Recently I was talking with a fellow Living Your Design guide. We were discussing the gritty journey of learning how to follow our strategy of responding. And the resulting craziness that happens in the mind when our sacral responds differently then how the mind thinks we should. I shared one of my favourite poems with her. It has accompanied me through many transformations, including my almost 7 years of deconditioning.
The Journey by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
What you had to do, and began,
Though the voices around you
Kept shouting
Their bad advice‚
Though the whole house
Began to tremble
And you felt the old tug
At your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
Each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
Though the wind pried
With its stiff fingers
At the very foundations‚
Though their melancholy
Was terrible.
It was already late
Enough, and a wild night,
And the road full of fallen
Branches and stones.
But little by little,
As you left their voices behind,
The stars began to burn
Through the sheets of clouds,
And there was a new voice,
Which you slowly
Recognized as your own,
That kept you company
As you strode deeper and deeper
Into the world,
Determined to do
The only thing you could do‚
Determined to save
The only life you could save.
Reading this again, I had a different perspective on the “voices around you shouting their bad advice.” At one time, I felt it was some of the people in my life wanting me to go back to how I used to be – nice, agreeable, predictable, always available.
But now I see these voices as the mind, expressing itself through my open centers – “shouting their bad advice” – moving me away from my strategy of waiting to respond and waiting for emotional clarity.
In our professional analyst study group, another generator shared how she realized that much of her life before Human Design was focused on “satisfying the other.” This really resonated with my experience. I used to spend my energy focused on the other people in my life to the point that I had no idea who I was for myself.
In my Living Your Design class, we explore the mind’s concern about other people taking our responses personally and how sometimes we take the other’s response (or lack of) personally. This thought pattern and the resulting experience in the body is something to transform through our process of deconditioning.
The deeper I go in my experiment, the more I realize that nothing is personal. When I trust the clarity of my response, I build a solid foundation that I can rely on. And if I trust myself to do what is correct for me, then I can trust another to do what is correct for them. It’s not personal. There’s no reason. It’s just correctness. And it’s oh so satisfying and peaceful.
Would you like help aligning to your correct path? I offer a free call for us to get to know each other.
