I’ve been noticing a feeling of irritation, and a desire to, in what feels like a “either you do as I say, or we can’t continue being friends”-kind of way, tell people what I want them to do. When I home in on the irritation, I notice the presence of my internalized regulator. Two opposing parts. And me, the observer.
My regulator part is telling me: “You can’t tell people what to do. That’s controlling, it reeks wounded feminine, no man will ever want to get close to that”. I would be the entitled and demanding partner. People would look to my man and wonder why he’s putting up with such a hag. Clearly, he deserves better.
So, she’s quite strongly present and I want to hear her out, but my current priority is the irritation.
I know she showed up in response to me thinking about the Magical Question Box, the latest fad on Instagram: giving value/being of service, and my need to establish financial security.
I’ve visualized stepping in front of the irritation in order to better be able to connect. Six or seven years old, standing in front of me… She looks at me with eyes filled with hurt. I can tell she’s been bulldozed, made to do things against her will. She’s asking me to justify why we have to focus on what THEY want, why we have to provide what will benefit THEM… Why do we have to be of service, like a slave trying to please its master.
At this point, I recognize the feeling flavor. It’s similar to when I tried to be seen and valued by my parents. I used to try to anticipate their needs, always. I never managed to reach them, which made me feel anger and despair. My parents would acknowledge my gestures once in a blue moon, but they never really saw me, and they never wanted to be present with me for the sake of enjoying who I was.
The part of me who’s feeling irritated, she’s upset with my focus on “being of service”. It doesn’t make her feel valuable. It perpetuates the dynamic she was in as a child, and it sucks.
Instinctually, I start to look at what needs to be tweaked in my physical reality to give her the feeling of being valued. Straight to solutions. That’s not what she needs, so I pull myself back into the present moment to be with how she feels.
She’s wants to be seen, recognized, and valued. As an adult, I thought “if I can finally do the right thing, it will make me feel seen, recognized, and valued”, thus I tried to figure out what that “right” thing was. In my business it has looked like: listening to the experts, following the manifestation steps, shown up from a positive energy, I have been focusing on what I can give that would make you want my services (aka me).
If I untangle the child’s need to feel valued from my business endeavors, I’m left with a purer desire to be of help. I still need to pay the rent though, which leaves the question “how do I make that happen?”.
Quickly fear starts to rise. It shifts into desperate panic. How am I supposed to sustain myself? I can’t seem to crack the code of how to make money, what am I supposed to do?
My instinctual reaction to relieve the pressure is to go back into solution-oriented focus. I pause and ask myself if I can let the feeling be part of my life. What if the pressure is not something to get rid of, but to utilize? Or simply to notice and let be? It’s not a pressure free task I’ve committed to – doing business while staying true to myself.
Gunhild Archer, counselor 