Most of the time I’ll be recording these podcast episodes from the tub. Recently, I’ve been enjoying a guided sacral chakra meditation. There always seems to be some piece of insight or wisdom that my womb leaves me with. The womb is the power centre for creation, creativity and feeling safe. The guided mediation offers this affirmation: I am a creative fluid being with unlimited power to create what I want. The meditation asks what is my womb calling me to let go of, and also what messages is my womb sending me. I started this audio recording more for my personal record, so I wouldn’t forget. And it turned into a power, and emotional recording of what I’ve been personally journeying through lately. It’s a raw and real audio. I wasn’t able to keep the tears back. Life gets tough sometimes. I hope this resonates with you. If you have any reflections, please leave a comment. All my love, Amanda.
[episode start]
I am a creative, fluid being with unlimited power to create what I want.
Right now my security comes from being with my family. My family is both Jonathan and my son Forrest, and also my chosen family this week. Being with my family included Madison, and Adell, and Adell son Augustine, and her partner Matteo.
What my womb is calling me to let go of is loyalty, promises, commitments, following through with my word.
The messages that my womb is sending me is she is asking me to commit to myself first and it's scary and terrifying; unknown, uncomfortable.
And today, I may made a decision to go back on my word to change my mind. I said that I was going to do something and I didn't want to do it. And so I didn't. And I felt like I let people down. I felt like it was my legal obligation to follow through with my word, because of a tense dynamic with my current employer of giving notice and refusing to cooperate with their demands of working location. And I said that I was going to be somewhere today, and I wasn't there. And that allowed me to say yes to myself. That allowed me to put my family first; to put myself first. It allowed me to do things that fill me up, that bring me excitement, that fill my heart; and in a discussion last night with my husband, he was surprised and bewildered that I was having such a difficult time saying no to what I didn't want to do, and such a hard time saying yes to what I did want to do. And in the realm of giving my word committing promising, even playdates with friends, I feel like the needed caveat for me to apply would be “yes, let's make these plans as life allows”. Leaving a caveat, leaving a an area that I feel like gives me permission to change my mind, to change plans, to renege a commitment, to go back on what I said, to not stay true to my word. I feel like that's being dishonourable and untrustworthy.
But at the same time, the consideration that I've never held space for is on the opposite hand. If I am upholding these contracts and commitments and obligations to others, due to my people pleasing nature, but I am not aligned with that decision (I don't enjoy that decision; I don't want to do the thing that I committed to) then, in fact, what I am saying to myself is that I am not putting myself first. I am not loyal to myself. I am not honouring myself. I am not committing to myself.
Which is so sad. It's a loss for people with a people pleasing nature to continue that self sabotaging relationship of, oh god, honestly, the death mother archetype. You know, whether it was a parent figure, a teacher, Guardian, authority figure, who, who [you] never matched up to [their expectations] and [you were] never enough for [them]; never good enough, never skilled enough, never talented enough; always feeling like you have to prove yourself; that no spotlight is large enough in order to fill that cup of being enough; feeling worthy of.
The death mother archetype is seen in our society and our culture as the death of the feminine and the honouring of the masculine. The death mother archetype says there are infinite resources on this earth; continue to abuse Mother Earth, continue to take all of her resources; continue to hoard; continue to take more than what you need to fulfill your immediate needs; sell more, demand more; the supply and demand of capitalism. Heck, capitalism itself is the embodiment of this death mother archetype. And, you know the root of that is when a mother is in a situation where her external resources are not enough for her baby in order to survive. She makes the decision to end the child's life and that is a tough, tough, tough decision. I, thankfully, have never been in that position. But as a mother, I could only imagine how soul tearing that must be and in [our] culture, it is this cold shoulder of ‘there are not enough resources’. There's not enough finance to ever be enough, to ever be worthy. There is nothing as an individual that you can do as a helpless newborn baby to change your circumstances. And mom chooses: No, you are not worthy of life. You're not enough.
I've been working with honouring that feminine, that Divine Mother, Great Mother, Mother Earth for the last several years and I don't think I quite understood the strain of the glorification of the masculine our patriarchy system in quite the same light as looking at the death mother. And when you face the death mother and you start to acknowledge that those stories are not true in your life anymore. Perhaps the death mother served you at a time for your growth for your development as a person. But when she is no longer serving you and when she has outworn her welcome, what do we do? How do we move forward?
For me, I completely see that it is committing to myself first. ‘What do I want to do’ fills up my spirit. What is the quiet whisper the cool breeze, what is the rest? [I need to identify] ‘What is the place of sanctuary in my life’ and choose to say no to things that I even feel legally bound to and knowing how to advocate for myself and knowing how to look up those legal details of what ‘what really am I entitled to as an employee’, what can I refuse, what is my legal rate as an employee? It's so difficult to have to advocate for myself this way, and potentially burning bridges and flaming fanning the flames on an otherwise good relationship with my boss previously. And committing to myself, committing to my family feels… yeah, just, when I am faced with that point of needing to make a decision, [making sure] I am not filled with remorse, [or] perhaps filled with grief, just feeling bad, feeling terrible that I have to be disloyal and not honour my word to other people. But again, just shining the light on the fact that if I were to keep those commitments that are not life giving to me that decision dishonours myself. That decision says that I am not committing to myself first. That decision says that I am putting others that I don't like, that are harmful to my aura, to my chemistry, to my energy - I am putting those harmful people above honouring myself, above being loyal to myself. I'm still not sure what that means or what that looks like in every situation but for anyone who aligns with that or recognizes that struggle in their own life, you know, I hope those words put shine a light on the situation; shine a light on your heart, on your own self worth as it has been for me; that difficult light to look at, to face and and finally to honour. Wherever you are as you're listening to this, I wish you all the best. I'm sending you my love. Bye.
025 | Advocating for Myself