Midwifing wantings. I love my job!
Yesterday, I had the lucky job to midwife the core wantings of a dear friend of mine.
She’s a pro herself, having worked as certified psychotherapist for three decades. I know her process and her past traumas and their current way of playing out in depth, but so far, I had not realized, how much she was out of touch with the wantings behind her pain.
It turned out, in the family she was brought up in, having wantings, even if only secretly, was equivalent to a death penalty.
Wanting something – anything – was considered a deadly sin in this very strict catholic environment of the 50ies and 60ies she was born into. No surprise that even considering thinking in the direction of “what do I want in this?” transported her right back into the hellish emotional state that she had to survive as a child.
At the same time, she had piled up unmet needs and desires all over the place and kept adding to them every time one of her hidden wantings wasn’t met.
Because of her work background and all the personal exploration work she had dove into for the past twenty or more years, she was very well able to feel the pain all the way through and had, bit by bit, deconstructed and let go of the previously present ways of avoiding the pain entirely.
So what we did yesterday, was taking an acute event of severely unmet needs causing her intense emotional pain of being unseen, unheard, unwanted, rejected all the way to feeling annihilated and from there, we dug deeper to unearth what had always been there, but never come to the light: the wanting behind all of it.
And like a sprout met by warm sunlight and moist soil, once it surfaced, there was no more holding back anymore. Like a butterfly having left its chrysalis, it unfolded and kept growing and blossoming and gaining in juiciness and buoyancy and life.
She shared, that she had never felt like THAT before, and just how different it feels from having that longing feeling that inevitably comes with the feeling of not being able to reach what is longed for and therefore leaving a bittersweet aftertaste, pulling you out of yourself into “that which I can’t have” instead of the fully being planted into yourself in the most juicy way, which is achieved through indulging in your wantings. I’m feeling most blessed to having been able to witness this transformation
Now, how is that connected to you and where you’re at? Don’t wait too long, until you start your quest for your wantings!
Each day that you’re out of touch with them is a day you live in less fullness than you could.
And if you don’t know how to do it, don’t hesitate to ask me for help.
Much love, Julia