Once again, Jess* came to our monthly Zoom call in the familiar spot: feeling frustrated, taken advantage of and exhausted.
No matter what she did, her hopefully “soon-to-be-if-only-she-could-just-get-up-the-nerve-to-stick-to-her-guns” ex kept creeping back into her life.
She felt like a fool.
But she simply couldn’t bring herself to truly end it. Like, for real.
She came to our call (which is part of my Evolve Your Energyä 3-month program) and confided that this was the fourth time she’d let him back in and needed to figure out how to stop it. For good this time.
And when she got really honest about it, she said this has happened – all throughout her adult life – in her relationships.
It was obvious what was going on here…
It wasn’t so much that she wasn’t clear on what she wanted (her reaction to what had transpired showed that).
Nor was it that she didn’t know what to do next (it’s rarely that in anyone’s case!).
When faced with this particular situation, Jess started operating by default.
That means, she reverted back to the old patterns and stories that she operated under for most of her life.
She came to me this month wanting me to “fix it” for her. That’s what coaches were supposed to do after all, wasn’t it!!??
Um… no.
I could guide her to what she had to do, but it was up to her to do the work.
If she were really to kick this pattern to the curb, she had to learn a new way of dealing with these situations when they arose.
She needed to tune into and break down what was happening so she could move through this consciously the next time this, or any situation requiring strong boundaries, happened.
And I told her I had just the process for her.
You need to do my ‘Dropping Into 3D’ process!
Dropping Into 3D is a process I have used for years myself to get clear in any situation and then I developed it for use in my programs, such as my Evolve Your Energyä program, that Jess was in.
In that program one of the things we do is work 1:1 to go deeper into each level of it, but in broad strokes here’s how it works:
- Deep Dive – That thing that has you stuck… a conversation, next small step or a big life change, think back to what the original point to all of this was. This thing you want – why do you want it? You need to reconnect to your intention.
Take Jess’s situation. She was sick and tired of being disrespected in relationships and she set boundaries as a way to teach people how to treat her. She also wanted to develop her confidence and feel empowered.
- Discover – So what might the growth-point be here for you, anyway? How could this situation be calling you to rise and evolve to a bigger version of you?
Jess had two choices: she could do what a lot of people today do and play the victim. Blame and complain about how wrong the other was. And that might be true. But it certainly isn’t the only story and it wasn’t one that will move her forward.
Her other choice was to look at the stories that she immediately jumped into, notice the patterns happening and take a minute to ask herself,
“What else could be going on here? What is my part in all of this?”
This is where you get curious and sit with whatever comes up without making it wrong or bad. It just is. You don’t even have to do anything with it yet. You’re noticing. Where might you be called to expand and grow beyond this point? Just sit with it. It can’t hurt you.
In her case, Jess could see clearly this old pattern coming up. We spent some time looking at why this happened for her in every relationship and made a plan for how she would respond if this happened in the future.
- Discern – Now that you are clear on why you set that boundary in the first place and the stories and emotions that it causes you to jump into, it’s time to drill down on when you started to go off course in this specific situation.
Are you able to think back and pinpoint the moment you were triggered and drawn back into the land of confusion and uncertainty? What prompted this lack of commitment to your boundary?
For Jess, it was about recognizing that his words were tapping into her habit of looking to others to make her happy rather than taking responsibility for that herself.
In broad strokes that’s how the Dropping Into 3D process looks.
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Jess and I continued working on it over several calls until she was crystal clear on where she went off track and what she needed to do next time this came up.
The most important thing you can do when you get off track is to have compassion for yourself.
The last thing you need is to start shaming yourself for it.
This is hard work. Acknowledge that.
And celebrate the fact that you are noticing sooner than you used to.
It takes practice. And like anything you practice, one day it’ll just click.
And then it’ll just be like breathing; just one of those things you do.
If you want to dive deeper into why and where you are losing control, what to do about it and come up with a plan to move forward in a self-honouring way, you can book a call here. Let’s chat!
*Names changed for privacy protection.
