Guided by Spirit, One faithful step at a time, I am finding Peace. - Saoirse Charis-Graves
My friend, Nic Strack came up with and shared something they call the Potty Teaching Analogy for Building Self-Awareness. Something I find myself returning to again and again … like last night, standing at the kitchen sink grating carrots, when my brain suddenly saw in the rearview mirror the shenanigans I had been up to earlier when I had barfed my story and assumptions onto the girls “… oh yes, now I can see what I was up to …”
Based on a book they read when their kiddo was learning to use the potty, Nic, paralelled the 4 stages of potty teaching, to one’s self-awareness. Here it is …
Stage 1: No Awareness of the Thing. Just like when one is a baby, there is no awareness that one is going to the washroom. It happens, and without any awareness, one carries on.
Stage 2: Become aware AFTER. “Oh look, I did that thing.” Maybe it’s on the floor, or in my pants, but looking back in the rearview mirror we become aware after the fact.
Stage 3: Awareness WHILE it’s happening. “Oh, it’s coming out of me right now … I’m doing the thing!” In the moment there’s awareness of what you are doing.
Stage 4: Awareness BEFORE it happens. There’s a space of time between knowing what will happen and it happening, a moment of recognition and awareness, “I’m right about to do it.”
I think whenever anything is presented in stages, the inclination (when one lives in a culture that praises and encourages perfection and achievement) is to see it as a hierarchical structure of better and best to which we hold ourselves to, instead of an invitation to different possibilities. As if, now that I know or am more aware, I should be at Stage 4 … all the time.
It’s not linear. While I more often find myself aware of what I’m up to in the moment (I’ll be saying something and then go “Oh look at me what I’m doing”) or will notice bodily sensations and mental stories before I act on them … a lot of times, like last night, I see things in the rear view mirror.
“Mom,” Ella said, in some honest, exasperated truth telling yesterday, “you teach us all of these ways to be in relationship with each other, and then you don’t do them!”
At one time, that would have been very hard for me to hear … fear of some future date where they, as adults, tell me all of the ways I messed up. For so long, this resulted in me policing myself, striving for some ideal way of being with the girls, instead of showing up fully, wholly, humanly as me, with regard for my capacity and humanness.
“Yep, Ella,” I answered her genuine noticing, “you’re right… I agree. I’m learning with you. Thanks for naming that …”
I constantly remind myself there is no there or arrival point to strive to achieve in any aspect of life, but a returning again and again to each moment, me being me as I am, with you as you are.
The girls and I have been playing in these writing books lately, where we each take a turn writing part of the story. Back and forth we pass the books, unsure of what the other is going to bring to the story.
Going along with my part of the story, a plan appears in my mind, I even guess or assume I know what the other might contribute, as I set it up to go just so and pass it off thinking all will go just as I think it should.
And then … you hand it to the other, and they take it in a completely different direction you could have never imagined. Not uncommon for it to be potty themed as well. I pause for a long while, re-orienting and to this new story. Now what …? You have to pivot and readjust the story to what is now right in front of you, not the story you had in your mind. Often the story doesn’t even have any ending, never mind one that makes any sense.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, in regards to being in relationship with one another …
How often do I have a story in my mind about another, assuming or wanting a specific ending or make assumptions that I know how they’ll show up?
What might be possible when I relate to others (even those I think I “know” very well) as they are and what they’ve got in each moment?
Do we leave space and room for others to surprise us? And when that surprise arrives, how do I react if it’s not what I wanted? What now? How do I take care of myself, without needing them to be different?
Where do I expect others to give me the ending that I desire instead of showing up with whatever they’ve got in that moment? How might I approach these as possibilities or invitations, not as wrong?
What might be possible when I release the desire for clear ending or outcome that makes sense to me, and instead lean into a continued discovery of self and other?
Where do I want to control more than I want to know you or be open to possibilities?
And …
Where do I show up with what I’ve got in that moment or do I hold myself to the story of me… of what is assumed or expected, the shoulds versus bringing my full self into the room?
Where do I control or police myself instead of being known as I am?
“So,” I said to the girls late last night, all five of us curled on beds and on the floor, kittens cuddled alongside us, I reminded them of the potty teaching analogy. “I see in my rearview mirror what I was up to. I sure got up to some shenanigans earlier when I spewed my story onto all of you and made assumptions instead of taking care of what was mine.”
In the past, I would have apologized, assuming, once again, of how they experienced it and my impact. Instead I asked … “Do you have anything around that? Is there anything you need?”
Right away, the girls ribbed, “yup, you sure did Mom,” knowing exactly the moment from earlier in the day, naming it being enough.
There is such beauty in this compassionate return to each other, again and again. Me as I am, with you as you are.
“Don’t worry,” Clara seriously added her voice to the conversation, still thinking about the potty teaching, “Usually a shower helps to clean everything up.”
Beloved human, I desire the pleasures and consequences of knowing you. When I get congruent and strip away all the strategies and antics, I am most often left with my desire to connect, to know another as they are, to be known as I am, as much as this is possible given the complexities and limitations of skin and words and senses. I cannot know you without you. I cannot know (or be known) without me. James-Olivia Chu-Hillman
Until Tomorrow …
N
(un)becoming ... with wonder & possibility 