I’ve been doing a lot of meditating the past 2 months in order to open the space to learn more about what programs and patterns might still be holding me back. Sometimes just sitting for 20 minutes or so, simply being present in my body & in the moment, opens me to deeper awareness of myself.
The other day as I was sitting in that beautiful silence within, I became aware of a continuing pattern from childhood that I still seem to play out—'Waiting to Exhale' I call it. I’m a middle child, so some of that can be explained by birth order. Middle children often look to the older siblings to see what is happening and then go from there.
But I knew it was deeper than that, so I sat, present in the moment, and opened myself even more to what might be revealed. And there it was…training on how to be a ‘good’ wife, mother, woman. Growing up in the 50s and the 60s in the conservative Midwest, I was trained not only by my mother, but by the culture at the time to ‘wait’ for and upon others—particularly the males in the family. I remember playing baseball with my brothers and their friends and being called inside to iron my brothers’ shirts. When I protested the unfairness of having to give up doing something fun in order to iron shirts, my mother explained that that is just ‘how it is.’ Girls take care of the boys.
My mother was also depressed much of my childhood, so I also learned to wait to see how she was feeling. Was she happy that day? Then I could be happy too. Was she feeling down again? Then I knew to be more quiet, stay out of the way and wait for things to change.
My training also included things like: 'Don’t be better than, don’t know more than, don’t succeed more than and certainly don’t have more than'…you guessed it…the boys. Wait for the boy to ask you out. Wait for the boy to talk. Wait for the boy to buy you something. Wait…wait…wait.
A woman’s place is to hold back and sacrifice herself for the good of the family. I learned that from my parents, my grandmother, at school, at church. Everywhere I turned it was taught that my place was to wait—and to sacrifice. It was not a choice, but a duty. Anything less made you a bad wife, a terrible mother and an unattractive, unlovable woman.
I got really good at waiting! So much so that I spent most of my life unconsciously waiting for something or someone to happen.
So there I sat—watching all that waiting play out in my memories, feeling all those emotions of frustration and resentment and hearing those thoughts run through my mind.
Oh my gosh! I’ve been energetically holding my breath—waiting to exhale for decades!
Darn it if that old pattern was still alive and kicking! Ragged around the edges from changing beliefs, healing and plenty of experiences in life proving that old pattern to be outdated and no longer useful. But still influencing my life.
I can’t be happy until my husband is happy. I can only allow myself a limited amount of success so that I’m never more successful than my husband. I must continually bolster and support my adult children so that they are more successful. Their success is my success. Their happiness is my happiness.
Sure I can have a life and run a business and create income—but only during the hours that my husband or grown children don’t ‘need’ me. My job was to keep the ‘home fires burning’ and to make sure everyone else is taken care of before getting back to my life.
I sat there in amazement at the breadth and depth of that pattern and looked at every area of my life that it affected. How you do anything is how you do everything—so that pattern influenced everything…until I changed it.
Now you might think that it was upsetting to find myself still running an old, outdated pattern, but it wasn’t. It was exciting! Why? Because it’s not my reality any more than I allow it to be. It’s not me and it’s definitely not my husband or my children. They don’t hold those expectations of me. It is only a small part of me holding me to an old standard that no longer applies. And I have the resources and the technique to easily change my beliefs and patterns.
So I CHANGED IT!
I love my life. I love my husband, my children and my grandchildren. Being a mother has always been a high value of mine. Family is a high value.
Faith and family—they are my compass for living and that didn’t change.
What did change was HOW I live out my values and HOW I make decisions about my life.
And for the first time in many years—I EXHALED.
