Listening In and Trusting — sara lynn lashbrook

I’ve been noticing a wavering. A wavering of sorts. A back and forth. It could be self- doubt, it has some similarities. It also has deep roots of knowing and standing in this knowing, yet being swayed. Swayed by ideas and words of others. The image of a buoy comes to mind. Anchored in the earth below the water, bobbing and moving with the wakes of the boats. Moving and anchored. Moving yet anchored. And sometimes this swaying, depending on the momentum it has gained, can send me out of balance. When I am in a place of anger, pain, suffering, hurt or feeling despondent, it is usually, I have found, a result of being out of balance. No longer aligned with my truth.

I located this journal entry from November 2015. At the time, I was teaching fourth grade in a new school.

The state for my current situation…

You know what – I feel like I am blindly leading my students, following the words of others without a thought and when I find time (which is rare) I am learning that I disagree with what I have said to them, what we’ve focused our work on.

Ex. Reader’s Notebooks- tracking our thinking. We’ve been categorizing our thought/tracks yet really there is a reason why we wrote what we wrote...the goal is to get them talking, for them to learn that the details of their thoughts and experiences are important. The goal here is ‘what am I thinking and why’. They are talking, they have a lot to say. Capture that.

I’ve been struggling because I have been using the words/guidelines of colleagues without thinking about its impact on our community of readers. While I don’t know the skills of each individual reader – I do know about their thinking about their reading and that has been our focus. Not necessarily writing about their thinking but talking about their thinking and we’ve been spending time sharing, growing, being inspired by… Sara, trust them. Trust where they are at, what they are doing, saying and build slowly, but slowly – we’ll become powerful. It is a slow process in the beginning, trust them as a collective. Trust your gut. What you believe to be true/know/reality as we embark on this journey rather than forcing them. Celebrate their thinking, their ability to catch their thought, regardless of what it is, they caught it, something lead them to that- it is in the process, the process that highlights the work, the moment the value, not the category.”

I choose to place these words in bold because the capture the knowing part of the swaying:

Sara, trust them. Trust where they are at, what they are doing, saying and build slowly, but slowly – we’ll become powerful. It is a slow process in the beginning, trust them as a collective. Trust your gut. What you believe to be true/know/reality as we embark on this journey rather than forcing them.

How often do we do this? How often have I done this? How often do we easily follow the lead of someone else without thought? I am delighted to see this reflection in written form back from 2015. It is validation that this knowing has always been here.

I see how easily I can get tangled up in the stories others are saying and telling, tied to believing and in some cases thinking they are real and mine.

I am recalling another example of getting persuaded. It was during a therapy session in 2017, when I was asked if I was more like a cucumber or a pickle. This question was asked in reference to my choice or lack of choice around drinking. I found myself saying I was ‘more like a pickle I guess,’ even though I did not really believe that to be true. I felt that was what I was supposed to say, that was the answer they were looking for. That me saying I was a pickle was taking responsibility for the state I was in at that time. That saying I was more of a pickle than a cucumber, was owning my drinking and accepting the role it was playing and had played in my life.

I am writing to get to the root of - is it me or do I feel I need to say something or take on an impression that someone has of me to make it okay, to make them feel better? Am I being true to me or am I adapting myself to fit into a view someone has of me? Am I adjusting aspects of myself to make it easier for others? Why do I feel it is okay or necessary to fit and conform to a view or perspective that others have?

This is a huge thread that is showing up for me now. I think about all of the times I have not be true to me. All of the times that I didn’t know that I wasn’t being true to me. All of the times I was blindly being led by the views of others, allowing the views others had to become mine. Allowing the views others have to determine my choices, my decisions, my path.

Which is why I am delighted, DELIGHTED to locate these words from my journal in 2015. During a time in my life when I felt so pulled, so unsure, so unsteady. To read these words, it similar to accessing a gem, something shiny in the dirt. I do know, I want to shout, this is here within me! There are these glimpses of me knowing what is best, right. What feels aligned and in tune with me.

The question now is, how do I continue to access this knowing? What signals does my body give, offer me in the moment, after the fact? What is my body saying about my experiences? Do I feel good? Do I feel icky? If I feel icky, am I overriding the icky uncomfortable feeling because it is just that, uncomfortable? Am I ignoring the feeling, giving the other the benefit of the doubt? I know I am great at ignoring, excusing and justifying, how often do I that to make something better? How often do I do that so I and others can feel at more ease?

I have teacher who says, “Do not bleach red flags.” She shares this with me knowing that I have the tendency to do just that. To see warning signs and to override them. To witness events and interactions and write them off by saying ‘she is always this way’, or ‘they are having a bad day.’ Anything to avoid what is really true. Because sometimes the truth is icky to see, to face, to have to deal with and address, and it is much easier, or so we tell ourselves, to ignore and to turn a blind eye.

What we are really doing is avoiding and prolonging. The choice to override our intuition, our knowing, our gut sense fades the signals. We drown them out and they are not as loud. In the ignoring, the signals soften. There are here, subtly but not pronounced. Making them harder to recognize and pay attention to. Yet, remain they do, for they are our truth, our inner knowing, our guide. They are persistent, subtle in their form, yet always here. Until, I have found, we ignore them over and over and over again. In the ignoring there is something that builds and builds and builds and then bursts. The stuffing and hiding, the ignoring and shunning, the out of sight out of mind mentality, with all of its force and energy comes roaring in, in a way that we cannot longer put off to the side, sweep under the rug and shy away from. The turning away and ignoring becomes impossible to do once the signals become louder and louder, for all they ever wanted was to be seen and attended to.

At times it shows up and is irritating and annoying, providing what we perceive to be as an inconvenience. Something that hinders us or gets in our way. When I find myself here, I deal with what is arising once I recognize it. The ‘it’ being the unease, discomfort, unsteady, the constant pull of the mind, the indecisiveness, the second guessing and self-doubt. Once I am aware of its presence, for it is loud and hard to ignore, I catch on to it. Sometimes I catch it in the moment, sometimes it takes me a few days. Sometimes the awareness comes out of the blue, sometimes it comes to me in meditation. Each time it comes, I trust it and honor it. I acknowledge it and act from it. And each time I do this, I am validating myself and this inner knowing. With each step, each action, every small gesture I make from this knowing reinforces and feeds it, invigorating it and giving it strength, slowly building up the communication. Again and again and again.

Instead of feeding the fear by staying in that space of second guessing and self-doubt, I choose to shift my state sending my awareness and attention towards the knowing. Trusting the intuition that is here to guide me. Each time I do this, each and every time, I choose trust over fear, I am changing my patterns and tendencies. Forging new ground and creating a new path.

With each acknowledgement. With each step.

Listen in. There is a call. There is a tug. There is a nudge. There is a signal within asking for your attention. It is your inner voice, wanting to be heard.

You can listen or you can ignore.

I’m choosing to listen and invite you to do the same.

Enjoy what comes your way,

Sara

Roots Down

When you listen to the ground and you put your roots down,

you can hear what she says if you’re listening.

The sweet sound of the river as she moves over the stones

the same song that the blood in your body sings

as it weaves around your bones.

When you’re listening

Are you listening?

This song has been signing in my mind recently. I see the resemblance to this post, what I write and am making meaning of now in my life. “You can hear what she is saying if you’re listening.” I learned it from my niece, who would sing it at Forest School and then carry it with her throughout her day. Through an internet search, I read that “Roots Down” was created and composed by Molly Hartwell. It is beautiful and I invite you to check it out, feeling the rhythm move through your body.