In a Dark Time

“The deepest work is usually the darkest.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

We are currently at the Winter Solstice, the darkest time of the year with the longest nights and the shortest days. We are at the entryway of Winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

At the Winter Solstice we celebrate the first seeds of the return of the light, of days slowly becoming slightly longer. We are at a turning point: At the darkest moment, the light starts returning.

Yet for a few days around the Solstice, the sun appears to stand still: Nothing seems to be happening. The return of the light is so subtle, that we cannot yet perceive it. This is part of a cycle, and before the return of the light, we must surrender to the stillness and the void, we must accept being in the unknown and allow the mystery of life. A sort of dying before a rebirth is possible.

We can also see this symbolically, in times of life where we feel hopeless, in despair, lost, depressed, burnt out - often called a dark night of the soul. These moments can be intensely painful when we are in them, yet we often look back and see them as a necessary dismantling that made room for something new to come to light.

I feel we are also in a dark time on a collective level, that we are at the close of a cycle, in a death phase. The systems our current world was built on are collapsing and while nobody can know for sure, I believe this dark time might be a dismantling that is necessary, even if we do not yet know what the new world will look like or if we will see it in our lifetimes.

Sometimes in life such as at this time of year, the invitation is to allow ourselves to fully surrender to the dark. This is not a simple thing to do in a society obsessed with light, with positivity and happiness, with busyness, expansion, endless growth. It isn’t a simple thing to allow the dark, to allow stillness, to let go, to make space for emotions like grief or sadness or depression and even death.

Yet I believe we can only truly embrace the light when we can also embrace the dark.

Because light and dark are inseparable: We cannot have one without the other. Light and dark dance together across many different cycles such as the lunar cycle or the seasons, each stage of the cycle holding different proportions of light and dark.

I see this interplay of light and dark as part of the cycle of life, death and rebirth, which is at the heart of everything. When we can embrace this cycle, we can allow the natural flow of life to happen. We can accept that nothing stays the same, that nothing lasts forever, that this too shall pass.

Demetra George in her book Mysteries of the Dark Moon talks about the purpose of the dark phase of any cycle as being:

“…a transition between the death of the old and the birth of the new. The dark time is a time of retreat, of healing, and of dreaming the future. The darkness is lit with the translucent quality of transformation; and during this essential and necessary period, life is prepared to be born.

The dark prefaces the light in the same way that gestation precedes birth and sleeps allows for rejuvenation. In the human psyche we experience dark periods when we feel turned inward and nothing seems to be happening. However, in retrospect we often realize that these fallow times were germinal periods preceding outbursts of creativity and growth.”

We need to trust that if we allow ourselves to descend into darkness, we will not be there forever, that something new will be born from it, even if we cannot yet see what that could be.

The invitation of the dark phase of a cycle is:

To stop. To be in the stillness. To rest. To surrender to the void. To allow ourselves to fully be in this dark phase of the cycle. To allow for there to be a letting go, a release, a death phase.

We often resist the call of the dark: We run away from it, from our emotions, from grief. We stay busy. We make plans. We try to move towards the light and the new.

Yet the invitation at this point of the cycle, either at this time of year, or at any point in your personal cycle you might be feeling this call, is to let go, to surrender, to rest, to let go of what is no longer working. We cannot yet know what the path to rebirth will look like, nor do we need to. Spring is coming, but right now we are still in Winter. We can trust the natural movement of life.

This time of year reminds us that the light is certain, even if we cannot yet see it - and that we also need to dance with the dark.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. - Alan Watts.

Year in Review: 2022

I started off the year in a pretty dramatic way: The very first week, I slipped on some black ice on my way to the bus. What I initially thought was just a twisted ankle ended up being a fracture that needed an operation, three nights in the hospital and almost two months on crutches.

It was the first time I broke anything in my 42 years of life, which I suppose is quite lucky when I think of how banal and easily this accident happened!

This led to two months of life and work being mostly from home, which proved the perfect opportunity to watch the entire eight seasons of Game of Thrones for the first time with my partner. I now finally understand references to ‘Winter is coming’ and I have as many opinions about the last season as every other GoT fan!

I also did a lot of reading and studying and ‘wintering’, and in a strange way, this opened me up to a more inward way of being which I continued to explore throughout the year.

Waiting at the doctor’s office when wearing masks was still a thing.

finding balance

This was followed by intensive physiotherapy as I re-learned to use my ankle and trust my body.

Willow in my (his) home office.

I got Covid twice, and these stops and starts made me appreciate even more being able to move freely and having the energy to do so.

I also found a great balance of online and in-person, with two days from home in the company of my cat, Willow, and three days from the office.

I did mostly one-on-one sessions which is what I enjoy most because every session feels unique, and is a co-creation, like a dance we are doing together. I feel very privileged to do work that feels so meaningful and stimulating.

my greatest love in life: learning

One of my greatest pleasures in life has always been learning, and this year it felt even more true.

I continued working with my own therapist and did clinical trainings on topics such as shame, narcissism, masculinity and a form of meditation called The Realization Process which is a very powerful way of inhabiting the body.

I finished my diploma at the Mercury Internet School of Psychological Astrology (MISPA) making this my third year of astrological study. I started doing readings for clients who are interested in this, and also going deeper into some aspects of the astrology chart when exploring certain themes in therapy. I love combining therapy and astrology in this way, as it brings a different lens from which to view ourselves.

I also started studying the Tarot, and I particularly love looking at the 22 cards of the Major Arcana or the Fool’s Journey as the psychological process of becoming more whole.

Experimenting with the Tarot.

I was also drawn to the study of Alchemy, which is a very insightful way of viewing human transformation. The idea of alchemy was to turn base metals like lead into gold, and when applied psychologically or spiritually, it is about taking suffering and the ‘base’ parts of ourselves and transmuting them into gold.

I’m not sure where all these all these more mystical / ancient systems of knowledge will lead to professionally, only that for now I am finding them very nourishing on a personal level.

no longer the same

Something that felt very obvious to me this year, and that I also encountered with clients as we emerge from these last two years of pandemic is accepting that we are no longer the same people.

What once felt nourishing, may no longer feel as nourishing. What once felt important may now feel less meaningful.

I had very little desire to post on this blog or social media, which was quite a shift from previous years. The only blog post I wrote was on Control vs Power - my take on David Richo’s assertion that Control is the poor man’s version of power.

I didn’t do any workshops or webinars for the first time in the almost 10 years I have been doing this work.

I tried to give myself permission to just be with the more inward energy I was in without forcing anything, even if in many ways it felt and still feels foreign to the image I had of myself as someone more dynamic, communicative and outgoing.

image of the year

The image that summarises this year for me is this crescent moon taken by my partner, Björn.

As opposed to the full Moon when the moon is reflecting the light of the sun and is bright and luminous to us here on Earth, in the waxing crescent phase, the moon is only starting to becoming visible to us.

This is how this year felt like to me - incubating, being in the dark of the moon, turning more inwards, journeying more internally and through knowledge rather than being out in the world.

And like the moon and nature, I believe life also goes through cycles - it isn’t a linear path of progression we often imagine, and we aren’t static beings who aren’t supposed to change.

This year really taught me the importance of embracing whatever cycle we are in even if it doesn’t make rational sense or fit our image of ourselves. To allow ourselves to be changed by it.

So for this coming year, perhaps we can stay open up to whatever cycle or phase we may be in, to flow with it rather than resist it, and to stay open and curious to where this may lead us.

Thank you for being part of my 2022. And here’s to flowing with whatever 2023 brings.

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke

Control vs Power

I can’t let go or things will fall apart.

I need to be on top of everything.

Things have to be a certain way for me to be OK.

If I don’t do things myself, nothing will happen.

If I am careful enough, I should be able to prevent bad things from happening.

If I keep my life small and avoid certain situations, I won’t need to deal with difficulty.

What do all these statements have in common?

Control.

Control is something we tend to glorify. We admire people who seem to have their lives together. We think we should be able to control nature. We try to control our bodies by pushing ourselves beyond our physical limits.

Yet if we look behind the scenes of control what we often find is a profound sense of powerlessness. We find a deep anxiety about letting things happen, about letting ourselves happen without control, because we are scared that if we do, we won’t be able to handle the consequences.

So underneath control there is often a sense of feeling small and helpless in the world, a deep anxiety around:

I am not ____ (insert) strong enough / powerful enough / competent enough / smart enough - so I need to control things as this is the only way to deal with life.

Often this need for control comes from not having been able to feel an age-appropriate sense of agency in the world around us as children, perhaps because we were expected or forced to be more ‘powerful’ than was appropriate for our age (for example by taking care of a parent’s emotional needs, caretaking siblings, having to be self-sufficient or needless). Alternatively, our power or sense of agency might have been crushed by parents who were overprotective or controlling and we weren’t able to do age-appropriate tasks or face difficulty which would have given us the confidence of being able to handle what happens in life.

So either because we were faced with too much or not enough agency at a young age, the result is a deep down feeling of being unable to have an impact on the world around us. And what better way to avoid feeling this sense of powerlessness than to turn to control instead? Because if I can control all the variables, I can avoid needing to face my perceived limitations or deepest fears.

As Jungian author David Richo writes:

Control is the poor man’s version of power.

So control steps in as a way of compensating, of helping us feel less small and powerless. For example:

I feel like an imposter in this job so I have to work extra hard and control how everyone sees me so they never find out.

What’s so bad about control? Well, nothing if it works for you. And it usually does to a certain extent, or at least it does until it doesn’t anymore.

Because when we are moving from control we are not really making choices about what is best for us, about what we truly believe in. When we are moving from control, our focus is usually on avoiding a certain outcome or anxiously needing to ensure an outcome in order to feel OK.

We are constantly moving, but moving in an attempt to get away from something instead of moving towards something that is important to us, like a rabbit who is simply running away from a fox instead of moving towards food.

This doesn’t leave a lot of room for spontaneity, authentic expression, connection or living in a more whole hearted way, in line with our values.

It also doesn’t leave a lot of room for us to step into our power or sense of agency.

I see authentic power or agency or authorship as the ability to have an impact on the world around us, on people around us. I am not thinking of it in the way it is often seen, as power over others, as abuse of power or domination.

As researcher and author Dacher Keltner writes:

Power is the medium through which we relate to one another. Power is about making a difference in the world by influencing others.

I don’t think we can really step into our power and have an impact on the world and people around us and be fully in control at the same time.

Yet they are similar in some ways.

That feeling of powerlessness deep down that leads to control is not totally wrong. There are situations and aspects of life that we cannot change. This is true. It is part of the human condition. We are small and we are to a large extent powerless in the face of many things in life like sickness or death or loss.

Yet this is not the whole truth, either.

Because there are also things we can change and that we can take responsibility for. We are not totally powerless the way we might have felt as children.

The response to this is not a compensatory ‘I should be able to control everything’ that most of us have.

It’s holding BOTH realities at the same time, and being able to distinguish where and when we can have an impact and when and where we cannot. This can sound like:

I am powerless to change certain situations in life AND I can also choose certain things, like how I respond to them.

This is the idea of response-ability: The ability to choose how we respond even to situations we are not responsible for creating.

Moving from control into authentic power also involves trust: Trust in ourselves, trust in other people, trust in life.

I believe that the key to letting go of control and moving into power is to authentically be able to get to a place of:

SELF-TRUST: Whatever happens, I will handle it

TRUST IN OTHERS: Whatever happens, I am supported.

TRUST IN LIFE: Whatever happens, maybe it is meant to happen for my greater good, even if I don’t fully understand how yet.

I don’t think we need to trust all three at the same time. But we do need to trust at least one.

As Steve Jobs said:

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

(I know that Steve Jobs was also very controlling. The irony is not lost on me! Yet I do feel he got this part right).

We can do our best and trust that even if things don’t work out the way we would like, we will find a way to deal with them, or even just that we will be OK. This is where we need to make friends with disappointment because it is an inevitable companion on the journey to authentic power.

We also have to be willing to lose. To fail. To make mistakes. In other words, in order to step into our authentic power, we have to be willing to be vulnerable. To be a messy human.

And I think if we can trust in something bigger than us, in some sort of fate or destiny, allowing things to happen without needing to over-control can even be a beautiful journey:

Once we understand that what happens beyond our control may be just what we need, we see that acceptance of reality can be our way of participating in our own evolution. - David Richo

Year in Review: 2021

Wow. What a year.

My experience of 2021 is that if you are not feeling burned out to some extent, are you even still alive?

Adam Grant’s word ‘languishing’ definitely captured the zeitgeist, a sort of ‘blah’ after the more crisis-type feel of last year.

For me personally, this was compounded by a complicated family situation that meant I needed to take more time off, go to Jordan twice this year, and take on very few new clients - resulting in often feeling I was letting people down, yet also knowing this was the best I could do.

Source: The New York Times

Yet even in the midst of crisis and languishing, I feel incredibly grateful for the work I do. Doing work that is meaningful and stimulating feels even more precious when other areas of life are more difficult.

Here’s a look back at some of the highlights and learnings of 2021.

Blogging etc

I’m excited to have participated in two new types of events for the first time this year. The first was a talk I gave on Procrastination for Creative Mornings Lausanne - an amazing organisation that hosts free events that I have been attending for years. It was a secret dream to maybe one day be a speaker, and I was very honoured when I got the request! You can watch the entire talk for free on their website.

Another dream was being on a podcast and I was thrilled to join Nicki and Tom on their podcast for professionals, Higher! We talked about feeling stuck in the work place and ways of approaching this. You can listen to this episode here.

I still love good old-fashioned blogging, even though I keep hearing about how nobody really reads anymore! My favorite blog post this year was I Am No Longer Who I Once Was about life transitions and awakenings and the key ages we tend to experience these. I based this on life transits from Astrology and also gave a talk to Webster University students on this theme, combining Astrology and Psychology.

I had long periods of not posting on Instagram and Facebook this year, mostly because I felt disillusioned with social media while simultaneously feeling I had nothing very helpful to share.

Welcoming Willow

The best thing to happen to me this year is adopting a kitten who I named Willow. Willow is no doubt a soul guide, and he has brought so much love, tenderness and joy to my life!

learning + going deeper

“Time is how you spend your love.” - Nick Laird

One of my biggest passions as a Gemini Sun is learning, and this year felt like it was about going deeper and consolidating rather than making new discoveries.

I completed my second year of Psychological Astrology training, and continued training in Coherence Therapy, working with a supervisor who uses this approach.

I also continued sessions with my Depth Psychology therapist who I have been working with for 2.5 years now. I really experienced how the deeper we explore our own psyches or internal villages, the more complex and messy and contradictory we realise we are - and at the same time, we may also learn to lovingly hold space for ALL these different parts of us.

This year for me has been about being even more with this complexity and messiness both within myself and in life in general; allowing the not knowing and the seeming contradictions.

I really saw this inability to be with complexity in the outer world. The inability to have real dialogues or conversations about the pandemic and other topics. The extreme views. The conspiracy theories on all sides.

I actually felt disillusioned with some members of the yoga / spiritual community I had felt a part of for the health privilege they showed, for their simplistic view of the world. One of the few voices that really spoke to me from this world is the newer work of Jeff Foster.

One of the benefits of this disappointment has been recognising how much we don’t know or understand about this pandemic or about life. Sometimes one thing can be true and the opposite can also be true. Sometimes we just don’t know and there are things that are out of our control. Being with this messiness, these contradictions, this helplessness feels so much more humbling and vulnerable yet honest than trying to pin it down in a simplistic way through black or white views.

We will become our opposite if we do not learn to accommodate the opposition within us. - C. G. Jung

Magic, Mystery and Meaning

As a child, I was obsessed with stories, hearing stories, reading stories. I loved myths and fairy tales. Anything magical fascinated me.

As a thesis for my Masters degree in Psychology, I wrote about the development of magical thinking to rational thinking and did a project on the symbolism of the mother figure in fairy tales.

Yet somewhere along the way, I adapted to the ‘real’ world, to practicality, to the more scientific approach. When I trained as a therapist, I needed more scientifically valid, behavioural approaches.

I feel this is an important part of my work, for it to be grounded and practical and founded. Yet at the same time, I have been feeling a calling for more Magic, Mystery and Meaning in my life and work.

Astrology is one of the ways that I can feel this strong pull towards something bigger than us that we cannot fully understand. More soul-based approaches such as the work of Carl Jung, James Hillman and Thomas Moore have also been resonating deeply.

For now, I feel these approaches are calling me on a personal level, and not something I am wanting to apply in my work straight away. I am allowing them to perculate and trusting that they will (and in some ways already do) show up as and when needed.

Something beyond life lives within life and calls the soul. - James Hillman 

2021 in an image

For me, this photo taken by my partner, Björn Rapp, symbolises this year: Trudging along, not really sure of where we are going in what feels like a never-ending journey, yet still moving forward in small steps. Not really sure of what to trust, or what has meaning anymore.

And I think what many of us are learning is that when we have no landmarks or outward signals of where to go, when nothing seems to make sense, we have to trust our inner compass more and more. What still has meaning to me? What small step can I still take?

And perhaps: How can I bring more magic, mystery and allow contradiction along the way?

Thank you for being a part of my 2021. May 2022 shine brighter for all of us.

So many books, podcasts and TV shows really touched me this year - here are a few of my favourites:

The Wisdom of Disappointment

“We must surrender our hopes and expectations, as well as our fears, and march directly into disappointment, work with disappointment, go into it, and make it our way of life, which is a very hard thing to do.” - Chögyam Trungpa

If you’re like most humans, you’ve done everything possible to avoid feeling disappointment, perhaps even built your entire life around experiencing it as little as possible.

Perhaps you do one of two things: 

You keep your life small which means avoiding having hopes, dreams or expectations: 

I’m fine like this. I just want a simple life. I don’t want to want anything because then I’ll never be disappointed. It doesn’t really matter to me anyway:

If I don’t open my heart to anyone, then I won’t be hurt. 

If I don’t have ambition, then I never have to put myself out there and risk being disappointed.

As researcher and writer Brené Brown says, this is about choosing to live disappointed in a low grade kind of way rather than risk feeling disappointed in a bigger way at certain moments in life. 

The second possibility looks very different: Striving for perfection, in an effort to avoid failure and disappointment: If I do everything right, I’ll never make a ‘wrong’ decision so I’ll never have to feel disappointment.

Avoiding Disappointment

How does it make sense that we might have learned to protect ourselves from disappointment in these ways (and others)? Chances are, as a child, we experienced disappointment as extremely painful:

x Perhaps we were criticised by care givers or teachers when we did something wrong, and the feeling of being a disappointment felt unbearable. 

x Perhaps a parent’s disappointment in us was interpreted as there’s something wrong with me, I am not worthy, I will be abandoned - which felt unbearable.

x Perhaps our parents said something like: I’m not angry at you, I’m just disappointed and that cold feeling was even worse than anger.

x Perhaps we felt our parents’ disappointment in their own lives, not necessarily through words but through what we picked up on.

x Or perhaps we were disappointed by parents who couldn’t show up for us in the ways we needed them to when we were children.  

Even if experienced only once, it makes sense that we would come to the (unconscious) conclusion: It’s too painful to feel disappointed so I must avoid it in any way I can.

And so we built our internal villages to avoid ever feeling this ‘dangerous’ emotion again, even at a very high cost.

Yet what we resist, persists. Again, Brené Brown: 

“When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t go away; instead, they own us, they define us.”

Being Willing to Feel Disappointed

Instead of being unconsciously ‘defined’ by avoiding disappointment, I want to suggest something that may seem counterintuitive: 

While never easy to feel, disappointment can actually be a very wise guide.

The etymology of the word disappointment comes from the old French desapointer: dis- reverse, opposite of + appointer - to appoint, which is a form of choosing. So literally the old French desapointer means to un-appoint or as I interpret it, to un-choose.

So I see the role of Disappointment Villager in our internal villages as simply telling us that something in our current reality is not working for us and that we may need to un-choose in some way. 

This un-choosing does not mean having to completely give up or let go. It isn’t an all or nothing thing. What it might be signalling is that something in our current reality has not worked out, and this could be an expectation, a belief, a dream, an ideal, a part of ourselves or a way of doing things.

Disappointment says nothing about our value as a human. In fact, if we are open to life, and fully experiencing the messiness of being human, if we are putting ourselves out there and opening our hearts, then disappointment is inevitable and unavoidable because we can’t control everything.

The Gap

Imagine walking along a path. At some point you look around and realise: This isn’t where I want to be. Something isn’t right.

There’s a gap between where you are and where you want to be, or had hoped to be.

Hello, Reality vs Expectation.

Allowing disappointment can look like: 

x Stop. Allow yourself to feel disappointed without resistance. After all, it is not your enemy, simply a messenger with some important information. Hello, Disappointment.

x Take stock of the current situation with curiosity (not judgement). What is this feeling telling me?

x Re-calculate: Un-choose what no longer works and re-choose what feels more aligned.

So disappointment steps in and helps us admit the current reality is not working in some way. It allows us to be honest about our reality IF we can avoid going into blame or wallowing, which can actually be a way of avoiding the more difficult task of taking responsibility.

It helps us take stock of the situation: What isn’t working for me here? What part of this am I disappointed about?

It helps us re-connect to values and re-calculate how to keep moving towards them, like a GPS: What does this tell me about what really matters to me? How else can I keep moving towards these values, perhaps in a different, more realistic way? Do I need to adjust my expectations? Do I need better boundaries or self-care? Do I need to admit that the current reality does not meet my needs and adapt in some way? Do I need to walk away?

Disappointment allows us to land in reality with a thump: This is where you are. Stop. Take stock. Re-evaluate.


Afterall, as Psychologist Les Greenberg says: "You can't leave a place until you've arrived."

By doing this, disappointment helps us re-shape reality in a way that can be helpful, it helps us figure out where we go next.

For example, disappointment may tell me: There is a gap between my desire for intimacy and connection and my actual relationship. This does not mean getting rid of my values around intimacy and connection. It does not even necessarily mean letting go of the relationship. When I can allow myself to sit with disappointment, I find that on the other side are creative solutions, new possibilities, new paths that I could not see before listening to disappointment.

So I might decide to do something different to create more opportunities for intimacy. I might talk to my partner. I might decide to look for this more outside the relationship. I might work on my own capacity for intimacy. I might question whether my expectations are realistic.

Disappointment is not the end of the path. It’s simply a necessary stop that can help us take stock, un-choose what doesn’t work and re-choose what feels more aligned. 

By being willing to feel disappointment instead of trying so hard to avoid it, we dare more, risk more, and open our hearts more - knowing that if things don’t work out, it’s OK.

When we can see disappointment as just information that can help us to un-choose and re-choose, we no longer need to build our lives in an attempt to avoid it.

A reality check

I think we all have unrealistic expectations of life, of ourselves and of other people, and this gap between our expectations and the reality of life and what it means to be a messy human can lead to a lot of unnecessary suffering.

David Richo outlines these five core challenges that we all face yet are often in denial of:

Everything changes and ends.

Things do not always go according to plan.

Life is not always fair.

Pain is part of life.

People are not loving and loyal all the time.

These are the core challenges that we all face. But too often we live in denial of these facts. We behave as if somehow these givens aren’t always in effect, or not applicable to all of us. But when we oppose these five basic truths we resist reality, and life then becomes an endless series of disappointments, frustrations, and sorrows.” - David Richo, The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them

Everything is My Fault

“We can actually reconstruct our past by examining what we think, say, feel, expect, believe, and do in an intimate relationship now.” - David Richo, When the Past is Present

It’s my fault. I’m to blame. Feelings of guilt or shame. Feeling overly responsible for everything. Feeling like doing what I want hurts others and / or leads to them rejecting me.

If this feels familiar to you, perhaps you grew up in a family where you had to unfairly carry a parent’s emotions, needs or expectations.

One of the roles of the caregivers is to help the child get to know their own internal village of thoughts, emotions, needs. This allows them to feel they are separate individuals, that they are allowed to have their own emotions, needs and desires and that they are not responsible for their parent’s well-being - their emotions needs and desires.

This ideal scenario can sometimes get distorted, and one of the most common ways this happens is when the child is made to feel overly responsible for what is happening in one or both of the parents’ villages.

This injustice can happen in overt ways by a parent who says / does things like:

It’s your fault I’m upset.

I’ve made all these sacrifices for you, you’re so ungrateful!

Shame on you!

You’ve made mum angry again, you’re a bad child!

If you don’t do this, I’ll be sad / disappointed

If you loved me, you would…

Being scapegoated.

And it can also be a lot more subtle, not so much in what is said, but in what is felt and concluded on an unconscious level by an often sensitive child:

When I do something I want to do that mum doesn’t approve of, she looks angry / sad / disappointed.

I can’t disappoint mum the way dad does.

Dad looks so proud when I do what he expects of me! I need to suppress my own desires and do what he wants of me.

Everything is so tense all the time, I should be able to fix things!

Mum is so fragile I am afraid she will break if I express my needs or emotions. I must become needless.

attachment vs individuality

We have a strong biological drive for attachment, in the same way all mammals do. A child knows on a deep primal level that they cannot survive on their own, without their caregivers to meet their (physical) needs.

Yet we also have a need to be our own person, to inhabit our own village: this is the need for individuality, authenticity, a sense of self.

If both aren’t possible, if a child doesn’t feel they can be themselves and still be cared for, then attachment always wins because it is about survival. Individuality / authenticity is suppressed in order for the child to adapt to the caretaker and stay in attachment.

Until about the age of about 10, children tend to blame themselves for any forms of mistreatment or injustice that happens to them because it is inconceivable for them to blame the people they rely on for their physical survival.

I must have done something wrong. It must be my fault. I am a horrible person. I am not enough.

It’s my fault becomes the default.

this spills into adulthood

Experiencing situations like this creates a distorted view of reality, where as adults we feel overly responsible for other people’s villages - and are particularly sensitive about our ‘impact’ on them, fearing our choices might harm others.

This dynamic spills over into adult relationships, as our ‘blueprint’ for what to expect from relationships has been formed from childhood.

It leads to adults who feel they are doing something wrong by doing what is best for them, especially if it goes against others’ expectations of them.

It leads to adults who sacrifice their own needs to take care of others.

It leads to adults constantly apologising for everything, whether or not it is actually their fault.

It leads to adults who dare not take risks or try new things because they might be blamed for failing - or blame themselves (that parent is now an inner critic).

It leads to adults who feel too powerful in some ways: Who feel they have the power to ‘destroy’ someone with their choices or emotions, because this is what they experienced growing up.

At the same time, they may feel powerless to state their needs because they believe that doing what’s best for me hurts others, disappoints them, infuriates them and then I am no longer safe or I feel even worse.

It leads to adults who feel overly responsible for others and will put up with unacceptable behavior because they ‘should’ be able to fix others or take care of them. This is often a pattern in abusive / manipulative relationships.

It leads to adults who are afraid of commitment because they feel that the impact they have on others could be harmful, or have learned that relationships = manipulation.

It leads to adults who try really hard to be beyond reproach, to be a good person and do the right thing because deep down they believe there must be something wrong with them or they must be bad if their parents blamed them. This often means holding themselves at impossibly high standards. 

Above all, it leads to a constant sense of guilt, of doing something wrong when doing what is actually right for us.

healthy guilt vs leftover guilt

If you can relate to some of this, it’s important to recognise that it probably makes sense given what you experienced growing up that this feeling of responsibility is there, and that you may often feel leftover guilt, especially when you do what you think is best for you.

It is important to recognise that this is not the same as healthy guilt. Healthy Guilt is the internal police of the village that signals to us that we have done something that is not in line with our values.

Leftover guilt is the feeling of betraying or hurting our parents by doing what is best for us.

A good reality check when feeling guilt is to ask: Am I actually doing something wrong here (for example, by stating my needs, saying no, disappointing someone)? What would I say to a friend?

Unfortunately, Leftover Guilt is not going anywhere, even once we are aware of where it comes from. It has become a default, like a well-worn path in the woods we have walked many, many times.

What we can learn to do instead is start to create a new path, by questioning Leftover Guilt, not taking it as The Truth About Us and no longer allow it to take over the village. We can learn to make decisions based on our values instead.

reality check: a few points

You are not doing anything wrong by doing what is best for you, even if other people don't get it or agree with you.

You can't change someone's else's behavior or make them happy by erasing yourself. You are entitled to your needs and emotions, even when others don't approve or understand them.

We do not have the power to ‘break’ others by simply standing up for ourselves or taking care of ourselves. If they ARE hurt by this, it’s OK. It’s not on you. They are adults and it is their responsibility to take care of their own emotions. You were never meant to carry this burden.

Sometimes others get hurt when we go after the things we want because they have specific exceptions of who we should be. Yet as an adult, only we can be the judge of our own experience. Their expectations and disappointment belong to them.

You are allowed to make mistakes: Life is a learning process. 

Be kind to yourself the way you would be to a friend and give yourself time to heal. Choose to see the Leftover Guilt as a genius survival adaptation that allowed you to survive your childhood instead of something to get rid of (because that isn’t possible!).

Learn to become the accepting, loving parent to yourself that you didn’t feel you had as a child as you go through this process. 

Getting to know your own village, perhaps for the first time, is not always an easy process, yet it is also growth-filled and fulfilling one.

Find out more:

Dr Gabor Maté has this excellent short video on choosing attachment over authenticity.

On boundaries

On responsibility / power

On The Village

These books by Dr Lindsay Gibson