I’ve been thinking about what we call normal in our lives today.
There are many things even in my lifetime that were NOT considered normal when I was growing up.
I remember hearing my parents saying about my generation similar things that I say today about the current generation.
Holy smokes! I have become them. I said I would never do what they did or said.
Sound familiar?
There are so many things we “nomralize” in our life today based on what we learned and were conditioned to as children.
I’m speaking to the internal dialogue we have with ourselves. It is what we know from childhood.
We look around us and what is happening in the world. We wonder how this has come to be the way it is.
It appears to be unacceptable. Things like the rheotric spewed on T.V., from politicians to news casters.
This generation we call millenials and the age of technology. The emotional abuse of our programs we watch on the TV.
The bullying, the destruction of the planet…
You get the idea.
My point here is, what we are witnessing and judging out there is the exact thing we do to ourselves on the inside.
I’m inviting us to consider what we judge or have an opinion of about “them” is the same, or the very least, similar to the dialogue we speak about ourselves.
This is one way it becomes normalized. We may have a staunch view and opinion of what is happening in the world, but:
a) what are we doing about it?
b) maybe we have strong feelings about what is going on and nothing changes with no action taken.
c) we figure it is just how it is, what can we do about it, we are powerless to make any changes.
d) if we don’t look, it isn’t really happening OR it will resolve itself.
This is what we do to what is happening in the world around us.
Consider what we do to our internal self.
When we are raised and are taught to not feel or what is acceptable to feel, this becomes NORMAL to us.
Many of us come from a generation of people that learned how to survive and they taught us those survival traits.
It is what we know, what we’ve been taught and what we have learned.
Until we are willing to look and do something different, it remains the same and we call it NORMAL.
We’ve been programmed to accept the unacceptable.
We’ve carried our wounds from generation to generation, including our cultural generations.
It is time for us to stop being okay with things that are not okay.
When we begin to make the internal changes for how we treat ourselves, when we begin to heal the generational wounding.
When we heal ourselves we can then make bigger healing ripples in the world.
Now, this is a tall order. I’m suggesting we heal our wounds and the world around us also begins to heal.
It begins in our internal world and the ripple effect carries outward to the world around us in ways we don’t always see.
Here’s one way to begin this process:
Pay attention to what you call normal. When something happens that you dismiss as normal become mindful of what you feel about it.
There is almost always something being ignored inside that is telling you this requires me to be different toward it.
The normal may be numbing out, getting angry, becoming silent, pretending it is not really happening, being judgmental…
When those “normal” reactions show up, get curious about yourself. Pause and feel what is beneath “normal”. It is probably going to feel pretty uncomfortable in the moment, because you are NOT used to feeling what is really going on inside.
Simply feel the feeling and acknowledge the feeling. You don’t have to do anything about the feeling, yet.
Just begin with feeliing it, let that be enough. It takes courage to feel the feelings that have denied for however long they’ve been denied them and called normal.
Let them reveal to you your own feelings about what is real for you.
Begin with that. I’ll write more about where to continue going within yourself and what to do with those feelings.
I am also for hire 1:1, if you feel mentor coaching would help you on your journey.
You can send me a message on my website or Facebook.
PLEASE SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND HELP ME REACH MORE PEOPLE YOU THINK MIGHT BENEFIT FROM THIS.
Leave a Reply