Healing together is powerful.

To clear the belief I wrote about below, I am doing 30 days of leading with what I believe, saying what I think and taking my own side.

If you would like to clear your own pattern of feeling less or unworthy along with me, contact me privately at @phoenixcentrelune on Instagram or by email at alana.bencivengo@gmail.com. I’ll share the activities I am doing each day and stories to inspire you.

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Oh dear, I see what I did.

Are you someone who pleases others? Puts others first? A giver? “Selfless”?

I thought I was those, way back. I just didn’t realize that I was doing it because I was insecure, hurt and fearful. It was the strategy I had learned to survive, considering that keeping a community was part of surviving. The only way to get love was to fawn and treat myself as less.

When I started learning how to let go of what I thought was me, which was just a collection of habits, preferences, painful and happy experiences, etc. I found myself with nothing left. It wasn’t true, there was a lot there, but it was buried and unsure if it was safe to emerge.

It took months for it to emerge. It is still emerging. The loss of self has never felt scary, painful or unwanted. It was quick and the emerging had been slow with plenty of time to adapt.

Recently, parts of narrative-me that I thought I had shed have resurfaced. I’ve been…not frustrated…but divide what you would imagine as a typical level of frustration by 5,000 and that would be closer. I’ve been watching myself and the origin of what I was perceiving was not becoming clear. Despite being a spiritual being with fairly advanced knowledge and experience, people were still talking down to me.

In order to change anything in the outside world, whether it be how people treat you to how successful you are, it is a simple process. It always requires an inside change. Some thorn, some belief you have about yourself or some self-preserving motivation is manifesting in the people around you and how they perceive you. It is guiding your actions, general behavior and even the way you speak.

My thorn, was some moment when I developed an inner critic. Some belief that I had to scrutinize myself so that I could be liked. I had to change to be accepted. I was not good enough. I was not worthy. As a result, I wasn’t leading with what I believed, but sheepishly repeating it when it was relevant or avoiding sharing it at all.

I had worked so hard at this. I had made huge progress and felt like I liked myself. But, the manifestation indicating that I hadn’t successfully released it had come around yet again: people talked to me like I didn’t know anything near what I do, and it was still so hard to say what I thought without extreme fear.

What was I doing?

A memory flashed into my mind. I was at a college party. One of the guys wanted to “make out with me” my ‘friends’ had told me. I didn’t understand this concept. Why wouldn’t he just want to talk to me? I also didn’t understand the fun in drinking, but after deciding that maybe something was wrong with me for being opposed to it, I gave it a chance.

My friends pushed me towards Marc and stepped back. Less inhibited at this point and this being the third party they had told me this at, I agreed to what was clearly happening. Was I supposed to be interested in this? We kissed. All my friends were laughing. I could see them but froze in confusion.

At breakfast the next day, Marc approached the table. From his perspective, he had made progress towards getting to know me. From mine, I had done something horrible and strange. I hadn’t wanted to and hadn’t respected what I wanted. I hung my head as he talked to my friends briefly, then left. Tears welled. No one noticed.

Marc was discouraged and avoided me awkwardly until senior year. For all that time, I criticized my own behavior. Why didn’t I just look up? I could have just said hello and everything would have been different.

As I ran down the highway-turning-fall through Glennallen, I saw clearly as the memory ended. I had made excuses for everyone, I had been kind and justified their behavior and then had chastised myself and loaded the full blame on my shoulders. Not an ounce of kindness, forgiveness or understanding for myself. I didn’t acknowledge how others had been unkind to me.

I felt so sad. Then, I saw, that I had never learned to love the self I was trying to shed. This version, that had done the best she could. I had never stood up for her. I had never accepted her. I had resisted her.

Think about the energy of emotions in your own body. If you push feelings down, resist them, or ignore them, they stay. If you let them be free, give them permission to be with you and accept them, they can move on and so can you.

If you’re looking to become who you truly are and shed your narrative self, I ask you, have you accepted who you’ve been? Have you appreciated and loved yourself because they brought you to where you are now? Have you shown yourself compassion first?

If not, please do. Afterall, growing spiritually is all about you. Where will you get if you criticize, hide and shame any part of you? It will stick around, still looking for the validation and love that it needs. Only after you love it can you let it go. Or not. It’s your reality! Believe what works for you 🙂

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To clear this belief, I am doing 30 days of leading with what I believe, saying what I think and taking my own side.

If you would like to clear your own pattern of feeling less or unworthy along with me, contact me privately at @phoenixcentrelune on Instagram or by email at alana.bencivengo@gmail.com. I’ll share the activities I am doing each day and stories to inspire you.

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I share my experiences hoping others will learn, find comfort, feel inspired or just know they are not alone. If this has helped you or can help someone you know, please share, and like or comment so it can reach more people. 🙏🏽 Sending high vibes for your own journey.