For those of us on the path of self improvement, there is increasing awareness of the importance of setting healthy boundaries, and doing our best to overcome poor relationship patterns. And yet, even with this awareness, we still find ourselves struggling to embrace these essential concepts whilst subconscious impulses and inner child issues sabotage our efforts at making meaningful progress.
The reason why most of us struggle with this is because fundamentally we have self esteem issues. We don’t believe in ourselves, we don’t feel worthy of love, or worst of all, at a deep level, we don’t even feel worthy of life. In all my years of teaching, the most surprising result has been how ubiquitous self esteem issues are, even amongst those of us who seem most confident, and most ‘sorted’. The reason is because when we’re young, we’re so tender, and so impressionable that even small things can shake our world. If mummy or daddy tell us we’re ‘a bad boy’, or ‘a bad girl’, we believe them. And if we hear it said a few times in our early years, it’s likely to become the lens through which we view ourselves from then on. If our parents are stressed, we will likely see it as our fault, which of course, it almost never is, but we’re not yet developed enough to know that.
If our parents aren’t present, physically, because of work perhaps, or if they are simply vacant when we’re with them, because of exhaustion or all the life sh\*t they’re dealing with, we will begin to feel we are not worthy of attention. If they withhold their love from us, to try and condition us into better behavior, this may turn us into people pleasers. And of course, if they’re experiencing their own emotional blocks, they may well struggle to offer us unconditional love regardless, and instead we receive the rather second rate experience of being conditionally loved, which creates very shaky foundations which we can never properly build on. And of course, if mummy had post partum issues when we were a newborn, we will inevitably feel disconnected from the bosom of her love.
So even if you didn’t experiencing the more traumatic aspects of physical abuse, sexual abuse, or having an alcoholic parent for example, you will still be carrying some scars from your youth, or samskaras as they were known in ancient India.
The legacy effects of this are that we create these personas, these marketing techniques, to try and win people’s love and favor. We ache to be liked, to be loved, and we will go to almost any lengths to achieve it. If that means not having boundaries then so be it. We will burn our boundaries on the altar of mutual adoration, and we will find ourselves attracting, and being attracted to, people who mirror our insecurities, and in all likelihood amplify them. This is our subconscious attempt to bring our shadow into the light, so that we can heal, grow and expand into our fullest human potential. But unfortunately, we often respond to the hurts that we experience from poor boundaries and toxic relationship dynamics by retreating further into our shadow, feeling a victim to fortune, wanting to blame others, or feeling even more diminished in our sense of self.
However, it’s all opportunity. These experiences are the alchemical fuel that can power us to our destiny as an elevated human being. But it takes strength, courage, a willingness to dig super deep, and a willingness to open ourselves up to the vulnerability of our insecurities to achieve it.
No matter what has played out, the only way out is to take responsibility for our circumstances, and make empowered choices that sew the seeds of virtuous circles, rather than vicious dynamics. We need to be tenderly vigilant towards any thinking that puts us in a victim or martyr mindset - it’s all tricks of the ego - remember the true meaning of alchemy is to turn all of your inner lead into gold.
Obviously this is all easier said than done, which is why twice daily meditation is so important. And if you use a meditation technique that helps you experience transcendence, and you do this consistently twice a day, it helps your ego identify with your universal nature, rather than simply identifying with all of your individualized storylines and memories of pain, trauma and emotion. The very act of transcending connects you with something so much bigger, and more vast, that you begin to realize that your essence is bigger and more powerful than any of dramas and misfortunes that have colored your life. And you realize this at an emotional and spiritual level, rather than simply realizing it at an intellectual level. This is so important, because otherwise your emotions and energies will resist and sabotage. If all we had to do was realize something intellectually, all any of us would need are a few self help books, and maybe a few sessions of counselling. We need to go deeper. A lot deeper. If we do, bit by bit all systems within your mind, body and spirit come into alignment.
By de-exciting your nervous system through meditation, it enables the matrix of nerve fibers that define so much of who you are and how you experience the world to begin to purge themselves of all the samskaras that you’ve built up in your life. All those toxic memories that your cells have been holding onto for years and decades begin to dissipate. And in its place, comes a greater sense of lightness, openness, and enthusiasm for life. You begin to feel a sense of childlike awe returning to your life. You begin to feel ‘you’ once more. The real you. The one that has been hiding behind all of the busyness, and personality traits, and storylines that have gone into forming the façade that you’ve been presenting to the world.
And in order to make the most progress, it’s important that outside of the meditation, you cultivate the art of leaning in, of being vulnerable, of owning up to the raw emotional truth and honesty of your experience, whatever that may be. This is where journaling can be so powerful. By unloading everything onto a page in pure, stream-of-consciousness, unvarnished truth, you get to relieve yourself of some of the baggage that you would otherwise carry into your day, and into your future. It helps you become practiced in understanding what you feel in any given moment. It helps you to become more emotionally literate, and more self literate.
If you then combine this by implementing better boundaries, you will feel more powerful. And this time, the boundary setting will stick, because all of that subconscious work you’ve been doing will help you feel more empowered, and less stuck. All those gremlins and self sabotage patterns begin to fade into the background, and you have the wind behind your back.
That is of course, until you find yourself interacting with someone you’ve opened yourself up to, and realize that they are still managing to find some of your triggers. This is the moment of truth. This is your opportunity to switch into the gears that you’ve created through all your good work, and to literally re-engineer the patterns that would otherwise see you regress.
It helps to understand that relationships are not there to make you happy. They are not there to satisfy your ego’s every whim. They are an opportunity to learn and grow, and they are an opportunity to express the inner fulfilment that you have created through your practices, so that you can offer an unconditional level of love to others. But too many people see relationships as an answer. A fix. A means by which the emptiness they feel deep down can be filled. But if the raw emotional truth of why you’re entering these relationships is that, then you’re going to feel frustrated, exhausted and painfully disappointed by what comes back.
One of the ways you can sharpen your sword is to notice when you’re taking a conditional approach, and see if you can find it within to be unconditional, regardless of what they are offering you in return.
Similarly, give people space to grow, and be. Take time for yourself, and nurture your body, and your soul. You cannot truly love another if you do not love yourself. No amount of relating can ‘band aid’ this. No amount of giving will get you to a place where you are receiving enough of what you yearn most for. It has to start with you, and from there, you can then build the foundations which may have been missing until now.
Author bio: Will Williams is the founder of www.beejameditation.com and the author of the best seller in its category, The Effortless Mind. Will is also the founder of World Meditation Day, which is dedicated to changing perceptions that ‘meditation is for hippies and monks’ and instead inspire people to give it a go.
Will has acted as the wellbeing advisor for over 33 companies, including Netflix, Spotify, Sony, Google DeepMind, and Goldman Sachs. For the past 3 years, he has been involved in the OECD’s Future of Education and Skills 2030 project, working with 36 education ministers from around the world in a bid to change education for the better and to make wellbeing a central pillar. He also taught 1760 schoolchildren across 19 UK schools to meditate as a part of his partnership with the Prince’s Trust.
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