Individuation

We hear a lot about the value of seeking out in our lives stimulating 'food for thought'.   We are advised to keep ourselves intellectually nourished and our minds sharp.  In my view, there is an extraordinary amount of intellectual information available in this day and age that challenges the way we think, what we think and how we think. 

But what about 'food for feeling'?

What I have enjoyed throughout the past 15 years of self study is working with skilled professional therapists.  What they have provided me with whether I am working on my own emotional issues, or debriefing after working with a challenging client, is 'food for feeling'.

In an ideal world, one wouldn't have to go seeking 'food for feeling' from outside the family, as wise and respectful elders would offer this multidimensional stimulus for younger generations.

For some of us emotionally available and healthy elders are not a resource we can access, so we need to go looking for those in life who have the rare ability to offer quality 'food for feeling.'

For those of you new to my blog, I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic who has now been clean and sober for almost 15 years.  I grew up with a great deal of domestic and sexual violence so to be honest, addressing how I felt in the first half of my life was the last thing I wanted to do, let alone have someone else offer to feed my feelings.  They were already unmanageable and overwhelming.

But the other day I had a really fascinating conversation with The Gentle Giant (my therapist) about the subject of Individuation.  He was commending me on my journey thus far and I was intrigued with this word,  as I had never heard this term before.  Maybe you have, but it was a new one for me, so I thought I would explore it a little more in today's blog.  I always write about what I need to learn more about and understand, in a way it helps me emotionally digest.   If it helps others along the way learn more about themselves as I share it, well that is a privilege for me and I am grateful.

What I came to understand after my conversation with the Gentle Giant, and after doing some research and reading, it seems that in everyday non clinical speak, which is the only speak I know,  that Individuation or and Individuated human being is the opposite to a co-dependent individual.  Individuation is a gradual process we all embark on once we leave the biological nest.  Some of us graduate fully, and some don't.  It seems it is the human process of emotional maturation and for some it happens quicker than for others. 

For those with similar backgrounds to mine, where trauma and addiction has stunted our emotional maturation process, it tends to happen a little slower and takes deliberate focus and commitment.  Mainly because we need to firstly unlearn or uninstall our codependent emotional programming that has us using, people, places and or things as crutches to support us, thus disempowering us.  For this short circuits the Individuation process.   To become self supporting Individuated human beings co-dependent emotional programming that brainwashes  us into believing that in life there is only ever a victim, a rescuer and a perpetrator must first be deleted.   Unless this programming is unlearned drama and disappointments will always remain the theme of the emotional world of the co-dependant. 

Some people emotionally disconnect from biological family or intimate relationships like I did thinking they are escaping co-dependence on human beings,  but become enslaved, addicted and co-dependent upon distractions other than relationships.  Booze, food, drugs, sex, gambling, spending, fame, nicotine, caffeine and the list goes on are all co-dependent connections.  You can be a loner, and still be a co-dependent individual, God knows I was for many years.

I was an emotional virgin when I got clean and sober in 1995.  I thought a lot, I did a lot, but I felt very little about myself and other human beings.  I was emotionally numb. Disconnected and unable to support myself in an emotionally mature relationship.  As I was emotionally illiterate.  I knew a lot about sex, but little about intimacy, I knew a lot about conversation but little about communication.

I had a hungry heart.  A ravenous heart, actually that craved nourishment, but spat attempts at connection with me,  back at others in fear regularly.  I  had little life experience in chewing on relationships that provided emotional substance and nourishment.   Most of my past close relationships had left a very bitter taste in my mouth.   I didn't want to attract intimate connections with others for they had proven to be the most damaging ones.

Where I was malnourished was with 'food for feeling'.   I was unaware of my hearts emotional palate.  I was so busy protecting my heart and keeping others away from it in order to stay safe from any further trauma, that I starved myself of heartfelt love, beauty and hope.  The core foods required to nourish a human heart. I didn't know how to stop doing, and thinking and just be me for God sake! 

The Emotional Fitness process I have developed over the years in order to become an emotionally fitter and self supporting human being aligns with this concept of Individuation, but until a few days ago I was unaware of this fact.

I just loved this new word when I heard it.  After doing extensive research I have discovered that some definitions of Individuation vary but the overall view is that once a person has accepted the contents of their unconsciousness (that private part of ourselves that stores our secrets, our shadows and our shame) and made peace with themselves, they then commence their journey toward becoming an Individuated human being.

This term was created by the famous psychologist Carl Gustav Jung to describe the process of becoming aware of oneself, of one's makeup, and they way to discover one's true, inner self.  The process of Individuation is not easy for us in Western society because we often have difficulty with the concept of paradoxes.  Nevertheless it is necessary if we choose to maintain emotional health and wellbeing to accept both the worst and the best in ourselves, the rational and the irrational, the order and the chaos, the masculine within all women, and the feminine within all men.

I have observed after working with thousands of Australians choosing to recover their self respect and build their level of Emotional Fitness, that many people spend the second half of their lives getting over the first.   In order to earn our own self respect we must become emotionally self supporting.   We must be the loving parents we might wish we had towards ourselves.

This process of becoming self supporting or Individuation is often something that Jung reports begins in the second half of life, when individuals reach the zenith of their lives and suddenly find themselves facing an unknown vista or some unforeseen upheaval.  Their denial of their true self no longer works for them, but against them.  Sometimes this turning point takes the form of crises; such as a financial failure, a health or addiction problem, a broken relationship, death of a loved one or anything that upsets their emotional status quo.  Often this experience assumes the form of a profound self doubt, a loss of meaning and a questioning about the meaning and reason for our lives.

I have been blessed with many life crises and knocked down emotionally countless times, as have most of us.  When this happens, we either get up and learn how to stand on our own two feet and face the world head on (work on our Individuation process), or we cling to someone or something (booze, drugs, fame) to rescue us, seek revenge with those who knocked us down, or get drunk on rescuing others (become a helpaholic) so we become way too busy to do our own emotional work.

When we are finally able to back ourselves regardless of what Mother, Father, siblings, children, lovers, partners, spouses, colleagues, mentors or "they" think about us we untie the apron strings of co-dependency and become self supporting Individuated human beings.

We have no capacity to healthily and responsibly deal with another person's power effectively until our own power is pure and intact.  True partnership and respect cannot prevail if we people please and give our personal power away and become submissive.  And if we try and dominate another with our power and become aggressive or violent we are still reliant on an external result, if we abuse and misuse our personal power and drama and disconnection will eventually result.  I speak from personal experience having had many of my emotional crutches removed from me one by one since 1995 when my journey of Individuation began.

Like many on this journey I now choose to look back on my crises as the biggest gifts of my life so far.  The emotional crutches were sometimes removed gradually and at other times suddenly.  I have left the timetable in Mother Nature and Father Times capable hands. 

Removal of my great first loves, alcohol, drugs and nicotine were the first to go, followed by support from my biological family(thank God that didnt include my children then aged 9 and 7), divorce, financial security, food addiction, caffeine addiction, and then my two sons became fully grown men (now aged 21 and 23) and left my nest to embark on their own journeys of Individuation.  I also confess to being a recovering smother mother, so focusing on them and their lives every day was also a crutch I used in order to not look at my own relationship with myself.  All of these emotional dependencies being removed from my life, often left me crying in a fetal mess on the floor, they knocked me down and forced me to surrender my fear and my ego so I could get back up again.

They say in life it is not how many times we get knocked down, but how many times we get back up again.  The only motivator I could find to help me get back up again, was the motivator I used as a little girl aged four, after being beaten and abused.  That motivator was a connection to love, beauty and hope through Mother Nature and Father Time.  I would lie on the grass under the lemon tree in the back yard when my little body was hot and throbbing with pain, and watch the sparrows, and fall into the colour of the sky whether it was grey with cloud or deep blue.  That internal place of connection that I found as a little person, I still use every day because it works.  It helps me stand back up, dust myself off, and be willing to use the lesson that has just knocked me down as a reminder of what not to do next time I get some emotional homework.  I only get knocked down when I give my power away or try and attach myself to someone else's power so they carry me and I don't have to do my own homework.  These approaches don't work for me anymore.

To become self supporting is to become willing to emotionally back ourselves regardless of anyone else's opinion.  To fully mature and be able to make unpopular decisions in order to self care, rather than to be motivated by people pleasing and public opinion is truly the 'road less travelled' as Scott Peck puts it.  When our own opinion of ourselves matters more than the opinion of others, we are then free from being manipulated, abused and exposed to emotionally unsafe situations long term.

As a recovering addict and co-dependant I used to be the sort of person whom in a room of one hundred people would be unsettled if one person disliked me.  If ninety nine people in that room loved and adored me, but one disliked me, they would be able to sabotage my peace of mind for I would give them my power.  I would dismiss the people that liked me as being wrong.  And the person in the room, that didn't like me, became right.  Because when I started this journey almost 15 years ago, I didn't like me, so I agreed with the one person who also didn't care for me as probably being the most honest person in the room.  All they did was reflect my true relationship with myself.

These days, if the reverse situation was presented to me and ninety nine people in the room disliked me and only one loved me, I would be able to stand proud in that room, even if my one supporter left.  For the first time in my life, I don't feel alone when I am with myself, for I am in good company and I respect and enjoy whom I have become.   

Not needing external props in order to feel good about who we are is our birthright in my view.  I have always loved one sentence in particular, from that famous reading "The Invitation" that asks us:

"Can you bear the accusation of betrayal from another, and not betray your own soul"?

I am so relieved to be able to answer this question these days with a clear YES!

To earn our own approval does not make us conceited, unteachable or disconnected, the reverse is true.  It makes us self supported, empowered individuals who live life on an emotionally full tank of personal power, so that we have no need to use or abuse anyone or anything to gain more power.  We accept that we are good enough as we are, and take our place as equals in the world.  We can get back up again and not give up on ourselves and our dreams should life experiences unexpectedly knock us over from time to time.

This journey of Individuation helps us learn how to create a lifestyle that includes emotional self preservation.  Once we become willing to feed our hearts as well as our minds and bodies with food for feeling, we become nourished from the inside.  You will know when you are providing yourself with substantial food for feeling when you are not busy doing or thinking, but able to create space to just be with yourself and attract others who will support and respect you to be who you are without having to do anything (including booze or drugs) for them or with them, or subscribe to their intellectual point of view.   Those rare individuals that provide quality food for feeling leave us feeling empowered, respected, loved, enjoyed and supported after we have spent time with them.

How is your emotional diet at present?  How much quality food for feeling are you digesting in your own company and with others?

I hope I was able to provide you with an entree portion of food for feeling within this blog, even if you disagree entirely with my view.  I support your right to disagree with me always, for self study is very much about discerning between what we do and don't choose to emotionally digest.

I am sorry it took me a few days to get to back to you this week, The Emotional Fitness Master Class planning will take a fair bit of my time over the next few months, but as promised I will do my utmost to ensure I share a new blog and some food for feeling each week.

I will attach the  new brochure to this blog site once it is completed and that should be within the next couple of weeks.  So watch this space!!

The Word Vitamins I would like to leave you with today are from the little poem of thanks I wrote to The Mighty Sparrows back in 2000.  These little creatures provided years of quality and reliable food for feeling for my malnourished heart by their mere presence when I was a little girl.  I used this poem to conclude my first book A Helping Hand with Life, so for those who have read it before, I hope you won't mind revisiting this sacred place I found under the lemon tree in my back yard with me again?

The Mighty Sparrows

My heroes, my lifesavers, my beautiful friends, so small but so mighty, silent to the end

No words needed, just gentle comfort and a smile, always come to visit, but only stay a little while

Cannot hold you, cannot touch you, my heart knows you must be free, a busy bird; many souls need you, not only me

Without your blinking eyes and twitching head, a vision that bought me peace, without your friendliness and time, my belief in beauty would surely cease

A small, soaring soul, magnificent in its plainness, no one to impress, many pass you by, a wise and gentle messenger, you helped me believe my soul would fly

Can't do this book without you, am I worthy of this flight? Please stay with me dear sparrow help me believe, in the deep dark quiet of the night

We've come so far together, don't know how much more to go, I see you at the bread shop, I see you everywhere I go

Thank you my darling sparrows, my life's heroes whom always make me smile, cheeky fat little tummies; you've made all the pain worthwhile