Re-Contextualizing Trauma Differently: How this Crone now parents her child
For those of us for whom the WEL-Systems® paradigm and it's body of knowledge have become a way of life, we viscerally grok the power of the conversations. For many who are new to the Institute and it's offerings, what we do is not so evident; however, who we have become after engaging the process while inviting and allowing the context of godForce to emerge as Truth is evident. It really is not about the labels of "trauma" -- is about engaging our lives differently so that we might see the genius that our kids carry... and communicate with us.
Transformation does not come from knowing more information intellectually; transformation into our Higher Selves only becomes available when we discover how to let go ... of the old so we make room for the new. Not so easy, yet imperative for those of us whose lives were at stake had we not discovered a different process to engage when our habits were killing us.
Below is a written testimonial shared with me by a woman who came into my corner of the world through the "New Ways in Chaotic Times: Reclaiming the Power of the Crone". She delved right in to the BIG conversation, because she was hungry ... and quite frankly, desperate.
I invite you to read her incredible story below. While she has chosen to remain annonymous for the safety of her daughter, she is happy to share her story with you today so that you might choose a different process to engage in your own life.
(*please note: the emphasis on the text are all mine)
I entered the crones conversation last year as a new mother with a 8 year old child who was really struggling in her new life. I was really struggling. I had read all the books, had therapists coaching me on how to set up firm boundaries /consequences with the message that if I didn't get control of my daughter now that we would be living in chaos. I learned all kinds of strategies to do this and I took all the courses to understand developmental trauma.
At home I had a child who was grieving so many losses where she had absolutely no say in any of it. Huge massive behaviours and a lot of unprocessed experiences. All of her experiences wired into her nervous system became patterns recreating in her life, even her new one.
Nothing was "working".
Even when I forced my body to be calm (bracing against the chaos triggered in me) and put on a gentle voice while doing it while preforming the strategies I learnt, my daughter knew in her body my expression wasn't authentic. My energy didn't match what I was expressing. She felt this everywhere, in school, with family and everywhere we went. Her energy intensified in her body everywhere desperately seeking to be seen.
My process in the crone yearlong conversation led me to a place of internal referencing.
I discovered that by getting curious about what I was seeing out there was actually reflective of aspects of myself in me. The maiden me, saw so many aspects of self in my daughter. Ones that were stored so deeply and kept dormant from the all of the cultural rules and expectations I took on as reality along the way.
It wasn't until I explored myself, that I could see my daughter from a more present lens. I started to see it all so differently.
What was originally a problem to solve was shifting into an inner journey of never ending emerging that I eventually learnt to start embracing and value. At the time I feared if I wasn't focusing on her to help, and focusing instead on my own reflections that I wasn't going to actually help her or change our reality.
I later discovered that was the necessary shift to actually change anything out there. I was very resistant to that for awhile.
My daughters intense outwardly expressed rage, became my own fuel to heal those parts in me as a child that lived in a world that had many rules of how we express and show up in our world. She is the brilliant trigger, WEL-Systems is the new context to know a different process, and slowly I have been giving myself permission to feel it all again with power to finally allow my body to open and metabolize as oppose to experiencing it tears and a sad story.
This was the process of becoming crone.
Surrender, focusing inside and letting go of the outcome in the presence of intense chaos out there. Letting go of any form of demand parenting including the set rules and consequences.
Prior to this I was heavy in the goddess. I was determined to change the systems to make space for my daughter. I directed my fire straight at what I viewed was wrong with facts and determination for them to "get it". I had a team of social workers who got it and backed me up. Nothing changed. My daughter didn't feel safe at school. The school was not willing to let go of their expectations despite the accommodations they were willing to make. They viewed her as needing intensive therapy to fit into this world. There was no authentic presence there to engage their own inner experience while being triggered by daughters' energy moving. When I started becoming more of what I wanted them to do/be while being in her presence all day ( because she was no longer in school) things changed so fast.
This year-long conversation was an ongoing process to take a dive into a completely new context of how to experience it all. Slowly through each conversation, through each wave of processing what was coming up for me in my truth of it, I learnt to trust my truth and the power it held despite the conditioned rules I was taught that created the contradiction to not own it. Stela was there coaching me to own it with massive honor and respect in the sharp edges it presented as.
At home my daughters aggression and rage shifted dramatically as I continued to open more space in myself while in her presence. She is doing amazing with homeschooling and has fun learning with an online tutor. She can now share her truth of her experience with me. Even when that truth is very different then mine or would appear “rude” to some. Control is integrating into a massive respect for each others process and experience. I no longer am interested in strategies to create an outcome with her.
Yet I also know the strategies present from a more authentic place in me when they do. When my daughter has a flood of information moving in her body, I have a choice available to pause and claim what's moving in mine and see it as pure genius and evolution in the moment. I can create boundaries from a more aligned space in me that helps us both have our wants met as oppose to boundaries from a predetermined set of rules. She feels seen, heard and valued as the incredible little godforce that she is because I am choosing to see myself as one.
No one tells you what to do with what moves in us. Talking about it might soothe it back into hibernation but the patterns of its energy signature always recreate again in my experience. Some place, some time, some way. I know this to be true in my own experience while noticing.
I am reentering this crones conversation because I have experienced how powerful it is. This time I enter with a very different knowing from last years exploration. I know through my own experience how fast my life has changed out there when I can take a deep dive in here in a space that exceeds the current cultural conditioning. This space has become sacred to me. I have not yet found them anywhere else.
Stela is a brilliant leader. She shows up in the full immensity of her whole self and is so committed to living this process as she gets curious about her own life and her own inner world. She models it out loud and shares from that place as she educates on a very beautiful way to move through a chaotic world.
A crone is a very powerful woman and there is no external reference to teach you what she is, you discover her through the process, she sees everything as brilliant (even if that's not her current programmed reality in that moment), she trusts the power of surrender and honoring what moves in the body and learns to give permission to the mind to step aside for a bit, she claims it all as hers without shame and using the story as the ignition starter and then letting it go to allow the body to do the rest, knowing it's only information that when processed becomes new thoughts and realities in our outer worlds.
The crone is never complete as long as she is alive. Her chaos becomes her best friend as she spreads her wings really wide and creates a life that is really worth living full of energy and vitality, even in moments that can take your breath away for a short time. She knows it is those moments that create more.
Beautiful way to live. Parenting from this place of crone, is a very different experience and I am committed to keep diving deep into my own crone as I continue to unpack and reclaim what comes up as I go, even if I forget who I am, I know Stela can remind me again.
Thank you Stela, your ability to be crone while embracing all of the layers in you that come up in your life unapologetically and out loud, has created an invitation for myself that has completely shifted my trajectory 180-degrees.
And..... there is always so much more and it's never done. So that’s exciting. Can’t wait to see what else is possible for my little family.
RESOURCES to expand your mindset
Ready to delve deeper for yourself? Download “Cultural Crones: The power of permission” – a FREE resource from the WEL-Systems® Institute with over six hours of listening time. This is for you if you are to become the Space within which potential can unfold.
