Soma Flow

Completing the Past to Embrace Our New Identity

• Tabitha MacDonald • Episode 26

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Navigating the seas of change, I recently faced the tempest of redefining my identity both in the realm of my career and my personal life. It's a journey marked by resistance from past identities and the unexpected resurgence of old patterns, as an encounter with an ex-partner illustrated all too clearly. On the Mindful Love Podcast, we don't just talk about these life transitions; we live them, learn from them, and most importantly, share the raw truths behind them. Come with me as we examine the vital role of completion in personal growth and the courage it takes to set boundaries that honor our evolved selves.

Then, as we cast off the remnants of our old selves, we embrace the quest for a healthy, loving partnership and the profound insights gleaned from past relationships. This isn't just a narrative about moving on; it's a masterclass in ownership, boundaries, and the art of loving someone for who they are right now. I'll take you through the intimate process of my personal completion ceremony, inviting you to join me in this celebration of closure and rejuvenation. So, let's embark on this next chapter together, where we'll connect with intuition and empower our lives, one mindful step at a time. Thank you for allowing me to guide you through these transformative insights on the Mindful Love Podcast.

Are you ready to feel supported on your healing journey?  The Soma Flow Library of Healing is now available.  With a powerful meditations, hypnosis sessions and Superconscious Recodes to restructure your unconscious patterns, this is a must have tool to your journey back to you.  

About Tabitha
Tabitha MacDonald is an Intuitive Coach and Healer committed to helping people overcome their pain as fast as possible so that they can have the love, success, freedom and fulfillment they truly desire.

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Speaker 1:

Today. What I want to talk about is something very valuable that I learned recently the importance of completion. As we are growing and changing and become the new version of us, then there comes a time where we have to complete our old identity or an old creation. When we look at structure and the power of structure and the power of creative structure, we have an old way of being, maybe an old way of being in relationship or an old way of being in our career or our lives. Once that old way of being is no longer relevant to the person we are becoming, it's important that we complete it. There's a completion exercise that we use in coaching. The reason it's so important is because when we live in a creative orientation, it initiates this passive momentum in our lives. When we think about completion, it's really key in developing continued momentum.

Speaker 1:

I've been in this creative process of expanding the way that my massage clinic operates into more of an integrated mind, body, soul type work not just body work, but also integrating coaching and new energy modalities for a while. As I've been creating that, I've had to create new avenues with which to communicate and new ways in which to bring different healing arts into the clinic, also to realize that I want more freedom for my time and to go into the online market. As I've been shifting my identity, all of this old stuff has been coming up. I've also been shifting my identity around relationships and love. It was really interesting because I started getting a lot of momentum in my coaching business and in the programs I offer online. My old identity started creating resistance. It created resistance in the most interesting way. It was last November my ex, who I talked about in the very first podcast about the worst heartbreak of my life, called and said that she is just coming out of a really toxic, abusive relationship and asked if I knew anyone who needed a roommate and I immediately said oh, I do. I need someone to take over the downstairs bedroom. It would be great at how much extra rent.

Speaker 1:

And looking back, I realized I was in momentum and because I wasn't taking time to complete as I was moving, my old identity saw this big window into my life. I remember even saying to my friends I said, oh, better to the W no than the W don't. And I'm not saying she's the devil, like that's just a term, right. So it was. You know. My unconscious was saying I already know how to survive that person. I don't know how to survive someone new, so let's invite them in. And my intuition was a strong absolutely no way, don't do that. I didn't listen because I was so focused on recreating a problem that I already knew how to solve, because I had so many new creations in my life that I can now see that my unconscious was like oh my gosh, there's so many new things. Let's create an old problem that I already know how to solve and I already know how to survive, so that I can find some familiarity in the world. And so we agreed to have a move in with boundaries and some kind of like rules in place. You know, I said like this is a friendship and we're gonna put some boundaries around our relationship and just other things that I won't go into, to make sure that we're both safe and healthy. And you know, one of them was not dating anyone else while she lived here so that we could both feel safe. It's just awkward, right, you don't? We weren't there.

Speaker 1:

Over the last several months, I noticed a lot of my old behavioral patterns coming up and resurfacing, and a lot of those behaviors looked like being insecure, looking in the mirror and not liking who I saw giving up on my hopes and dreams, betraying myself With distraction and not completing any of the projects that I said or meeting any of the goals that I set out to accomplish. I realized that I was living in an old structure, not my new structure. I pulled myself right back into an old structure Of distraction, of lack of focus, of focusing on someone else. If only this person would do this, then I could feel this like ring true Of codependency. I started feeling worse and worse and I couldn't tell what was happening because I wasn't on the outside of it. I was too inside of it, I noticed, in my body, because my body started hurting all of the time and I started eating worse than drinking more and watching more TV and I Completely stopped going to the gym. I couldn't, just couldn't, figure it out because I wasn't taking the time To be honest with myself about what I was creating and the old me would have blamed my ex and been like still toxic, still emotionally abusive, it's all you. You fooled me again.

Speaker 1:

New me, who lives in a creative orientation and definitely takes responsibility for my creations, was like that's interesting. Why would I choose to recreate one of the most painful experiences of my adult life Because I was reliving it, the level of pain that I felt when certain things came to light, when our current situation was almost as intense as the original experience, and I was very grateful because I have the tools now to handle them and I worked through them. The most interesting part was why didn't I see it? Why didn't I stop it? I teach this for a living. I write courses that are great on this. Why didn't I see it? The only answer I could come up with was there was old programming that was still operating in my new structure that I didn't know about, and until you actually get put in a situation where that old programming comes to light, you don't really always see it. Also, I think the wound was still there and I think that, as much as I thought I healed that wound, I do believe that I covered part of the wound up and I never really actually healed it.

Speaker 1:

It was kind of seeping my energy under the surface and it came to a not so pleasant ending and there was a lot of boundary violations. And the interesting thing is is that I said you know, I have these boundaries and this is important to me and I knew how to construct the boundary, I knew how to speak the boundary and I knew how to hold the boundary, but I didn't know how to keep the boundary and to take action when the boundary line was crossed. Because the boundary line was crossed pretty quickly and instead of me taking swift action and saying, oh, I said, if this boundary was crossed we would have to terminate our living situation and move on, instead I just kept letting the boundaries be crossed, and that was on me because I didn't take the action I said I would. And then, when I look at my life in the bigger picture, this is actually a dysfunctional pattern that I've been playing out for a long time around boundaries not being safe and not being protected. And you know that does come from growing up with sexual abuse.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I think that a lot of people who've endured sexual abuse don't understand boundaries. We don't know how to put them up. We certainly don't feel safe holding people accountable to those boundaries and following through with the consequences. Saying that out loud is a little scary, because I never like to really own the fact that I have sexual trauma in my past, even though I have so much, but I feel like it's important for me to really discuss that right now, because there's a lot of people out there who don't understand why they have a hard time with boundaries and relationships and they've been a little scared to process through some old you know, or even to admit that they have sexual trauma. And I think that that is one of the biggest consequences of sexual trauma is lack of boundaries and also not to feel safe in your body.

Speaker 1:

And so when we're looking at our journey as a human and relationships, and especially the relationship that we have with ourself, it really forced me to take a look and go where am I not having boundaries with myself and where am I not holding myself accountable to those boundaries? You know I say I want this, you know, healthy body, but I'm not taking all of the action to create it. And I say I want this amazing online, beautiful business, but I'm not letting anybody know I have it. And you know I say I want this healthy, loving relationship, romantic partnership, but I moved in a person who I know I could never have that with. So I saw basically all of my dysfunctional patterns playing out in one big beautiful season. Finale is what I'm going to call it Because today this person moved out and originally there needed to be this kind of like fight, this disagreement.

Speaker 1:

Like you are wrong, I'm right, you hurt me, I'm the victim and as she was leaving today, I just I went up to her and I said I want you to know that I harbor no negative feelings towards you because I know I created this like I take full responsibility. I set boundaries up and I didn't hold either one of us accountable to them. I see you and have always seen you for who you are capable of being, not for who you are right now, and that's not fair and I didn't want to own my part of it. I wanted to blame her old patterns instead of seeing my old patterns for the truth of what they were. After she left and I really thought about this experience, I sat down and I did some neuro graphic work on it and then I did this beautiful completion exercise and with that I sat down and I really thought I'm going to properly complete this lesson and I'm going to really take the time to go. What did my unconscious need from this experience? Why did it create it again and think about how I can use those skills and talents and abilities that I developed through this experience for my next creation. And how can I move through this so quickly next time so that I become an emotional ninja?

Speaker 1:

Because I got swallowed up in pain. I got really swallowed up in pain the last week and a half. And here's the thing is I'm so proud of myself because the old version of me would not have allowed myself to feel any of the pain. I would have stored it for later. And it's funny because I do a lot of parts work and I was in a meditation and I saw all my old parts who had experienced this pain many times before with this person and other people, and they were like sorry, we didn't process the pain and we left it for you.

Speaker 1:

And I think of it kind of like emotional debt, like you know, when you don't have the money to do something and you put it all on a credit card and then future you not only has to pay off that credit card bill but all of the interest accrued especially if it was a high interest card, right, and so now you're paying for stuff you might not even have anymore. And I think that's true with emotional debt, because if we don't learn to process our pain in the moment. Then what happens is it gets stored in our body as like emotional debt, and the bigger the pain, the higher the interest rate. And so I could see all of the pain from the past relationships specifically with her in mind that I never allowed myself to fully process, because what I would do is the pain would get so great, I would just take her back and then I would make excuses for all of the behavior hers and mine and I would say, okay, let's just make this be over, so it doesn't hurt.

Speaker 1:

But what I did was I just stored all of that pain in my body and it came at a very high interest rate because in order for me to feel it all this week, I had to really stop what I was doing. I had to be in the pain and there was a lot of crying, there was a lot of meditation, there was a lot of release work and I did some somatic work and breath work, and I have so many tools in my tool basket now and I am so grateful to have a conscious community of people who I can turn to for help and vulnerability and for love and compassion and guidance and also honesty, who will tell me the truth, and of holding me accountable to the creations that I put in motion through my choices. I'm completing this relationship, and not specifically with this person, but with this relationship story that people betray you, that people will always manipulate you and that they can't be trusted. Because that was the story and the pattern that I was creating over and over again, even to the point of betraying myself, betraying my dreams, not holding boundaries to myself in order to make sure that those dreams were coming into the world. That's part of the completion process, and so, then, we want to refocus right.

Speaker 1:

Part of the completion experience is an opportunity to assess our creative process, and we can evaluate what worked and what didn't work, and how you might want to approach the next creation, and you will also be able to decide how true your end result is to you, whether or not you want to adjust what you go for in the future. And so I think, because I've been working on this end result of a healthy, loving romantic partnership, the universe tested my foundation to see hmm, how much do you really want it, and are you willing to let go of the old identity of someone who needs to be betrayed, of someone who only is around people that they can't trust, where boundaries are rejected instead of embraced, and I saw a lot of cracks in my foundation and I'm very grateful for it, because now what I've really learned is that I can't put a human being, another person, into the structure that I want to create, no matter how bad. I want to take everyone with me into the new house. I have to be willing and open to receive the new people who can live in that house with me safely. And how I've changed and this is question number two is really what have you changed?

Speaker 1:

Ownership I owned it this time. In the past, it was always. Why is this happening to me? Why do these people keep hurting me? And instead I thought, wow, why did I choose to create this again? And I sat and I listened with a lot of compassion and empathy, especially because growing up in a home where boundaries weren't even allowed, that's a skill that you have to learn. It's knowledge you have to obtain and not always good at it at first. I know that, and compassion for the learning process as well. And then you think about like what have you created? Number three is what have you created?

Speaker 1:

And what I created was another very toxic relationship structure with this person, not on them. I was equally involved in the toxicity of holding someone to a vision that wasn't true for them. Yet Maybe it's possible but that's not fair to do to people to hold them to who they're capable of being. I mean, it makes me a great coach because I can see you in your genius, without the dysfunctional patterns, but in relationship in the real world. It makes it challenging, because people want to be loved for who they are right now, not who they're capable of being. And I think that the same goes for ourselves, like we do want to hold ourselves in the creative structure of who we're becoming, but then we also sometimes need to go. Am I being that person? Am I taking the action? Am I having the feelings? Am I having the thoughts or am I still operating from my old structure? So it's taking that moment to really be honest with yourself about how you are being.

Speaker 1:

Number four is what are the old patterns, behaviors and results that you're finished with? And I think I mentioned this a moment ago. But I am done with believing that people will always betray me. I am done believing that betrayal needs to exist in relationships. I am done with old definitions of love that say love cannot exist in boundaries and that boundaries are restrictive and unfair and not safe, and I'm also leaving the behavior of trying to save everyone and take them with me on my journey. I still had a little bit of the hero of complex coming up of. I have so many tools, everyone will want them, and I'm so capable of helping so many people. Maybe I'll just you know. I'll just try to save everyone, and the truth is nobody needs saving. Everyone's already perfect exactly as they are. It's either they fit in the structure that you're creating or they don't. And it's not good or bad or right or wrong, it's just do the behaviors of this person fit into the structure of your life that you are creating? And for me that's a no. Also learning that my behaviors were also not fitting in the structure of the life that I was creating, and I wouldn't have seen them had I not had them reflected to me so beautifully.

Speaker 1:

Number five is to acknowledge yourself in your greatness and your humanness, and I love this because I am a human being and I am learning on my journey how to operate in safe, secure relationships, and I know the parts of me are terrified because they've never really known how to do that in a romantic relationship Because they weren't taught or modeled that growing up. And it's something that I really I'm passionate about creating and teaching other people how to create. And so I also recognize that I'm human and that I'm still learning and that when it comes to my own personal life, my dysfunctional patterns will always pop up and I can either choose to recreate them and learn from them and grow, or I can choose to complete them and be done with them. So the last question that we ask in the completion is what skills, insights, knowledge will you bring to your next creation and what are you going to create next?

Speaker 1:

I am going to be so okay with the boring stuff and the stuff that I don't want to do and the stuff that's not exciting, the stuff that's just consistent and study. That is a skill that I am developing, because when we have relationships that have a lot of chaos in them, we get addicted to the highs and lows of them and unfortunately, that addiction to the highs and lows transfers to other things in your life, like the scale. Oh, I like the high, I like the low, we like the journey. We like the back and forth Same with relationships, right, oh, I like the chaos of it. It makes me feel alive again. Or even in creating our businesses that we want to create or the wealth that we want to create we're health, any of it. When we're addicted to the highs and lows, we don't do the boring stuff in between to make sure that it's consistent and that it sticks. So that is probably the most important lesson that I'm going to take with me, and also the skill of being able to really recognize when I am not holding my boundaries and respecting them and holding people accountable for not living within the boundaries that I create in order for me to have healthy, loving relationships in my life.

Speaker 1:

And I'm excited to start this next chapter. I did a beautiful completion ceremony with myself earlier and I really, really feel clear and excited, like there's just this beautiful energy that seems to be ruminating in my energy channels right now, at the thought that this is now complete. So now, as I'm even speaking it and I'm recording this podcast episode, I can feel the energy shift in my body around, allowing my unconscious mind to complete it. It's almost like there was all these little parts inside of me that were dying for me to finally just say thank you. This lesson is complete Until next time. My name is Tabitha MacDonald and I just want to thank you for joining me on the Mindful Love Podcast today. If you're interested in working with me or learning how to harness the power of your own intuition so that you can lead a fully empowered life, please visit me at mindfullovelove.

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