Extreme independence is a trauma response patterned into your nervous system

Since having surgery in April, I’ve been sleeping in my living room because my regular sleeping space is up a flight of stairs. A mattress on a futon frame, specifically. It’s worked well under the circumstances, but it is crowded, makes my cats all out-of-sorts, and it just isn’t conducive with great sleep. 

 Today, a couple of guys from my neighborhood came over and helped my partner move the bed and futon back upstairs. I get my living room back, I get to to sleep IN MY ROOM, and it looks ALMOST like no surgery ever happened here...almost

 I absolutely love that my neighbors (multiple neighbors) showed up when I asked and I’m grateful for living in a community that shows up for each other

 I'm also giving myself due credit for publicly asking for help and receiving it with grace, instead of discomfort or shame. GO ME! I've been practicing and it shows (and I try my damnedest to celebrate any WIN! I can

 For most of my life, hyper-independence (aka extreme independence) has been deeply conditioned into my nervous system, influencing my thoughts, behaviors, and making me feel that in order to be valid and valued, I had to ‘do everything by myself’. This toxic conditioning came from repetitive exposure to micro- and macro-trauma of a personal, ancestral, and systemic/cultural nature. 

 Hyper-independence was a long-standing survival mechanism I leaned on. It helped me feel safe during times I didn’t feel safe with others, and it turned into a limiting pattern that cut me off from real safety, connection, and support. 

 When I say “I’ve been practicing and it shows”, I literally mean that I’ve identified that this pattern no longer serves me, defined how/when it shows up and how it really makes me feel (familiar isn’t always synonymous with comfortable, but can easily be confused with it), and I’m consciously choosing to ask for help when my pattern would have dictated that ‘I do it on my own’...

 Choosing a different response is absolutely easier said than done. There is something that makes it easier though, and that is through intuitive healing work to identify where in the body this pattern is held, then using the body itself to unpattern the nervous system. 

 The reason this makes it easier to respond, feel, and do differently (aka, create a new pattern of outcome) is because once the neural pathway and emotional energy pattern is neutralized (or released), there is no longer a biochemical and physiological force pushing against your effort to show up in a new way. 

 If you have ever tried to break a habit, a thought pattern, a behavior, or ANY repetitive aspect of your human experience, you probably know what it feels like to take one step forward and three steps back. That frustration or hopelessness you feel when you give something EVERY.SINGLE.THING you’ve got...and it turns out exactly the same as it always does over and over again...that is likely because you are meeting resistance at a level of body...specifically, a level of biochemistry and physiology.

 Finding a way to work WITH your body, instead of AGAINST it, makes a huge difference in the path of progress (or healing or growth) AND in your outcomes. 

 If you are interested in learning how this wholeness approach can help you, schedule a complementary Discovery Session to discuss how my wholeness approach fits with your needs.

 Let’s work together, so you don’t have to keep up the struggle and limitation you’ve been working so hard for so long to overcome. I’m ready when you are… 

Your body is holding your stories...I can help you listen,

Michelle