I’ve always been a quitter. Not in a good way, like ‘I’m quitting unhealthy habits!’, but a slightly petulant ‘this is too hard – I’m bailing out’ sort of way. Which is not exactly conducive to personal growth, obviously. In a recent energy healing session I had a major breakthrough about what’s underlying my tendency to walk out when things get tough… and healing that issue has been a total game-changer.
When I was in my first year at university studying journalism, my insecurities and fears became such a heavy load that I dropped out. There were a combination of reasons for this. I felt inadequate and out-classed (pun intended) by my more worldly and confident peers. I missed the security of my school-friend network, who were studying in different cities. I had been relying on university life to give me a sense of identity and direction that it wasn’t equipped to provide, and the ambiguity and capriciousness of the real world felt too much for me to bear. My tutors weren’t keen to let me drop out entirely, so I took a leave of absence which meant I could return within a year without losing my academic record. I said goodbye to my classmates and breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of retreating into my shell. My patently undercooked plan was as follows: I would move back to my hometown and work fulltime at the insurance office where I’d worked the previous summer as a typist and administration assistant. Unfortunately, they refused to hire me as a permanent staffer, because they knew I would eventually get bored and leave. (This was a fair assessment on their part.) Over that summer I was forced to concede that a lack of direction was more frightening than potentially going in the wrong direction (which at least offered me some structure and sense of purpose), so I returned to Auckland and re-enrolled in uni with my tail between my legs. It was never spoken of again.
(Image: Alexandra Gorn via Unsplash)
It was never that the study program was not right for me (which is what I’d been telling people), but that being in a new, unstable environment became too frightening for me, and when provoked, my base instinct was to run back to safety. Quitting did not feel like a failure, it felt like the most delicious security blanket of all time.
Fast-forward to 2019. Recently I told my spiritual coach that I was thinking of quitting the self-employment game. To be viable, One Grounded Angel needs a steady stream of clients for income (although popular, my social media posts and videos are, of course, unpaid) – and in recent months there had been a drop off in clientele. At the same time, my other work (journalism and copywriting) had also been alarmingly slow. Exhausted by the struggle to keep my head above water for a long period, quitting and looking for a safe-but-dull full-time job had never been a more appealing prospect. My energy healer knew I didn’t really want to give up on something that aligns so beautifully with my life purpose, but she also knew coming at me with such logic wasn’t going to resolve the underlying problem. We dug deeper into my history of quitting when things get tough – a go-to protection mechanism that helps me feel safe.
Here’s the thing you learn when you embark on a healing journey: everything everything everything comes back to your childhood. I did not have a volatile childhood. We were not rich but not poor. We experienced no natural disasters, wars nor crimes. I did not go through bereavement or parental divorce. But, like literally everyone I’ve ever met, my parents did not know how to deal with their own emotional baggage, so that unhealed wounding was passed down the line, becoming part of my emotional make-up. I’ve already written about how emotions were treated with hostility in our household (read that post here) and there was also a similar pattern of not being heard when I asked for what I needed (emotionally and practically) at critical junctures. I remember being told that I was loved on a regular basis, but – as we know from Massive Attack in the ‘90s – love is a doing word. As a child you notice what people do more than what they say. When you don’t get your needs met, that tells you something about your value (or lack thereof), and that limiting belief will carry through to adulthood, where you will likely look for your value in places it cannot be found (eg relationships, friendships or jobs).
(Image: Caroline Hernandez via Unsplash)
I want to make it clear that I am not blaming my parents for anything in my background – I can see how their own upbringings governed their choices. Healing work is not about blame and shame, it’s about understanding how unhealed wounds manifest. As therapist and educator Stephi Wagner writes: ‘Pain travels in families until someone is ready to feel it.’ In my family, that someone is me.
Here’s how that childhood wound has been showing up in adulthood. I’ve been depending on my clients to make me feel like I matter… which was never their job. I’ve done this in other areas of my life, too (namely: friendships). The energy that sends out to clients is one of neediness – somewhat off-putting, to say the least. When you look for a healer, on some level you are looking for someone who you feel can hold you energetically as you navigate emotional terrain – not someone who feels like they want something from you. I’ve never asked anyone to validate me nor to make me feel like I matter, but on an unconscious level, I now realise, that’s exactly what I was looking for. When that call went unanswered, the ensuing instability drove me to reach for a familiar safety mechanism (quitting). Now that I’ve identified what was going on and healed it, the energy around me has shifted, and there’s been a noticeable lift in the flow of work in my direction.
(Image: Tyler Nix via Unsplash)
The reason I’m sharing this is because it’s such a great example of how fear-based behaviour is often driven by underlying beliefs borne of past pain. You usually have to dig deep to find it – *not* a fun process – but when you’ve pulled out a plant by the root you know it can’t grow back. Conversely, if you deal only with what’s on the surface, it’ll grow back. This is the sort of deep-dive work I do with my own energy-healing clients. Recognising your problem is part of a larger pattern, and identifying its underlying causes, is the first step. Healing it is the next. And over time, that is how you rewrite the script for your life.
*If this article has been triggering for you, please reach out to a therapist or talk to me about energy healing.