Memes Help Me More Than They Should
Being a bit silly and getting a good belly laugh, a 2023 reflection
I’ve been consuming a lot of memes this year.
As part of my self acceptance journey, I’ve consciously stopped engaging in learning which I was doing as self improvement to feel worthy. It’s an interesting experiment in finding out my baseline inner motivation and interests. Anyway so that’s meant I have more time and space for listening to music (or reading fiction, or doing puzzles, or gardening) which I had previously believed to be unproductive and overstimulating.
And then there’s the memes I send my friends and they send me. Who doesn’t have a group chat for this these days?
One that cut through said this:
“Babe are you ok, you’ve been having insights for months but you’ve barely touched your integration”.
It really sums up the weird mind journey I’ve been on this year. Over the last decade I’ve done a lot of healing work that has amounted to trying to figure out a way to be worthy in other peoples eyes.
And then this year maybe something clicked. It’s been time for integration. To learn how to be worthy in my own eyes.
All the intellectualising of my perceived flaws and trying to figure out who I am transmuted into me being ready to actually become that new version of myself. And I was kinda sick of being in the fixit stage.
I wanted to be someone who could be social without the anxiety. I wanted to expand my tolerance for change. I wanted to be thoughtful and generous with my loved ones.
I wanted to be the embodiment of all the things I’ve been teaching about self leadership, being well rested, a good communicator with good boundaries and clear priorities.
I wanted to grow up and become an adult when it’s felt like I’ve been living with my inner teenager in the driving seat. I was sick of waiting for someone else to go first. Or for the timing to be right. I was sick of my repeating patterns of victimhood and procrastination. I didn’t want to wait to be saved or chosen anymore.
I can say that largely I’ve become that person. And of course this has given me a new layer to work on but one that is wholly more exciting.
My inner rebel has been running wild. Which is probably not that rebellious in the scheme of things but if you’ve spent years being a good girl like I have then this will feel so outrageous!
I’ve said yes to things and then cancelled when a more appealing offer came along. I’ve kept secrets. I’ve let people down and practiced feeling the weight of being a disappointment to others.
I’ve held back rather than oversharing which for me has been a new and exciting way of communicating. Not everything in my inner world needs to be known by others for myself to be known. I don’t have to be an open book.
Oversharing is not intimacy. It’s a trauma response, as I have learned!
While I share this, I can’t give you a 5 step process on how to integrate your own healing. Except to say it has to be you that does the work. I think there is a formula though, a recipe that’s just right for you. An intersection you might find yourself at and you just know you’re ready.
These are the things that seemed to be in place for me when I felt ready: Self compassion + acceptance + time + right timing + right relationships.
When you get there you’ll recognise that all the various work you’ve done like practicing letting go + visualising the life you want + the person you want to be + worthiness work, will just get to a tipping point.
Of all the modalities I’ve tried (and there are a LOT), learning and observing my own nervous system as it relates to my c-PTSD (which is a disordered reaction to stress and triggers) has been what I think is the key that’s unlocked all the other work I’ve done.
My capacity for nervous system activation and regulation has increased. I’m holding boundaries in better ways and also allowing them to be consciously overstepped in healthy situations. Which has been an interesting exercise in intimacy in my marriage, friendships and other relationships.
When you have PTSD, your alert system for boundaries can be faulty, meaning sometimes you’ll not realise that a boundary has been crossed until afterwards and other times you’ll hold people too far away. Hyper-independence is a trauma response as they say..a lot of things can be.
Somewhere along the way I got the courage to be the boisterous, fun and sometimes a downright silly version of myself. She’s been desperately waiting to make eye contact with the world. I can tell my energy and confidence are different. My frustration and resentment has abated. I feel more safe to be my full self in a wider context of situations. Which is much less exhausting so my energy is better - this is a healing spiral where things continue to improve.
I’m more relaxed around myself too. Like in the quiet moments, my mind doesn’t *always* wander into shame territory and mean self talk.
I still desire to be known, as everyone does, but can see where other people aren’t ready to meet me as I am and I just observe those interactions for what they are. I can be a support to people and am more able to recognise what state others are in. Reading the room is a skill!
I’m less centre-of-the-universe and now I feel a part of it. I think thats a hallmark of a healing/healed/well balanced person.
I’ve had a schema (belief) that “people generally hate me and I have to work harder than others to convince them to accept me”. Which has meant I’ve engaged in controlling or manipulating people pleasing behaviours. I just decided not to believe that anymore and my whole behaviour changed. My new story is ‘I’m loved as I am and people are drawn to me’. I keep coming back to that belief and looking for evidence that it’s true.
If I can spend well over a decade loving my husband even though I felt uncomfortable with his level of drinking and boisterous behaviour, then I can surely love myself through small mistakes. I surely deserve to be loved while flawed too.
So what about the memes? If I’m being my silly honest self, sending memes to my friends has also helped more than it should and possibly just as much as the ‘serious’ work. It seems like healing should be serious work but lightening it up and having a deep belly laugh is pure medicine.
It doesn’t always having to be the deep and meaningful conversations to get a good connection!
Part of this year has been moving away from the podcast and moving towards substack. I know I haven’t been here at close to any level I expected to be or communicated I would be. That will change over time. I’ve needed to strip things right back and I’m feeling refreshed no renewed creativity emerging. Maybe it’s the pull of the new year approaching, Im not sure!
Thank you for still being here even in the quieter moments.
This year my word was generosity and I have some further reflections on this and how I use the word of the year in a slightly different way than what you might typically see people do. In 2024 my word is Integration, for probably obvious reasons! More to follow on that too!
Have you got a word of the year? Is that something you like to do?
Rachelle x
Beautiful insights and reflections. I have been leaving into holding the vision of who I want you to be and trying to just be here now. Much as you say here.
My world of the year was ‘embody’ and my goodness have I had to embody the work this year.
I haven’t started pondering my word for 2024, but as things wrap up and slow down I’m looking forward to moving into that reflection space.
As always I adore your shares x