The Role of Observer

Making sense of myself

I have been trying to make sense of myself and my behaviors from some time now. Like I am my observer or a secret lover who craves to know myself more and more. It has been a messy yet beautiful journey to be living like this. I have been able to identify a lot of behavioral patterns in myself. All those patterns are proof of my inner strength and resilience in some ways. I am very curious about the cause of those patterns and how they have shaped my psychology. Some behavioral patterns are the coping mechanisms which I have developed to survive in an environment. The environment has changed but anything which reminds me of that environment makes my coping mechanisms come back as my second nature. Sometimes I am able to find the root cause of my coping mechanism and sometimes I just know the pattern. I am too eager to break those patterns and I also know it’s gonna take time. For years, my brain has been following a certain path in a situation and rewiring my brain to follow a different path in a situation which feels similar is a task. Maybe it’s like teaching something to your child in the childhood and now teaching something different as what you taught before is not relevant anymore.

For example, I get very anxious when I feel or sense that my actions, choices or words have disappointed anyone. To save myself from this anxiety, I have been living a life denying my needs, suppressing my feelings and betraying my inner child. Living this way, I have a lot of resentment build against myself and my inner child doesn’t trust me. So now when I am put in a situation where it seems like there is a need to betray myself for some reason, I am practicing standing up gracefully for myself. This still causes anxiety and sometimes when I standup for myself it can sound like I am in a war against the world. But I am actually in a war with my older version and the version I wanna become in this life. So, I am learning to be ok with this anxiety. My words to my inner child in that moment is “I am proud of you standing up for yourself and not betraying your needs. I love you, I am here for you, we got this and whatever you are feeling now will pass.”

Another example, I am an elder child of my parents. Around my family, I have a tendency to take things on my shoulders. Like I am responsible to fix everything in the house or in the family. Because of this behavior of mine, I struggle to ask for help, or drain all my energy in fixing things when I need rest. Whenever I am in a crisis, usually in a mental one, I struggle to admit that I am struggling and need help. I am working on this at the moment. I am learning to understand that asking for help is good. It’s not a sign of being weak. You can’t be strong all the time. Taking help is a beautiful experience for both giving and receiving parties when received gracefully. One night, I was watching a movie with my dad till late. I said I am feeling hungry, and he asked, what do you need, I will get that for you from the kitchen. I said pistachios. He got the box of pistachios from the kitchen and started giving me one by one after removing the shells. This beautiful moment stuck with me.

These are just two very simple examples of things I have identified in my behavior, and I am working on it. There are some really messy and painful ones too. We all have some patterns which we adopted in our childhood or any other phase of our life which doesn’t serve us now. It’s very courageous to even identify those patterns and start your healing journey. You can even discuss those patterns in your therapy sessions or with someone with whom talking feels like therapy. You can even ask Universe or God for the courage and wisdom to break those patterns. I hope you are having a good time this new year.

Lots of love and healing to you,

Harneek!!