A Process to Reconnect to Your True Self

The email I receive requests that I write an article on ‘how to start the journey to your true self’. I hear myself thinking “isn’t that just what I have done and sent to them?” OMG and then it begins. I feel my heart start to beat faster and my self-talk starts giving me attitude.“Here you go again; you didn’t get it right, you can’t write” and “I told you so”.

I am emotionally reacting to the words in the email. This is the fuel that reinforces my limiting belief “I cannot write in a way that connects to people”.

I am having a ‘Nancy moment’. A term I coined for these special writing moments of self-doubt, overwhelm and feelings of uselessness. 

Processing from my past is being triggered.

Being aware of the emotional, mental, physiological, energy and physical processing you experience in situations, is an essential starting point on the journey to reconnecting to the true you. You will also require the tools and processes to explore what you are experiencing, why you are experiencing it, where it comes from and how to unravel and heal the processing that is impacting you. This is how to strengthen your connection to the true you.

The process to rediscover your true self is exactly that – a process. A process that involves some of the following layers of phases you will travel through on the path back to you.

UNRAVEL THE CONDITIONED ME

You have developed ingrained patterns of behaviors, approaches, thinking, emotional reactions and even physical processing. These conditioned ways keep you in a place of protection, suppression and feeling in control. They prevent you from being who you truly are. From trusting and accepting yourself fully and expressing your full potential.

Unravelling is the process of untangling and unlearning any process that is within you, that is not true and right for you.

My ‘Nancy moment’ brings to my awareness the fact that I have further conditioning impacting how I express myself in my writing. I am writing in a similar way to how I did in the Registered Training Organisation I had. And yet this is a space and place I am no longer in.

Amazing the power of the conditioning of your past.

Nancy is my book editor. My ‘Nancy moment’ occurred when she helped me to identify the impact on my book, of the years of delivering the IMAD programme. I had to find my new way to write and specifically for a reader. So it required me to consciously unravel my conditioning in how I had previously shared the IMAD process. And I had to let go of how I worded things, some of the words I used and how I expressed myself.

Here we are again. This situation also required me to let go of my conditioned ways of writing, so I could find a new way for me to create and express.

HEAL MY IMPACTED SELF

The next step is to heal the impacts of the conditioning on your processing. This requires you to identify the situation where the patterns of your reactions in the situation, originally come from. Then to connect with this part of you from the past so you can accept and work through the emotions you felt back then.

Echoes of the pain that I felt in the past, travel across time to surface now in my ‘Nancy moment’.

A memory found its way forward from my subconscious mind to my conscious mind. One where I am five years old and learning to write the alphabet at school. I can see and feel the focus, commitment and determination I had to do the best I could. Then suddenly another picture flashes through my mind. A picture of my school reports and the realization that I only achieved a C or C+ in English and writing. No matter how hard I tried it was not good enough. And it hurt, as the five-year-old me felt so unworthy and useless.

I now know she was and is worthy and capable.

This part of me just could not learn the way the system wanted her to learn, and she was judged for that.

I had finally found where my emotional neediness to do things my way had come from. Now it made sense as to why I had rejected systems where I did not fit.

RECONNECT TO THE TRUE ME

As you unravel and heal the parts of you that have had a hold on you, it clears the space for you to remember and feel from the situation, the parts of you that were naturally you. This is where you reconnect to the true you.

In remembering this five-year-old part of me, I reconnected to the determination, the will and focus I naturally have when I learn something. These qualities are part of me, the true me and now I can see that I have successfully expressed them in many situations throughout my life.

This process enabled me to recognise and own that I am an experiential learner. I am a person who needs to understand and experience the process. Then I am able to find my way in how I express myself in the system.

The recognition of my process of learning helps me to see with clarity my experience at University in my mid-twenties.

I attended University to prove to myself that I could learn and operate in the system. Which meant more conditioning in writing, in expressing and how I was to operate. And I discovered that I had to learn the process of the lecturer and learn the content by rote to get through. Only then did I finally got acknowledgement. And the acknowledgement was for doing what they wanted. This resulted in immediate gratification, but not long term sustainable learning.

CONNECT TO THE POTENTIAL IN ME

As you free up your processing and consciously express more of you, you begin to discover and connect to the not yet known parts of the true you. You hear your truth more clearly and you know what is true and right for you.

This is the potential within you, waiting to be expressed by you!!!

In my ‘Nancy moment’, I connected to an unseen part of the true me— I can learn and do anything I want to.

I discovered the difference in the process of writing an article for people who have not been exposed to me, to the process of writing a book. Whilst a book can have intimacy and directness, an article requires building of the relationship, connection, comfort and trust. These are all things I naturally do, now it is about expressing these parts of me in a new format.

GROWTH OF THE TRUE ME

The amazing things I recognised from my processing, is that I have struggled to learn the way the system wanted me to. My way was not their way. I have always loved to find my way of learning and working with the system. This results in me bringing my unique flavour to how things can be done. And it allows my uniqueness to shine through as I am doing what is true and right for me, the true me.

What a beautiful gift this situation gave me. Being encouraged to write the article I did, I was able to share approaches and processes from the I Make a Difference book. As importantly I also unravelled, healed, reconnected and connected to me. The true me. And I did it in my way.