So often along the journey of my unfolding, I've come to a place where I could actually see/recognize an old self-defeating pattern at the very instant that it was playing through me. Newly able to watch myself doing something that, not long ago, would have gone by without any conscious notice, I’d be aware that it was leading me somewhere that was no longer acceptable to me. Yet, despite this awareness I’d find my self unable to stop or change the behavior.

There was such excruciating pain knowing that I needed to not be doing this to my self again while feeling powerless to interrupt the behavior. For many years, these were occasions for having at my self: badgering, berating, criticizing and generally beating up on my self. "How can you be so dense, stupid, slow, screwed-up, perverse?!" and “What is wrong with you?!” were the sort of nastiness that I'd hurl at myself.

Already in pain, the relentless litany of my inner-critic (the "hatchet-lady") would further flay me. Yet, no matter how brutally she or I treated my self, it would never move me forward any faster. I would feel stuck, furious with my self for knowing what needed to change and yet being unable to change it.

As I’ve worked with my self and with others over the years, I’ve watched this cycle repeatedly recur along the way of everyone's journey. Gradually, I've learned to hold these times more spaciously, to hold my self and others caught this way with more gentle generosity. These feeling-stuck places are actually times of growing and transitioning, even though the growth/transitioning may be invisible to us or to any outside observer.

We need, in these difficult and painful times, to lovingly remind ourselves that being able to witness our patterns unfolding is in itself a significant accomplishment. As we witness, we become more than just the part of ourselves playing out the pattern. We are both that self and a larger, watching self: the witness. As we continue repeating the old patterns with the witness self present and watching, we are able to gather more and more understanding of the steps in the old dance. We begin to be able to see what the triggers and conventions are. We become more and more separate from the energy field of that dance. It is not the same-old, same-old when we are conscious, awake and watching. It becomes more like research, like cultural anthropology.

The more loving, tender and generous we can be with ourselves, the less critical and judgmental, the more we will be able to see and learn in our researches. We cannot, by any pressuring or goading, hasten the moment of the birth of the next step, of the next who that we are becoming. It always emerges just exactly when we're fully ready for it. Yet, how we are with ourselves during the between-time, the period of transition to that moment, is something about which we do have options and choice.

When we allow the natural world to be our teacher and guide, we understand that growth is not always visible: unfoldings and blossomings have their own seasons. We remember that when things are the bleakest and most barren above ground, there is a gathering of energy proceeding, slowly, deep underground.

Using this frame of reference instead of the more-bigger-faster-yesterday yardstick of the ambient culture, we can choose to be gentle and patient with ourselves. We can let ourselves rest in the trust that the new growth is germinating even as we do our researches.

Consider the practice of being patient and generous with yourself in the feeling stuck times.

P.S. So many of your delicious e-mails send appreciations for the affirmation, support and nourishment you receive from the site. When I answer them, I don’t always remember to let you know that having your own deck of the Rememberings and Celebrations cards is a way to bring this same loving voice into your everyday world, to have it at hand as you need to remind yourself of the "real" truth moment to moment in the crazimakingness of the so-called real world!

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The card on this page is part of a set of 64 bookmark-size cards called the Rememberings and Celebrations deck. They can be used as an oracle, a meditation focus or a "book-in-pieces" to kindle and grow a compassionate, gentle, unconditionally loving, fiercely protective inner-Mother to help you carve safe healing space for your emerging self and for the wounded little ones inside.

If you'd like a deck of your very own to support you in your journey, click here to download Order Form.

Please feel free to e-mail me at rposin@hotmail.com. to share your reflections and responses to any or all of what you find here . I'd really like to hear what touches and nourishes you!