the program running.
To 'zeropoint it' - to see it as on the polar end of a duality, I look at antonyms.
belonging, acceptance, warmth, welcoming, valued, legitimate, valued, seen, acknowledged, loved, cherished.
Can I think of moments when I have been accepted and valued? Can I change the energy of those who do not accept me, or can I empathise with their reasons for treating me this way? Can I let go moments where I have felt rejected in the past? Can I not give these feelings any energy and turn my attention elsewhere? Can I make choices in my life that allow love and belonging to take place, to bloom and blossom, and give those moments precedence? Can I reprogram my brain?
It's an interesting exercise. The power is in acknowledgement. Or rather, by acknowledging, I can begin to choose when I'm going to run the programming or not.
Everything is possibility.
My knees, Somerset, April 2020
So who am I?
Ask yourself how you'd describe yourself now, in ten words. Quickly. Do you come up with positive words or negative ones? Does writing positive words make you feel a bit uncomfortable?
And so I whatsapped my best friend in Tasmania. 'How would you describe me in ten words', I ask. She replies immediately.
intelligent, flighty, genuine, emotive, talented, sensitive, creative, expressive, honest, adventurous
Ooh, I like them. As a Libran, I'm always keen on describing myself as intelligent. It's what we do. And everything else, I can own. The only ones I have a problem with are 'flighty' and 'private', to which she responds: 'flighty = unpredictable at times, quick minded, reactive'. Ah yes. That's something that's gotta annoy people. I realise that. But I'm quick to back down and admit I'm wrong - I very rarely own my first reactions if they are made in haste and easily proven in error. And they're often in respond to a percieved injustice - there's nothing that makes me more frustrated and angry than things being unjust, cruel, thoughtless, unempathetic and downright inhumane. So I can live with 'flighty'. She makes it even better by saying she likes flighty. 'It's like the weather, changeable. And I like that'. So what drives one person crazy can be seen as endearing for another.
Private, she argues, is me protecting my vulnerability. But we all do that to some extent, she concedes.
'Can I say annoying?' my husband says. I tell him to f**k off. 'No, that's about you' I argue. 'I'm not being intentionally annoying - if I annoy you, that's your problem'. He's scared to choose ten. He's worried he's going to get into trouble.
I ask @trucklife-family. She loves this exercise and is quick to shoot words at me.
strong, wise, kind, determined, adventurous, ambitious, courageous, compassionate, creative and fun. Oh and definitely independent and proactive, reliable and funny.
Okay, she can stay my friend.
Reliable, though. Other friends would argue I'm not - there's my 'flighty' and 'sensitive' for you - I make plans and cancel on a pin. But in the online world, I can choose when to answer - perhaps when I've woken up properly. Most things I have to do is online, in my own time and headspace. And I feel comfortable online saying 'I can't' - in real life, I avoid situations that make me feel nervous, uncomfortable, over taxed. And I'm not particularly ambitious either - I do need to ask more questions.
But it's fascinating how others see you, which doesn't always align with how you see yourself.
'Don't you see yourself as annoying, then?' says the dear husband. I react by throwing a teatowel at him.
He still has no words for me. No good ones, apparently.
Me surfing, August 2020.
So I ask @alchemage.
Intelligent Respectful Caring Quirky Empathic Righteous Open Creative Resilient Inquisitive
Awwwww. He's a keeper too. There's a pattern in there - some of the words are appearing again. It's interesting that when he asks me to describe him, I can't come up with many new words - we agree perhaps we're mirroring. @danielapevs wrote about this this week. It's possible it's human nature that we choose our friends because they have similiar qualities to us. I cheat, and replace 'quirky' with 'eccentric', 'inquisitive' with 'curious'.
'So he didn't choose annoying, then?'. My husband is asking for trouble.
I finally force some words out of him. It's kinda unfair, because at this point he's under the Landrover and covered in grease. But he obliges.
intelligent, cute, brave, curious, loving, introverted, funny, creative, persuasive, kind
Aw. I can live with them. Intoverted is an interesting one - he sees it as negative, but as my fellow introverts would know, that's not quite the case. And I don't think I'm introverted all the time.
As I walk off, he yells: 'Ebullient!'.
'Do you even know what it means?' I ask.
'No, I just like the sound of it'. But it fits - I can definitely own cheerful, happy, enthusiastic. Not all the time. But boy when I am, people around me know it.
As I walk away, he yells: 'What about me? Do I get ten words?'
'No,' I toss back, 'just four. PAIN IN THE ASS.'
He's going to have to wait.
It strikes me I'm a better person than I give myself credit for, sometimes. If I can affirm these beautiful qualities the people I love see in me, perhaps I can live more confidentally in myself. No matter what negative external events happen - the things I can't control - I can control how I respond. I can control how I see myself, and how I behave and be in the world. On the Earth. What a refreshing way of seeing myself. I best get practicing. Really practicing. Hard. It's kinda uncomfortable. Sometiems I want to take the easy way out. Sometimes I want to drink a ton of wine and step into oblivion. Don't we all?
But if there's anything I 'I am' about, it's love. As in, I am loving awareness. As in, my true self, beyond all the conditioning, the atman.
Patanjali, the sage of yoga sutras, wrote: “Study thy self, discover the divine” II.44
Svadyaya, this self study, helps us understand chitti vritti - the fluctuations of the mind stuff. The more we understand who we are, or what we are not, the closer we come to really getting what we truly, truly, truly are. The 'I', the ego, is mostly about survival. We judge, doubt, blindly follow desires and aversions, without knowing that is what we do. The more we shine light or pay attention to how our mind works, how we react, how we behave in respond to feelings, to patterns, to programming, the more we can respond with awareness and become 'yoked' to our true selves.
Me, by the Ganges, Haridwar, early March
And then everything becomes an act of love, from love, towards love. Life goals, right?
So yes, I like to think that the 'me' I was is different to the me now, and the me now is more aligned with my true nature. I'm always going to screw up. That's human nature too. But I'm trying. Yoga helps. On the mat, I'm forced to listen. Forced to take notice. All manner of discomforts arise and fall away. What I learn on the mat, I take into the world with me. I think of how messed up I was at the end of last year, finishing off work to take a year off to rejuvenate - and then the pandemic. Remember us, the world, back in March? Ouch.
Me, Surf Coast Victoria, Early Jan 2020
Never has it been more important to tell a new story about myself. I can no longer give strength to the Riverflows of old - that is a story that no longer serves me, or the world. I don't wish to live in fear, or feeling the lack of self confidence to live an authentic joyful life that is my inheritance. And so I go into the future powerfully repeating who I really am, seeing myself as the people I love see me - powerfully vibrating energies that serve the world a lot better.
This post was written in response, in part, to two challenges - one by @abundancetribe which asks: 'What Story Do You Need To Stop Telling Yourself? And What Story Do You Wish To Begin? So That You Can Create The Life You Wish!?' and the other bay Ladies of Hive, which asks to describe yourself in ten words. I hope I do both justice - it was a fun exercise in 'knowing thyself', if a little (incredibly) uncomfortable!! Oh, and I'm meant to tag two people - I tag @trucklife-family and @danielapevs