Meet The Real You…
An Excerpt from Chapter Two of The Magical Unfolding
In October 2017, I successfully crowdfunding my mission-led book The Magical Unfolding, with Publishizer. It was published in October 2018 thanks to my campaign, which you can see here.
You can also see an excerpt from the Introduction here.
Gift yourself time to snuggle up and read this… then maybe you’ll see why getting this book out there is SO important. It might just change how you view life. In a good way! Excerpt below…
‘I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.’~ Hafiz
What do you mean, meet the real me? I’ve known me all my life!
As a young child I was an open, friendly, shy and curious daydreamer. I loved life, exploring and delighted in losing myself in stories- especially those that were rich and sparked my imagination. I adored Alice in Wonderland for its jumble of characters and its quirky world, and to this day I’m known for my ability to lose myself in another world of my own creation. As a result, I inherently see the world differently, including seeing the light within everyone and their pure child-self in their faces — regardless of how old they are.
I am sharing this because this chapter invites you to meet the real you — the you that I would see if you were standing in front of me — not the you that you see in the mirror. Having established in the previous chapter that through no fault of your own the world you see is not the full reality; you are about to discover that the same is true about how you see yourself.
Before you can proceed further into your personal journey, this is a vitally important pausing place — because your magical unfolding will be so much richer if you do it from the perspective of seeing yourself as you truly are. (Stop cringing, this is going to be a wonderful discovery, really it is.).
Why is this important?
By the time I was 14 years old, I had already forgotten about the joy and wonder of the world. By this tender age, I had the awareness of an adult in a child’s body. I didn’t know until years later that I am an empath — I simply knew I was different and therefore got bullied at school.
Having spent my young life acutely feeling the pain of everything and everyone around me, I had concluded that the world was a negative, hurtful place, and that it was best avoided. I had no idea that it was unusual to see right through everyone, notice everything and feel unkind words cutting deeply into my being like permanent defects. I didn’t know that the things I was told about myself weren’t true. All I knew was that it was downright painful, noisy and unkind in the world, and that none of the things I picked up on were ‘supposed’ to be mentioned out loud.
Because that’s not what we did in my world. Children after all, ‘should’ be seen and not heard.
And so, I stayed silent.
Inwardly I quietly rebelled and raged. Externally I had already learnt the art of appearing untouched by others, realizing that reacting simply added fuel to their fire — and therefore my greatest weapon was to not show others my feelings.
Little did I know then that staying silent was to become my default behaviour until into my 40’s — and that suppressing my voice meant that I suppressed the full expression of myself in all senses. I had no idea that it was impossible to fully experience and extract joy from life without this expression. It wasn’t until I started my Shiatsu training in my 30s that I realised where I had been burying my unexpressed emotions and I learned how damaging that was.
You probably know that science has proved that energy cannot be destroyed — it can change form, but it is still energy in another form. Emotions, as powerful as they can be, are simply a type of energy in motion (E-Motion). Emotions therefore, cannot be buried and they don’t go away. They simply accumulate and then transform — in my case, into disease and depression.
Here’s something you probably resonate with…
I got so wrapped up in believing the myth that the world had told me about myself, that I forgot my light-hearted, life-loving child self, and instead believed I was flawed. The Me that I saw as a young child did not correspond to the Me that others saw, and so I buried my true self deeply in a safe box marked ‘delusions’.
I wouldn’t be opening that box again for years — but what I would see in later life, is that almost all other adults carried a similar box — whether they knew it or not. A classic case of what we see mirrored in others is what we most need to see for ourselves.
Now that I’ve seen inside it more clearly, I call it the Broken Box.
Why we Build Boxes
We build boxes primarily to keep us safe. We don’t even know we are doing it. We build them instinctively, starting to hide things in them in early childhood. Our boxes then define us, shape our world and give us meaning. We put all sorts of things in them, building walls out of our beliefs, society rules, and the messages we get from peers and parents. We use them to decide what is acceptable behaviour — and what isn’t, and this becomes the basis of our belief system.
As a small child, I really liked boxes. I used to pray to the Lord of Breakages to tamper with the various big things in the house, so that my parents would have to order a new big thing — which would of course come in a wonderful big box that I could hide in. I liked boxes and small spaces so much that I built an entire world of my own in the various hiding places in my house. It meant I could escape from the real world, and instead spend time in one I preferred.
I know that I am not alone in this love of having a place of my own to hide in. Amongst children, this is a common thing — animals do it too, especially cats, who like nothing better than finding small spaces to fold themselves into. The problem is that whilst ‘folding ourselves in’ might protect us, it also limits us and stops us from living with full expression. Our boxes affect how we see the world, how we view others, and how we view ourselves.
When you think about, it is incredibly clever of our subconscious minds to build boxes for us — it is an inherent thing we all do without even realising it. It helps us to stay under the radar, to survive and to fit into the tribe. As an adult I perfected the art of living in boxes of my own making so well that one day, I woke up in someone else life, wondering how I got there and who on earth I was.
Our boxes give us somewhere to store our dreams, secrets and resentments. They also reinforce our limiting beliefs, keep us trapped in the lies and stories we tell ourselves about what our life means and who we are, and they give us a place to dump all the emotions we don’t like expressing.
The type of broken box you have depends entirely upon your unique experiences and your belief system. There is a whole subconscious operating system protecting your box, keeping you safe from imagined danger — so not only are you dragging around boxes you don’t know you have — but you’re also being held back by your invisible safety committee.
I believe that we are all born with all the inner wisdom and tools we need to travel our individual paths — and that somewhere along the line, as we become conditioned, learn life-lessons, acquire layers of protection and devote our energy to others, we forget who we truly are, why we are here and how we can access our inner knowledge and power.
Your safety committee has taught you to fear change and to feel safe with familiarity. You undoubtedly resist doing things that are new or challenging as a result and it can appear so much easier to cruise along as you are, and keep things predictable. The mere thought of breaking down your boxes can be exhausting — especially as the possible gain is so intangible. That is why you so often carry on as you are. Rest assured that you are not to blame for this — research has demonstrated that we all have little compassion for our future self — and that is why we so often fail to change our habits.
Now you have more insight into why you have built your boxes and what keeps them there, the most important thing for you to realise is that you are not your box.
Knowing that is a wonderful thing — because once you’ve felt the truth of that in your heart, it makes it so much easier to choose to put the box down and step away….
Your broken box does not define you and without it, you will feel so much lighter. You are not a fixed entity and you have infinite capacity to change and transcend the confines of your box. The trick is to do it bit by bit, so that your safety committee barely notices, leaving you free to step away with your original self intact and unencumbered by the weight of suppression and outdated beliefs.
To be continued….
The Magical Unfolding offers a magical process to finding your inner peace, potential and purpose, so that you can create a life you love. Part personal story, part manifesto, part loving call to arms, and part roadmap, it will guide you, step-by-step, along a deliciously unfolding pathway.
The book is now available to purchase. Get more details and order your copy here.
Ready to honour your dreams and live on your terms?
I’ve created a simple starting point for you to press pause and take the pledge to stop the hustle and start living on your terms beginning now.
If you take this first step, your life will change more quickly than you know…
Get your Magical Life Manifesto here!
Thank you for reading xx
