Human being not human doing …by Sandra Butel
Being in nature, Yorkshire, UK by Sandra Butel
I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk.
beautywalk is my heroes journey towards discovering the pure essence of being that is me. With many months of self-reflection and living through some pretty big challenges, I have been able to connect to my deeper wisdom and to the calm and openness and self-love and empathy that resides inside of me.
I wondered what the 2nd blog post would be all about and had quite the time with the negative voices in my head telling me that I did not have a clear enough plan and that this was a sign that I should just quit while I am ahead. I forged on as I have been learning that not all of our wisdom comes from the rational brain and that our body and our spirits have much to teach us as well.
That expression quit while I am ahead strikes me as somewhat prophetic. How many of us quit while we are a head? How often are we cut off from our bodies and our souls as we let the head and its non-stop negative chatter lead us throughout our lives? How often does this negative mindset lead us to where we really, truly want to be? Sometimes our judging, exacting inner voice can make seemingly good things happen, but at what cost to our mental, physical and spiritual health?
In my studies in Executive Coaching at Royal Roads, I came across quite a few concepts related to being stuck in our heads that resonated with me. One of these was the concept of adrenal addiction. I, like many of the people I saw around me, had long been engaged in this unhealthy way of being. In seeing how addicted I was to busyness, to drama, to worry and to seeing myself as the only one who could fix the world’s problems, I came to understand some of what had been driving my choices over most of my adult life.
Letting my head do the driving I came to believe that doing was the guide to a happy life so I dedicated myself to using my right brain to figure out, in every situation, what the best way of doing was. I was being driven by the prehistoric fight or flight brain as it shouted in my ear such alarming stories about the bad things that would happen to me if I didn’t heed its advice.
I recently came across a woman who was scrambling madly from task to task. And yet, no matter how much she accomplished, she still felt hopelessness for all that remained unfinished. She said she would likely go to her grave with a long list of things unfinished. She supposed that the best epitaph for her final resting place would read “She ran out of time”. The punster in me was delighted with this cleverness while my heart felt such a sense of sadness at how caught up in doing she had become (like so many of us in our fast faced paced, adrenal-fueled world).
I could feel the anxiety that was driving her from task to task; as I had long operated from this place of next click, next call, next task; all the time waiting with deep fear for the disaster that would come when others realized how really incapable I was of doing all that I had been tasked to do. That was the ultimate fear for me, the imposter syndrome that others would discover that I had no real clue what I was doing and that this would mean that I was unworthy of love and kindness.
I don’t believe I’m alone in this experience of being guided by the fear that manifests from the primitive brain and losing connection with our deeper wisdom. My hope is that by sharing my story, in all its light and dark parts, and in showing an acceptance for all of the parts of who I am, I can help others lean into their stories and accept their human beingness as a gift and not a secret to be hidden from view. My ulitimate dream is for all of us to find our paths to freedom and self-realization as we connect to the beauty and brilliance of who we really are.
I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk. What’s yours?
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