Amanda’s Blog

Subconscious patterns playing out in my interaction with the herd

The sun was shining on Thursday morning, as I arrived at the farm to meet the horses and facilitator. I was early and nobody had yet arrived. I walked up to the edge of the paddock where the herd was and met the most magnificent part Clydesdale horse named Jack. As soon as I saw him, there was a connection. An understanding. I knew we'd work together…

Here I am. Another year older, a little wiser than when I was sitting at my desk a year ago, and feeling like both a tantruming toddler and a rebelling teen about my birthday.

Fuck it all. Here we go again.

I had been dreaming, making plans and booking activities for my birthday weekend because, for me, I like to make my birthday last more than just one day. It is, after all, not too often I get to make a whole day or more all about me, celebrating myself and my achievements during my turns around the sun.

Perfectionism is something we all grapple with. It is a natural part of our patriarchal struggle for acceptance in our community. Our brains are basic and hard wired for survival. We experience much of life as binary - live or die, black or white, right or wrong.

We learn acceptable and non-acceptable behaviours from the adults around us — by what they say and through what their actions show us. We develop belief systems around what we need to do to fit into the prescribed parameters and, when we deeply believe that our conduct is unbecoming, we create defence mechanisms, reactions and other safety measures to adjust our behaviour so that we will not be ‘thrown out of the tribe’.

I don't know where January disappeared to but, goodness, it seemed to fly by! We are now welcoming in the Lunar New Year - the Year of the Yang Water Tiger. This is the time of the year when the energy seems to set in. I tend to find January is a place-holder month - one whereby we don't seem to achieve as much as we can in 'normal' months. We are in a place of reflection, planning and, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, the joys of holidays and summer.

It’s been a stressful couple of years. The uncertainty, the disruption, the lack of normal. We’ve had much to grieve - time lost with family and friends, changed or cancelled plans, lost jobs, lack of security and so much more besides. We’ve been on tenterhooks of what comes next, whether there is a next, whether tomorrow will bring us closer to normalcy or deliver us another blow. We’ve been bombarded with fear-based messaging, a constant drone of negativity and divisive psychological languaging that has sunk into the consciousness of much of the population, driving divisions between couples, friends and families.

When children are little, we need to embody Mother as a verb, a doing word, the taking of action. We nurture, we nourish, we provide for their needs. We do the things we know they need to grow into healthy, and hopefully well adjusted, teens and adults.

As they grow and gain more independence we need to learn how to step back and become Mother as a noun. We let them know we are there for them and that they need this independence, holding space as they learn new things and grow their wings, but not jumping in and ‘doing’ the Mothering. It is a time to BE Mum.