There is a dueling going on, two sides meeting each other in conflict.
I feel my brother’s great resistance to stepping into a new arena, one that should strengthen his speaking abilities and make him more comfortable with himself.
I am not suggesting, (and in fact this wasn’t my idea in the first place but his to join Toastmasters,) that he join a group that will take away his self esteem, to tear down and rip apart who he is, but you would think so.
It is not a group that weakens your sense of self, but instead empowers your abilities to think on your feet.
Now here is what is even a more odd, he already can speak well on his feet, he gives speeches in his work to small groups of 20 or so, and he is a salesman doing an awesome job.
So, I am surprised as he is, that Toastmasters brought up this fear.
I read their intent, and it is to make you a better communicator and leader.
My brother already leads his own branch office, and he as I said can communicate well, so perhaps this isn’t what he needs.
His work is his area of expertise, and perhaps what they are asking is for you to be your self, an area that is right now under construction for him.
He can no longer define himself from a past that has just been revealed as trauma filled, and he isn’t fully whole, so he is in the land between, where he is still discovering who he is.
I bet if he went in there as a half built man he would blow them away with his insights.
It is not up to me to strong-arm him into going, I am just so puzzled as to his resistance.
When we talked last he said that he would prefer to go back to some of his unsavory past places than to attempt entering into this environment.
To me this is a trigger talking that wants to stay the same.
How often is it that abused women go back to the man who harms her, she feels safer with a fear she knows, than with a new fear.
I am wondering if this is the same with him!
He may be at another cross roads a fork in the road where he has to again decide which road to take.
We have to let go of who we are to become who we want to be….I believe Einstein said.
It is harder to let go than it is to grab on.
Letting go of an old fear definition is like parting with a limb.
It is who we are.
I suggested to him to walk backwards into places he ‘used to feel comfortable in’ and explore what was really going on there.
What he did and what was done to him.
When I really had to look closely at what my parents did to me, and then what I allowed to be done to me, I was able to see where I had it all wrong.
So maybe Toastmasters is not where he will find his answers, instead if he goes back to the places that are not good, but he felt good at, he can see what is upside down.
This is not an easy task to readjust your readings on fear, or to readjust your readings on love.
For what we love we should fear and what we fear we should love.
Toastmasters is only half of the problem, the other half, the opposite is where he may find the key.
He lost himself back there, he sold himself back there, he allowed others to victimize him self back there, maybe the answer is to see yourself being less then who you are.
I was mortified and horrified in my lack of caring for me, the ways that I never saw me in the picture. I am wondering if he would see the same.
See your self without your self.
How often are we silent for the other?
How often do we do this or that for the other?
To see your self whoring your self for others pleasure is an awful thing to see. I have said that I was a whore for love and peace, and I still stand by that today.
I allowed myself to be less for the peace and love from others.
No more.
May he find the place that steals him, may he find the leak in his life where he loses his sense of self, where his power drips away.
It is just one more hole in a damaged psyche that is seeking repairs. The fear is a signal that something has power over you.
As Bikram says, “If anyone can steal your peace, you are the loser.”
Peace is our birthright.
