My mom said something to me this morning that was so revealing and it struck deep.
A flippant remark, yet, telling.
Telling of humanity perhaps or our maturity as a collective perhaps – I’m still not sure.
She was talking about my cat actually.
We’ve just recently been letting my indoor/outdoor cat outside in the evenings, and calling her back in the house before bed. Still establishing rituals and routines, life requires patience – but we don’t always feel very patient. Our internal stuff impacts how we respond to external stuff. We take things – even little things sometimes – personally. Such is life in a human body.
She was trying to call the cat in and there was no sign of Pele. She tried the front door, the back door. She ran out of patience. Maybe she took it personally. I’m not sure.
This morning she says something along the lines of “if you don’t learn to come in, you’ll be seeing a lot more of the inside of the house instead of the outside”.
Internally I giggle.
To make such a statement, threatening to take away a cat’s fun.
In my mind, I think “good luck with that!”. Once you let the cat out of the bag, there’s no putting her back (lol pun totally intended).
Then in the next beat, I felt something visceral deep down in my bones stir.
The resonance of being punished as a child for just being myself.
Why do we think punishment will work?
With children, or with any other creature?
We train our children to behave in according to family norms, societal norms, and the greater cultural context, largely using punishment as a “motivation”.
If you’ve ever tried to convince a cat to do something it doesn’t want to do, you will quickly learn that punishment is the least effective method at getting results and will only make things worse, creating distrust and patterns of avoidance.
What makes us think it will work with kids?
The reason I’m writing this isn’t to pinpoint the problems in our culture so much as it is to shed light on perhaps a better way to achieve the results in our life we desire.
You see, the interesting thing is that we learn as children early on to internalize being punished for our inherent nature – being curious, asking questions, etc. As we grow, we begin to internalize the beliefs that we are inherently wrong. We hold shame – often subconsciously – and begin to self flagellate. The external punisher becomes the inner voice.
We fear self expression and cut ourselves off from full self possession.
And then we wonder why we feel unseen, unheard, and unexpressed.
But the good news is that there is a solution.
It may not be an easy one, but there’s hope.
It may be a lifelong process, and I don’t know about you, but I’m here for it.
My relationship with animals has taught me a lot about my own internalization of the shame I carry around my beingness.
Cats especially have a apologetic self possession that can’t be denied.
The are my little gurus.
With no shame around their needs getting met, and no shame in fully expressing themselves, they really are little embodied zen masters.
I am in full respect and awe of nature as a whole and in working with animals in coherent relationship, truly respecting their nature, I learn to respect my own.
This is different than projecting or anthropomorphizing.
My cat is not a human.
She is a cat.
She has her own instincts, passed down by millennia of survival and evolution to create how she is in the world.
I too have my own instincts that have evolved over centuries. Some call this body intelligence.
It is the inherent intelligence of nature.
One of the greatest gifts I’ve learned in studying and practicing somatic therapies is how so much of our dis-ease comes from a distrust and breakdown of our relationship with our own bio-intelligence.
Distrust and being punished for our essence, over time becomes disrespect, dis-ease, and disharmony in our being.
The soul no longer has a place to softly land in the self assured animal body. The mind takes over, possessing everything, trying to control, squeeze, compress, imprison, and castrate our very connection to source, vitality and wisdom.
I think we probably need less mindfulness, and more bio-understanding.
It’s time to bring the conciousness back into the frozen landscape of our terrified animal bodies.
It’s time to melt, thaw, lay out in the sunshine, letting our skin feel the simple pleasure of warmth – a signal to the animal being of being alive.
If punishment doesn’t work, what does?
Like most intelligent animals, we are highly motivated by our basic survival elements and a deep sense of curiosity.
How else does a species invent things that once never existed?
We evolve through both safety and play – through the titration between a deep inner sense of safety that must be cultivated and healed, and a longing for exploration, freedom, and novelty.
The good news is that we are designed for both. It’s in our DNA, our blueprint that designed us and wove us into being.
Sitting with this illumination this morning, I will be digesting in my own being a few questions and I invite you to play if you’d like.
The questions for reflection:
- Where have I internalized being “bad” or “wrong” for something that is a natural part of being human or being myself?
- How can I approach my internal self talk with more space for compassion, understanding, and curiosity?
- What’s the sensation that comes up in my body when I interact with punishment (external or internal)?
- How do I punish myself in attempt to motivate myself? In what ways does it appear? How can I shift my approach?
One more thing …
I want to be clear that in no way to I advocate trying to rid ourselves of our internalized judgemental thoughts or actions, but rather, invite space for alternatives. Our deep internalized patterns came from a place and formative experiences that also need honouring and respect for they too hold our energy and life force.
I think that’s all for this one dear ones.
With love,
jenn