Tag: shedding

Autumn: A Time for Reflection and Shedding

The Health Story Collaborative sponsors a monthly, online Creative Meetup for people anywhere in the world who are experiencing chronic illness or disability.  The Meetup via Zoom is facilitated and is designed to enable participants to spend time writing while in a supportive community and, in the process, “to access and release our emotions, personal stories, and creative spirits”.  The Health Story Collaborative was created by Dr. Annie Brewster, author of The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma and Loss.

During our Creative Meetup session in September, Jennifer Harris (our facilitator) guided us in reflecting on Autumn and the significance of the season in terms of harvesting and shedding.  By way of stimulus, Jennifer quoted Mary Oliver’s Fall Song and the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall”.  This led to a session for our creative writing around the themes of “harvesting” and “shedding”.

Autumnal reflections

The four seasons of the year are often used to represent times of transition.  Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – “four violin concerti giving musical expression to a season of the year” – epitomises the seasonal transitions we can observe in temperature, the migration of birds, changes in landscapes and in human behaviour.  Autumn is associated with harvesting, the gathering of food and growing fur by animals to prepare for the impending winter and significant temperature/weather changes.  Many cultures celebrate the arrival of autumn with rites and rituals, especially the Autumnal Equinox (when day and night are equal in length) occurring at the start of Fall (Autumn). 

Autumnal rites and rituals often signify change and harvesting.  In Japan, the National Autumnal Equinox holiday is a time dedicated to paying respect to “deceased parents, grandparents, and other family members”.  In India, Autumn is a time of cleansing.   There are various rituals involving shedding to reflect the falling of leaves and regeneration during this season.

Reflections on harvesting

Harvesting is a time of reaping what you have sown.  Our reflections focused on the metaphorical meaning of harvesting in terms of abundance or achievements realised throughout the year.  We were asked to reflect on blessings we experienced, tending/nurturing received, projects accomplished, and personal growth.  Associated with these reflections was encouragement to express gratitude for what we had harvested in our personal life.

I noted the following in terms of my “harvest” during the 2024 year:

  • Joined the Creative Meetup group of the Health Story Collaborative and participated in the monthly sessions
  • Integrated the themes and discussion of the Meetups into my blog posts
  • Wrote poems that reflected the themes of the Meetups and related blog posts – giving creative expression to my feelings
  • Conceived and structured a book on management – for co-authoring with my colleague (co-facilitator of 80 longitudinal manager development programs, conducted over 16 years)
  • Organised a publisher for our book and signed a contract for assisted self-publishing
  • Completed the first draft of 20 chapters of our book on management
  • Wrote the following posts exploring ways to express gratitude and sharing my gratitude for what I have experienced and am experiencing:

In our discussion of harvesting we acknowledged that it was okay to “harvest less”, given that all participants in the Meetups are people suffering from chronic illness or disability who often experience setbacks in their recovery.

Reflections on Shedding

During autumn we can observe the trees and plants shedding their leaves and fertilising the soil with the decaying material – death generates new life.

There are many things that we can shed if they are holding us back from realising our potential – e.g. identity, old beliefs or expectations.  During the Creative Meetup I became aware of the unrealistic expectations I was placing on myself in terms of output for my co-authored book on management.  The expectations were not coming from my co-author who is currently consumed by her caring role for an ill relative.  The expectations are my own – setting a timeline and trying to determine a daily output. 

What I realised is that my personal output expectations needed to be shed in the light of the continuous disruption I am experiencing in relation to health-related issues and medical testing.  I have been losing momentum in my writing because of the continuous need to undertake important health-related tasks. I have to accept that this is my current situation and shed my expectations about high levels of output in my writing.  I have already changed my expectations of the frequency with which I produce a blog post.  However, to date, I have failed to adjust my expectations concerning writing my co-authored book.

My participation in the Creative Meetup with the focus on the autumnal shedding theme, highlighted the need for me to shed my current expectations about output for our book in order to create the freedom and space for other important things such as maintaining good health and my connections with family and friends. 

Reflection – a poem

The seasons can help us to grow in mindfulness by enhancing our observation of what is changing around us and cultivating gratitude for what we have experienced and achieved.  Autumn promotes reflection on what we have harvested and what we need to shed.   I wrote the following poem to reflect the process of shedding:

Autumnal Shedding

Autumn leaves falling softly
Silently seeking the soil.
Shaken from their anchor
Shrivelled, shrunken, distorted shapes.
Shedding, signalling rebirth
Death begets new life.
New growth, new possibilities
Transcending the past.

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Image by Sven Lachmann from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Shedding an Identity

In a previous post, I discussed surrendering to the process of shedding old beliefs.  There are also times when we need to shed an identity or an aspect of one of our identities.  In this context, identity relates to the way we conceive of ourselves as being different to others – it can encompass a set of specific skills or trade (e.g. an architect); a level of achievement in sport, art or literature (e.g. a writer); and/or represent identification with a particular group such as a cultural or ethnic group.  There are times, however, when assuming an identity ceases to work for us owing to outside influences, often beyond our control.

Elite sportspeople, for example, who suffer a career-ending injury are confronted with the need to reframe their identity.  Others may find that chronic illness or a disability makes it impossible to pursue the activities that they once saw as part of their identity.  It may mean that they can no longer teach, write or act in the theatre, so they need to rethink how they define themselves or suffer ongoing frustration and, potentially, depression.   People who suffer from the debilitating effects of Long Covid often find that they can no longer entertain an identity that has been a large part of their life – brain fog, fatigue, inability to concentrate and endless pain can preclude activities that they once saw as part and parcel of how they viewed themselves and their capability.

Shedding an identity is a long but rewarding process

 Shedding an identity takes time and self-care.  It involves acknowledging a declining competence, recognising a loss of self-efficacy and a need to address self-esteem issues.  While there can be residual elements of an identity retained in the event of major life changes, there needs to be acceptance that you are no longer like you used to be in relation to the identity being shed.  The challenge is to handle the change not only at an intellectual level but also on an emotional and physical level, particularly where a life time of competence building has been involved.

However, the rewards of shedding an obsolete identity are a sense of freedom, the opportunity to pursue other creative outlets, and build a new sense of identity.  One participant in a recent Creative Meetup noted that leaving her corporate job (and related corporate identity and trappings) provided space for her to pursue her artistic talents – she indicated that it had felt very constraining to be “an artist in a corporate suit”.

A personal example of the process of shedding an identity       

I prided myself as an “A” Grade tennis player, having won a number of team competitions at that level.   I enjoyed the feeling of competence and control that I could gain from playing great tennis shots and winning games (including my own serve).  Associated with this identity was a sense of agility, speed and endurance over many games and sets of tennis.  I would pride myself for being able to chase down a drop-shot and play a winning shot from this position (I was a school champion sprinter in secondary school).

However, more recently I have been diagnosed with multi-level spinal degeneration, exercise asthma and arthritis in my “trigger finger” (used to hold the racquet firmly).  The combination of these disabilities means that I can no longer use my “first serve” without causing injury to my back (because of the need to bend sideways), no longer play singles tennis (as a result of the exercise asthma) or hit the ball hard for a sustained period (because of the pain from the arthritic finger).  I have also had to avoid net play to reduce the risk of falling or being hit in the face (where I have had multiple surgeries for skin cancers, including a melanoma – a vestige of playing summer competition in the Queensland heat).  The challenge for my self-esteem is that I have gone from being a tennis player that people want to partner because of my proven competence to an aged player that some people resent playing with.

Over many years I have built up my sense of self-efficacy in playing tennis by recalling good shots that I have played during a match.  I would go to sleep at night replaying different shots in my head.  The net result is that I have virtually a video-tape library stored in my head that I can sort by tennis shot (e.g., backhand, volley, lob) covering shots that I have played over many years in both competitive and social contexts.  The challenge to my self-esteem now is that while I can envision these shots, I can rarely execute them.  As an opponent said on one occasion when I missed while playing a top-spin forehand shot down the sideline, “You must be playing from memory”.  He was right, but little did he know that I had spent many hours by myself just practising that shot when I was younger.

So I have had to make adaptions including shedding the image of being a very competent “A” Grade tennis player.  My adaption has involved making changes at three levels:

1. Mental
  • Giving up the goal of winning each shot/game (I no longer have the “weapons”)
  • Focusing on achieving shots that surprise my opposition as well as my partner (because of residual skills associated with my original tennis identity, e.g., being able to play different spin shots, able to “read the play”, sound positioning on the court, and an array of shots that I have learned and practised over more than 60 years).  The ingrained skills acquired through conscious effort have enabled me to retain the capacity to play instinctive shots in some situations (shots that I have never practised but just do intuitively in a rally, e.g., backhand, half-volley lob).
2. Physical
  • No net play or running down drop shots
  • No smashes or first serves
  • No lengthy rallies involving a lot of running
  • No singles play
  • No playing in daylight (because of UV radiation and the risk of more skin cancers/melanomas)
3. Emotional
  • Overcoming the worry about what people ‘think” in terms of my tennis prowess (or lack of it)
  • Being able to rise above my mistakes when playing tennis
  • Dealing with my tennis partner’s expectations and/or disappointment
  • Coping with the frustration of not being able to play a shot that I used to play with ease.

Reflection

Shedding an identity is a multi-layered affair that takes time – sometimes it is two steps forward and one backward, particularly on the emotional level.  At least I am only dealing with an identity in a recreational/sporting arena.  A lot of people are dealing with shedding an identity (or multiple identities) that are core to who they perceive themselves to be, and by how they are recognised by others.

Progressively shedding the identity of a competent “A” Grade tennis player has made room for me to develop a new creative outlet in the form of poetry.   Over the past few months, I have written at least eight poems of reasonable length that have caused one observer to comment, “You are a talented poet” – so something lost, something gained.   This provides a new arena for me to build a new sense of competence and self-efficacy – by writing poetry and researching this writing genre as I have done through books such as Kim Rosen’s book, Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words.

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, writing, and sharing in community, we can develop new creative outlets, build stronger emotional regulation and develop resilience to manage life’s challenges and setbacks that lead to the need to shed an identity.

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Surrendering to the Process of Shedding Old Beliefs

There are times when we have to shed something of ourself that we hold dear – our beliefs, our self-stories, or an aspect of our identity.   Sharon Salzberg, in her new book Real Life, describes this shedding process as “the movement from constraint, narrowness and limitation to openness, connection, and freedom”.   Shedding was the topic introduced by Jennifer Harris, the facilitator of our recent Creative Meetup.

Jennifer introduced the theme of shedding by sharing Harryette Mullen’s poem, Shedding Skin.  Harryette likens the process of shedding to stripping off “old scarred skin” and “sloughing off deadscales”.  In her view, it involves being open to vulnerability by “shedding toughness, peeling layers down”.   Jennifer also introduced the words of a song by Florence and the Machine in which she sings, “And in the Spring I shed my skin”.  These words from Rabbit heart (Raise Me Up) are interpreted to mean “shed timidity and become courageous”.

Shedding old beliefs

Neale Donald Walsch, in an interview with Kute Blackson for the Soul Talk Podcast, spoke at length about the challenge of giving up old beliefs.  He had been told by his father not to talk to black people because “they were trash”.  He sustained this belief for some time because he thought it would be disrespectful to challenge the authority of his parent.  However, his own life experience as a radio host caused considerable cognitive dissonance for him to the point where he had to shed his old belief about black people.  Neale found that when interviewing for his radio show the audience was predominantly black and he found that they were, in fact, “brilliant and incredible…nice human beings” and ended up having lunch with them and seeking a close friendship with one black person in particular.  He had to shed his old, wrong beliefs about black people to overcome his cognitive dissonance and sustain his relationships with members of his audience.

Neale also had to shed his beliefs about women (again taught by his father) – “women should take care of the house and kids and not being paid equally, not being as bright as men”.  This belief undermined his relationships with women and resulted in multiple failed marriages.  His beliefs about women were constraining, limiting and narrow.  It took regular relationship crises for him to challenge his beliefs and to learn to behave differently in his relationships with women.  So, disconfirming evidence and/or life crises can lead to shedding wrong or outdated beliefs.

However, some people continue to maintain firmly held beliefs despite disconfirming or conflicting evidence and will defend them with overt or covert aggression.  I learnt this at my own expense when I was a young manager in the 1980’s.  I participated in a national conference for State Managers of Training held by the Australian Taxation Office in Canberra.  At one stage in the process, an Assistant Commissioner of Taxation (2IC) joined us to provide moral support for the Central Office Training Team (who were “under fire” from the State representatives for trying to centralise all training).  During the Assistant Commissioner’s presentation, I politely challenged his statement that “The Taxation Office is at the forefront of technology in Australia.”  I explained that at a State level the opposite was true – in fact we were years behind the private sector at the time.  I was publicly abused for my challenge to his firmly held belief (which, while no longer true, was true in the 1960s and early 1970s).  His abuse was so memorable that I was stopped in the street 10 years later by a participant from another State who recalled the “abuse”.

I also learnt again painfully that people in authority can protect their beliefs by covert aggression as well as overt aggression   When I was an academic, I was introducing action learning into my university and using it as a basis for my PhD research.  My Dean opposed my endeavours by trying to prevent my appointment as a tenured academic as well as my overseas travel for a World Congress on action learning in Colombia (I was a member of the international organising committee).  He eventually prevented my promotion to a Senior Lecturer – in the feedback afterwards, telling me that “you had the best application [because of my experience and rating as a teacher], but you are using a non-mainstream approach in your PhD research”.  Action learning promotes the view that we are all “personal scientists” building expertise through life experiences and reflection on our experiences – a position that conflicted with my Dean’s belief in the expert role of academics and the role of Universities as being the “repositories of all learning”.  In consequence, he used covert aggression to try to prevent my academic advancement.

Shedding self-stories

Negative self-stories can develop through the influence of our parents, teachers, peers or colleagues.  These self-stories can shape our beliefs about ourself and our worth and influence our behaviours in the face of difficulties and life’s challenges.  Negative self-stories can arise through traumatic experiences and are often at a sub-conscious level.  Self-beliefs such as “I’m not good enough” can arise from behavioural messages of parents (e.g. through neglect, constant criticism, or extended absences).  The “need to please disease” as a hidden motivator can also arise from a belief that “I’m not lovable” and “I have to be nice to be liked and not rejected”.

It is difficult to overcome adverse childhood experiences that are often behind negative self-beliefs.  Tara Brach suggests that mindfulness practices (such as mantra meditation, writing and reflective conversations) can help us to loosen false beliefs about ourselves.  She offers a process for investigating and challenging false beliefs about ourself.   She argues that as we grow in mindfulness we can develop the self-awareness necessary to enable us to identify our habituated behaviour and to name and challenge our false beliefs.  In the process, we can loosen the hold of our false self-beliefs, restore our energy and engage more positively and creatively in everyday life.

Surrendering to the process of shedding

Participants in our recent Creative Meetup discussed the difficulty of letting go of old beliefs.  They suggested that the process takes time, patience and self-compassion.  They discussed the movement from the pain of shedding to the realisation of potential.  They suggested that the process of taking on new beliefs is uncomfortable, moving from the known to the unknown. 

The rewards of surrendering to the process of shedding beliefs were valued and highlighted.  They talked about “a new way of seeing”, removal of blinkers, experiencing release and empowerment, and accessing a “deeper self” and a “a new way of being”.  The challenge of surrender is real, but the rewards are great.

Tara Brach, with Jack Kornfield and colleagues, offers an online course, Power of Awareness, that is designed to help us “break free from negative thoughts” to realise balance, peace and joy.  They offer a mindful approach to achieving a quiet mind by bringing awareness and self-compassion to our “inner dialogue”.   I have undertaken this course and found it highly beneficial.

Reflection

Lulu & Mischka in their mantra meditation, Metamorphosis, capture the essence of surrendering to the process of shedding.  They encourage us to “keep letting go”, “trust in the process”, relax into the present and “stop resisting”.  If we can do this through mindfulness practices such as reflection and mantra meditations we can achieve healing and a metamorphosis that will enable us to spread our wings and fly higher.  This exhortation resonates with Sharon Salzberg’s encouragement to move from constraint to freedom, from narrowness to connection. from limitation to openness.  I have expressed these insights in the following poem:

Surrender to Shedding

There comes a time in our life when we have to shed old beliefs.
Slough off our limiting self-beliefs,
Remove constraints on our thinking,
Break down the barriers of our defence mechanisms,
Let go and stop resisting,
Surrender to the process of casting aside what no longer works for us.

The shedding process is painful.
Discomfort with the new,
Feeling lost,
Leaving behind the known,
Moving to uncertainty,
Open to anxiety.

The rewards of shedding are great.
Releasing from constraints and limitations,
Achieving a new sense of freedom,
Moving from pain to possibility,
Discovering a new creative self,
Flowing like a river, rediscovering “Flow”.

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Image by Jonathan from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.