Often when we care about people, desire deeper connection, or are fearful of losing connection, we might have the impulse to hyper-externalize our attention on the other to anticipate how we can best safeguard the relationship from annihilation.
This hyper-externalization comes from a place of vulnerability and desire to create greater connection, safety, and intimacy with ourselves and those that we love and care for.
Hyper-externalization can morph into an unconscious pattern of shifting our vibration to match those around us that we most long to receive connection, presence, love, and support from.
I’m sure you have heard phrases like “Don’t dim your light.” or “Don’t play small to make others more comfortable.”
In actuality, whenever we negate our internal boundaries and truths and shift our vibrational resonance to be more in synergy with someone else, we inhibit the flow of energy and our ability to receive the presence, connection, love, and nourishment that’s available to us in this now.
By fully embracing ourselves exactly where we are without needing to fix, change, or shift our experience in any way, we create an ideal environment for receiving and opening to greater depths of nourishment and connection.
As we practice and devote ourselves to staying anchored into the ground of our innermost truth and self, our awareness will become a vibrational match and resonance for others that are operating on their own frequency of sovereignty and wholeness and can meet and play with us from greater depths of connection and intimacy.
As we lean into this growing edge of trusting ourselves to meet ourselves, it can be a challenge to trust that we will be met and not find ourselves alone or abandoned as we walk the chosen path of greater soul realization.
As I’ve committed to this practice of meeting myself, I’ve noticed how I subvert my own truth in the hopes of insulating myself from my fear of fundamental aloneness.
I have utilized a lot of my energy and internal resources to make it easier for others to connect with me and “meet me.”
I have personally gone through phases of dimming my own light, withholding truths, not asserting clear boundaries, and negating my own self-care in the hopes of retaining love, acceptance, and security.
Watching how I shift my resonance to synchronize with others has been a very powerful practice. There’s a way in which when I feel uncomfortable; it’s much easier for me to seek connection, reassurance, love, and validation outside of myself.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this. Simultaneously, when I consistently seek outside myself, I forget that I actually can meet and care for myself in the exact ways I most need in the moment.
Rather than orienting towards things that distract me from being present with my experience, I’ve learned to redirect my awareness towards practices and tools that give me the contact and reassurance that I need and, often, the most vulnerable part of me needs.
Some ways that we can begin to track our experience of subverting our needs and truths for others are:
Consistently noticing what we do when we experience a certain degree of discomfort, fear, or pain and where and what our energy moves towards first.
Inviting ourselves to become aware of the specific responses and reactions we have when confronted with something that makes us feel unsafe or pushes us beyond the edge of our comfort zone.
Noticing how we orient around conflict and if we are conflict avoidant or feel safe leaning into conflict.
Becoming aware of our defense mechanisms and how safe we feel articulating our truths, needs, and boundaries to others.
Being in observation of our relationship to self-care and the things that support us in staying in alignment with our innermost self and truth.
