The stories we carry - and all the things they can inform

I have always been afraid of getting lost.

It’s not hard to see where it comes from. An incident as a child involving…

A muddy field, an unexpected horse, an abandoned bike, leaping the wrong gate, a frightened scramble through hedges / muddy ditches / endless fields, and a fortuitous stumble into a traveller camp. Followed by the goodwill of a kindly stranger, and my mother - finally - telling the police I’d been found.

It sounds like something from Enid Blyton and was clearly a BIG deal at the time. But like many childhood tales it became just that - a tale I told. What I didn’t realise, for many years, was how much it had affected me.

Yet, for most of my young and adult life I hated going anywhere unless either I, or the people I was with, knew with absolute certainty, how to get back again.

Climbing Spanish hills, walking in the Lake District, snowy scrambles in the foothills of the Alps. I’d still go but if it seemed the other person didn’t know the way - and more importantly - didn’t seem that bothered about being lost, I’d begin to feel unsafe. I’d become anxious, irritable, upset. All to varying degrees, depending on who I was with and how far I felt from safety.

It culminated in a rather spectacular panic attack on a muddy hillside in Wales.

Curiously, what didn’t occur to me, for many years, was to learn how to find my own way. To learn how to be responsible for my own way finding… my own sense of safety.

It was only in my late 40's that my growing desire for inner and outer freedom, led me to download a map app and start going on walks alone in beautiful places. Eventually learning to trust I would get my Self home.

So.

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A few days ago, at the tail end of a solo retreat where I’d been walking a stretch of the South Coast path, I was lying in the sand dunes - claiming a last hour before heading home - when the following words landed within me.

I will find my way.

Whoompf.

It felt HUGE.

But I couldn’t see why it felt so BIG. I mean, I’m pretty good at finding my way, these days.

Then I realised I had been feeling a little lost about a significant piece of work I was creating, having felt absolutely clear.

It’s normal, of course, to feel doubt in the face of what previously felt like certainty. And something that can define our very humanness is how different parts of us can hold apparently paradoxical thoughts, simultaneously.

And, of course, we have all felt lost at times. Uncertain about how to approach something - or if what we’re doing / creating is really the best next step.

But sometimes of course, these kinds of experiences run deeper.

And slowly, the realisation dawned that the experience of being lost as a seven-year old in the English Fens, may have influenced me throughout my life in more ways than I’d previously imagined. Its tendrils shaping, informing (some of) my ways of being and relating to the world.

The fear of being physically lost - that’s an easy one to correlate.

But there’s an existential aspect to fearing lostness that can affect how we show up in the world.

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Lying in those dunes, I recognised:

• I had held an unconscious belief throughout my old corporate career that I was best suited to being the right-hand person. I aligned myself with brilliant leaders, because I trusted they would know the way.
• For a long time, when in doubt, I would find myself listening more deeply to other’s voices; powerful others - family, husband, friends - than trust my own still quiet voice to show me which steps to take.
• I used to keep seeking business partnerships and collaborations with people - despite almost instantly regretting it - because I wasn’t sure I could move forward alone.

There’s a theme.

And the most astonishing thing is, I hadn’t spotted it until now.

And I know about this stuff.

The irony being I also know I used to present as a very confident woman and this inner sense of uncertainty - this fear of being lost - feels at odds with what I suspect others would have perceived.

My experience in those sand dunes shows me - again - how deep these old tales can travel within us.

The exploration of the stories and patterns that entwine us, this is the work I do with others; helping them see how to disentangle what binds them. Helping them see what swims beneath the surface - and how to release themselves from stories and strategies that may no longer serve them.

As we do the deep inner Work (with a capital W), the changes we make, and our gentle unlayering, all support our conscious and unconscious disentangling. Enabling us to become free enough of our stories that we can finally fully see them.

So we don’t simply do the Work to see the stories. The Work helps us see the stories - and then we can choose how we wish to move forward.

And no matter how much Work we have attended to, there is always something new to see, something fresh to understand. It’s part of what makes this process of deepening our self-awareness with profound self-compassion so endlessly fascinating.

The recurring lesson from all this, of course, is that this process of revelation continues throughout our lives.

Those words from the dunes…

They feel incredibly powerful to me. Resonating within. Helping that little girl inside me finally truly understand that we will always find our way.

With love

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the stories we carry. Maybe you have your own reflection of waking up one day and saying: Oh! That! That’s what’s been going on…

If you're curious about exploring your own inner Work - you may wish to join me on one of the upcoming Deeper Flow small group coaching courses.

Each course runs for 4 or 5-weeks, live on-line. Using group coaching and journaling, we working in a small group to gently explore the themes of the course, always grounded in self-compassion.

See what's coming up and book your space here.