Part I

Month 1: A JOURNEY OF AWARENESS

What Holds Us Back: The Unstable Foundation

Day 2: Understanding the Journey of Awareness 

“If the house is crooked and crumbling, and the land on which it sits uneven, is it possible to make anything lie straight?”

–Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Foreversp. 254

When our foundation is not solid, our house will deteriorate. We can tear down the house over and over, but eventually we will see that no matter what we build, it slowly breaks down and crumbles.  We will continue to try old methods to fix the house, but they will fail. We have to fix the foundation on which the house lies. Unearth the fear, guilt, anger, blame, and shame that is making the Earth be at unrest.

Many of us unknowingly walk around with fear-based belief systems that are constantly sabotaging our lives. Some of these systems go back generations, and we don’t even know why we believe what we do, because we never asked ourselves where the belief came from.  We follow our family’s lead and keep plotting along wondering why our lives are the way they are. I can tell you, that wasn’t good enough for me. I started life in a toxic home. When my parents went their separate ways I started to see changes. They were not as tense, I didn’t get yelled at as much, and things were transitioning in so many ways I didn’t understand. I never stopped questioning. Sometimes to the point I would drive myself crazy trying to overanalyze every detail. My mom started to develop into a person, I didn’t recognize. Her changes were positive, but as a child I didn’t see it that way. It took me a long time to see the true meaning and power of her changes. She stopped letting fear-based thinking run her life. As a teenager, I tried to follow her lead. I would take on these huge concepts that I had no way of understanding and get frustrated when I couldn’t get them to apply to my life. I just couldn’t get that I was trying to tear down and re-build my house on that same unstable ground. I had to go deeper than books and therapy were taking me. I got hit with some pretty severe life lessons before I really even began to uncover the truth I was avoiding. I had to go into me. I needed to face the parts of me I kept buried in the mucky soil that polluted my foundation. Going into the mud was the only way to fix it.

We will start in the place that will create the most obvious shifts in our life. If we are brave enough to sift through the crap, we will start creating a foundation worth building on. This process takes time. There are a multitude of layers and just when we think we have it figured out, BANG! New life lesson emerge to make us find more rocks hidden in the underbelly.

Unhealed hurts from our past have a way of creeping into our present and wreaking havoc on our realities. Some lie just under that top ground layer and all’s it takes to come up is a little shuffle of the feet on top of it. The dust then spreads throughout our house and waits for more dirt to finds it’s way in.

The darkest places in our mind hold the key to why we are keeping ourselves in unhealthy patterns. The relationships we attract in our lives tell us all we need to know about what is going on inside. We need to be open to listen, absorb, and hear the truth. If we are contributing to the energy of fear, shame, blame, judgment, and hate we are keeping ourselves from the love we all want and crave.

In part one of this journey we will face what creates the unstable ground. Together we will find our way through the muck. Don’t be surprised if you all the sudden start deep cleaning your house in the process. Doing something physical is a great way to keep your momentum going. I find that dealing with the physical clutter helps me be more open to working through my internal chaos.  I also have become aware that anytime I loose control of my external clutter it is because something inside me is in need of work.

Get personal with these letters! If thoughts, feelings, words, and/or memories come up, look at them, write them down, feel them out. Don’t run away or overlook them. They popped up because they have something to tell you. If you start getting defensive, question it. Is it really about what I’m saying, or is it about a belief system you have that is getting in your way? If I’m triggered by what someone says, I need to look at why. Usually it has nothing to do with the person in front of me. Most commonly, I’m reacting to a defense mechanism that I have used to keep me safe, but is not serving me anymore. Some of these are hard to let go and I will fight to keep them. Watch how hard you fight to protect your story.

If you feel the need to lash out, do it on paper. Don’t start spreading the poison. Trust me, if you write it out, then wait a couple of days, re-look at it, and come to it from a place of wanting to find out why the anger, fear, or hurt came up, you WILL find your way so much faster. Deepak Chopra says, “What I believe makes me who I am.” Let’s start cleaning up our beliefs so we enjoy life the way we deserve.

Let the journey begin.

With Love and Gratitude,

Rachael Wolff ©2019

Companion Letter: 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 2 – A Message to the Mind