Familiarity is actions, environments, vibes, or conversations regularly or constantly experienced. They become second nature and sometimes seem to be our nature. They are learnt thoughts, behaviours, responses, and expectations, and they become one’s normal. They run on auto-pilot without much questioning or analysis.
This works perfectly well until we choose or are in a different situation. A change in career, a holiday/location, a different group of people, or routine. This is where we have the opportunity to see, feel, and explore our auto-pilot thinking, actions, and reactions. It is when we are more likely to be challenged, feel uncomfortable, out of sorts, insecure, or any other range of self-feelings. It is the dis-chord or association between the comfortable known and new information received through our five senses.
Recently, I became very aware of my need for familiarity and how it created a sense of control and safety. The safest thing for my mind and anxiety was to move back into my car out of a flat/share arrangement. I won’t go into details, but a perfect storm of unfamiliar situations in 3 of my life segments become very unsettled. I felt I was losing grip on reality.
- I felt threatened by a potential life-changing health diagnosis,
- An uncomfortable living arrangement that touched on memories of assault.
- Financial stress and insecurity
- While supporting my parents through another deep in their health and challenges.
My nerves were shot. I went into a trauma shock and started down the rabbit hole of major fear and anxiety. I don’t judge this, as I was previously pretending to myself and others that things were ok. I was coping, but only just. I ignored the early warning signs because I am meant to be strong, resilient, and able to do anything kind of gal. I always had to, and this stoic nature on the verge of self-harm was my familiar norm.
Yet, to calm my nervous system and regain control of my situation, the only option I felt I had was to move back into my car. Why? I felt I had more power, and the challenges faced in the car were more controllable than pre-empting others’ actions. The routines were more uncomplicated and with fewer distractions, and I had real problems to solve, not those in my head. Focusing my attention on these things gave my mind and nerves to channel into purposeful outcomes and not imaginations or fears. I took back control.
I had space to
- live within my financial means and remove the financial stresses.
- Choose where I was going to put my head each night, and how I was going to maintain my wellbeing.
- I had flexibility and did not live in a routine that felt restrictive or predictive.
- My mind thrives on problem-solving, so I needed to focus on something other than fear and threats to get myself out of my space.
Now, I am not saying others should choose this lifestyle unless they choose to, and I will share ideas, tips, and stories with them if it will help. I share the concept that when we are emotionally/neurology stretched, we will seek out what brings us peace, comfort, and familiarity.
They may not be healthy choices.
Often, the familiar traits have been buried for a long time to conform and be more accepted by society, our dream jobs, people, and acquired families.
- We bend and blend to be accepted,
- people please, to keep the peace.
- We lose, chip off, hide, and pretend parts of ourselves to fit in.
- We ignore or hide our past so we are not judged, ignored, or ostracised by the groups we seek acceptance from.
- We pretend to be someone or something we may not want to be.
- The masks we wear to keep people from seeing, feeling, and getting to know our truths – our love, but also the various layers of fear, hurts, pains, judgements, and hopes that are also hiding behind the masks.
But after time, it becomes harder to keep up appearances. Cracks start to show, and great inner unrest sets in. The mask becomes heavier, weighing more with each new reason to put it on. Cracks start to show as it becomes harder to keep it all together with age and losses that come with living. Internal stress increases as our Soul wants to be free from the burden of the masks and release the hurts, pains, misunderstandings, judgements, etc., so it can be free to shine and flow freely.
As we observe, our deeper longings come to the surface, and the call becomes “ME TOOO.” I want to be loved, cared for, to feel safe, and to be part of something of deep meaning and connection.” After all, humans thrive in safe, loving, connected, respectful, and nurturing spaces. Yet, not many really experience it firsthand.
Our Soul and generational knowing remember, but our conscious mind doesn’t. The deep call goes out, as the hurt, fractured, lost parts want to be integrated, healed, and put to peace into wholeness so the adult self can be free to be who we choose to be without fear of rejection, judgement, abandonment, and harm. We seek peace.
Yet, to achieve this, we are the ones who move through the layers, cleaning away the muck, grit, and grime that we allow to stay in our being because we think what is happening is appropriate. We take others’ fears, judgements, expectations, and norms when they project them onto us, or we observe others’ normal familiarity and think it is okay the right thing to do, or ways to live. In our younger years, our goal was to stay physically safe, and so accepting what was given became the safest and easiest thing to do, even if it wasn’t the healthiest. In our ignorance and naivety, we did what we were told to do.
But, to come back to ourselves, we are the ones to clean the mess out of our inner rooms. They are our sacred spaces and places in our nervous system, storing memories and ensuring safety, even if they are unhealthy.
We are the ones who must take responsibility for removing the debris, the blocks, and the blackness and opening the way for our souls to shine through.
It is our duty to self-care and love, one of the most complex yet powerful ways to soften the muck and let it slip off like mud being washed away in the shower. Seeing ourselves in others and with compassionate self-talk as we talk with them, encouraging others to be kind and gentle, and encouraging them to be true to themselves, we are to say the same to ourselves. We tap into our Soul, the space of unconditional love, and we are gentle and kind to ourselves.
Life is a journey, and one I hope becomes easier with time as we unlearn the unhealthy thoughts, expectations, and stories that keep us trapped in the prison we create for ourselves earlier in life. In their place, we learn our Life Song, the one that guides our being and living from our core to be the person we are destined to be, and in response to this song, Create Your Life on Your Terms—one of your design; your birthprint given at your conception in this life.
