I picked up Anatomy of Spirit by Carolyn Myss again. I loved it the first time through and decided to pick and chose today. I landed on “Questions for Self-Examination” in the chapter on the first chakra. Hmmm, funny how we end up precisely where we need to be.
1. What belief patterns did you inherit from your family?
2. Which of those belief patterns that still have authority in your thinking can you acknowledge are no longer valid?
3. Do you have a personal code of honor?
I realize I have been working on understanding and paying attention to patterns. They do not disappear through time but continue to evolve often without my being aware. There is nothing bad about my family patterns. It’s that code of honor we live by and believe in. What I am slowly understanding is that I get trapped by this blueprint, surrounding my thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs. The entrapment comes in the choices I make. I am speaking more of emotional and behavioral choices rather than life choices.
Here’s an example. My family believed in calmness. Keep in mind, that is my perception. It is my processing of how WE live. So I often find myself choosing to feign calm when actually I am seething with emotion whether anger, or fear or even joy. (Can you seethe with joy?) Instead of exposing those emotions I ruminate with them first, letting them dispel some steam before I act. I’ve always believed that to be an excellent avenue to take in communication. However, that often means I don’t express the pure emotion. Maybe that’s a good thing because if I’m angry I don’t want to explode at someone. But you see the issue here is that because I hold those emotions in, when they do come out, I explode. What would happen if I simply said at the time of my initial feeling, “I’m mad,” or “that really makes me angry,” or “this scares me.” How might things be different in my life? Maybe the explosion of emotion wouldn’t be something I have to fear. Maybe in confronting the emotion at the moment, I would be calm. Maybe after calmly stating and discussing the issue causing the emotion I wouldn’t then have it stuffed inside waiting to explode.
So all this is connected to my personal code of honor that I have transcribed. I have rolled it, patted it and marked it with an “M” thrown it in this “family inheritance” oven and baked it. What comes out is not something my family wills on me. It’s my own concoction. It’s my code and belief in what honor looks like.
So finally what I understand from the above questions is maybe some of my patterns are no longer valid. Maybe I can let some of that go and accept a new pattern that will keep me healthier emotionally and physically.
