Episode 24: The Courageous Act of Responsibility
One of the topics that is sitting with me from last week’s episode with Jeanell Greene is avoidance of responsibility; particularly in circumstances where mainstream society supports our stance. In this personal episode, I share a vulnerable story of the moment I stopped blaming others for my pain and found true freedom in my life by owning how I was showing up. My hope is that this story inspires you to stand in your power to do the real work of changing the status quo.
What’s in this episode for you:
The question that released me from being a victim in my life
How to determine what you can control and turn your focus inward
The process for courageously shifting from blame to standing in your power
Inspiration for what is possible when you own your life experiences
Tools for change:
To increase your awareness around taking responsibility, I encourage you to start with these change-making tools:
Identify an area in your life where you are feeling victimized or taken advantage of, and ask yourself: what is the story I’m telling myself in this moment?
Spend some time journaling around the question: “How am I showing up when I believe this story to be true?”
Need a supportive circle to grow your change-making skills with? Reach out and ask about our upcoming programs: hello@humconsulting.ca
Check out the upcoming Stepping Into Your Essence Retreat happening on Feb 5th, 2022: https://www.lindamackie.ca/2021-stepping-into-your-essence
Gary Zukav and Linda Francis, Seat of the Soul Institute: https://seatofthesoul.com/
Poem:
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Pick up the talking piece:
What came up for you as you listened to this episode? I'd love to hear your experiences with any of the reflections and exercises. Send me an email at podcast@humconsulting.ca or leave a voicemail (click the voicemail button on the right).
Transcript: (Some words may not be accurately recorded. Please let us know if something seems off.)
[00:00:00] Ame-Lia: Change begins from within. As easy as it is to look outside of ourselves and want the world to change, the truth is, it never will if we remain the same. This podcast was created for change-makers like you who want more love and connection in your community. Today you are going to hear stories that will inspire you, and also challenge you to be the change. We are going to go deep, my friend, so take a deep breath and settle in. My name is Ame-Lia Tamburrini - Welcome to the Circle of Change.
[00:00:50] Hello, beautiful soul. Thanks for being here today. I want to say that I am feeling a bit raw today. I'm recovering from my COVID booster and feel a little bit vulnerable. But I don't mind that so much. I feel that these words that I have to share today are really coming from a deeper place and I can feel my own layers of inauthenticity peeling away.
[00:01:23] And it's exciting for me to see this evolution and to be brave enough to do it beside you. So thank you for being here and holding space for me today. As we get started, I want to share with you for those of you that are in Victoria, British Columbia, or want to come to Victoria, that I am partnering with Linda Mackie and Brett McDonald for another Stepping into your Essence Retreat.
[00:01:51] This is a one day retreat and it really is a life-changing experience. You're going to get a delicious lunch and a space where you can discover and celebrate your true essence. This is a day where you can ultimately let go of those nagging stories that hold you back so that you can fully accept and embrace all of who you are and the future vision of yourself.
[00:02:23] It is a beautiful mix of circle dialogue, which is what I guide and then improv, which is what Brett's specialty is. We are laughing and crying and enjoying the beautiful connections that form between us. It really is magic. You're also going to get a fun before and after photo, which is Linda's cup of tea.
[00:02:48] So I hope you will join us on February 5th, we will put the link in the show notes.
One of the topics that is sitting with me from Jeanell's interview last week are the acts of responsibility and she talks about it in the context of intimate partner relationships. And the damage that we, especially as women, cause when we always have our guard up, when we don't let the men in our lives in, or the partners in our lives in, and she very lightly touches on the me too campaign.
[00:03:25] And that struck a chord with me and maybe not in the way that you think. So today, I want to share with you a story related to protecting ourselves at all costs, in the hopes that it will allow you to find freedom in the relationships that may be giving you grief right now. This is part of our journey as change makers and focusing on these intimate relationships, whether it is your partner or maybe it's someone else in your family or your kids that are causing your pain.
[00:04:00] I do think that this is some of the most important work we can do because we're really tapping into those lingering traumas and doing the work to heal those. So today's work is going to be big, and to start let's settle in and get present. The poem I'm going to read today is by Maya Angelou. And it is her very well-known poem:
[00:04:31] I know why the caged bird sings.
[00:04:37] I know why the cage bird things, the free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats down the stream to the current ends and dips his wings in the orange sun, rays and dares to claim the sky, but a bird that stocks down. His narrow cage can sell them. See through his bars of rage, his wings are clipped and his feet are tied.
[00:05:04] So he opens his throat to sing the caged bird sings with a fearful trill of the things unknown, but longed for still. And his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. The Freebird thinks of another greys and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a Dawn bright lawn.
[00:05:32] And he names the sky, his own, but a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams. His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream. His wings are clipped and his feet are tied. So he opens his throat to say, The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things, unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.
[00:06:02] Thank you, Maya Angelou. You're such a gift to this world.
[00:06:09] About eight or nine years ago, I was doing a lot of personal development work with Gary Zukav. He's the author of Seat of the Soul. And I think the most frequent guest on the Oprah Winfrey show. Oprah loved Gary, uh, if you don't know his work, I highly recommend looking him up. He is brilliant as is his partner, Linda.
[00:06:32] It is my desire to bring them to you here on the Circle of Change. And until then we will put some links in the show notes for you to find them. During this time, I was part of an immersion program. So people from all over North America would gather together three times a year for these five day retreats in Portland, all sorts of painful circumstances brought us collectively into this space together.
[00:06:59] But I would say that at the core, we all shared this deep commitment to learning about ourselves so that we could show up differently in our relationships and ultimately feel better in our lives. Gary and Linda structured the retreats around the principles of authentic power. This power from within it was a mix of talks and then practicing and supporting one another to bring these principles to life.
[00:07:29] Now, I say retreats, but you know, they were anything, but the retreat that you might have in your mind, in fact, until the very end, I dreaded going to them because I knew that I was going to be challenged. That my worldview is going to be turned upside down and that I was going to see a bunch of stuff about myself that I did not like. But I was committed to having a different life experience than the one I had been creating up until then.
[00:07:59] Michael Beckwith always says pain pushes and vision pulls. Pain definitely brought me into that room. And a vision for a new life is what kept me there. In the very beginning of this journey, I attended a six day summer event. It was my first time ever learning about taking responsibility for my life.
[00:08:21] Everything about that challenged me and I was brought to tears many times. There was a man there who really took an interest in my journey and comforted me through many of these. So, now fast forward, I've signed up for their immersion program because instantly I started to see how my life was transforming.
[00:08:46] That same man was also in the program. And during one of our very first retreats, he stands up in front of the entire group. And now we are this intimate group of about 40 people and says that he realized he had been preying on me during that event in July. That he wasn't genuinely offering support. He was intentionally drawing me in as part of a fear-based pattern of sex addiction.
[00:09:13] Well, in that moment, my whole world crumbled, I could feel this heat rise in my face. My blood turned hot and my eyes red. I couldn't look at Gary and Linda. I couldn't look at any of my peers. Absolutely paralyzed by shame. It wasn't until I got out of that session, that the tears began to flow and the anger streamed out, I was pissed off.
[00:09:44] I didn't want him in the workshop. I felt threatened. I thought it was a disgrace that he hadn't been kicked out. And then I went on, I shared with my group how, ah, this happens to me, wherever I show up. Men are always trying to take advantage of me. It had happened since as long as I could remember. And that was true.
[00:10:05] These me too experiences were part of my life fabric. I remember a few instances in high school, including a high school teacher, which I ended up reporting to the school district. I was the first one to make a report, even though dozens of girls came to me during that time to tell me of their experiences.
[00:10:26] I had a history of fighting the fight. And in my current life, I was still in that battle, newly single, and in a new town, I would dine out a lot by myself and men would come up to me all the time and start hitting on me. I was so over it, like totally incensed by this. I thought men were disgusting, sacks of testosterone.
[00:10:52] I felt like a victim and I was done with it. So back in this group, I'm like spitting nails and bawling my eyes out. And one of my spiritual partners turned to me and he said, Ame-Lia, how is it that you are bringing this into your life? Is there a part of you that is seeking this attention?
[00:11:18] I could have melted metal with the stare that I gave back to him. And he held my gaze with loving kindness. No, no! Society tells me that men are to blame. Men are weak and vindictive. Men are evil and women are victims and I was right. How could a man of all people sit there and tell me to take responsibility?
[00:11:45] The thing is, I knew this man. And as a spiritual partner, I knew that he was being courageous in that moment, detaching himself from needing to be liked in order to help me find freedom. And so something in me, listened to him, even though I was having a visceral hissy fit. I took this deep breath. This was why I was here.
[00:12:13] And that began to do the work. I felt that pain in my body. I knew that I was in fear. My throat was clenched so tight. I could barely breathe and I wanted to get sick. I was so nauseous. I had built a life around this story and those parts of my personality that created those stories were fighting with all of their might to hold on tight.
[00:12:36] And like a slow motion film, I started to replay all the moments of my life, where I had felt preyed upon. And instead of looking at the men, I looked at me. I got it. That part of me was unconsciously seeking out this energy. I had such little sense of self-worth. I sought out all validation from external sources,
[00:13:02] whether it was winning races or getting a plus or getting attention. There's part of me that got off on that attention. I got it from an energetic standpoint. I was indeed calling this behavior in playing the role of victim gave me external power. I mean, I could be right, the other person wrong.
[00:13:22] I could be superior and mask the inferiority that I felt inside. I could put up a wall and proclaim that men suck and know that society would support me. But I came to these retreats because I wanted to feel more. I wanted to experience more joy. I didn't want to live the status quo, isolated life that I had created.
[00:13:50] I wanted freedom. So against everything that I had been taught by society, up until that point, I decided to take responsibility to claim my role in my life experiences and stop focusing on the men. They were none of my business. I got that we were in this dance together and focusing all my attention on them, how they needed to change with so disempowering and it sucked all the life force energy out of me.
[00:14:21] And kept me stuck. It is so easy for us to go with the status quo, to read the me too articles and stay rooted in that belief that men are the problem. We are comforted by that approach because there's nothing for us to do. But where is the power in that? The answer to that question, isn't in your head, it's in your body, you know, like what does it feel like when you
[00:14:49] blame others for the pain in your life. Do you feel expansive? Do you feel light energized or do you feel constricted and heavy or tired? For me it's the latter. In that very moment, when I decided to take responsibility for what was being drawn into my life, what I was drawing into my life. Everything shifted, except for one moment that I can remember many years later, when I was going through a really rough patch, I was drinking a lot and feeling very lonely.
[00:15:28] Except for that moment, I have never had a man hit on me in an unsolicited way since that time. And today I have this amazing group of guy friends who I love dearly. I know they love me dearly. They are brothers to me, they've got my back and I feel safe. And the men who are attracted to me, treat me like a queen with respect and reverence. Today, I have that freedom and I also have connection that I didn't have before.
[00:16:03] So I know that you might feel prickly by taking this in because it's a lot to really question what has been our norm. And you might even start looking around the world and saying, Ame-Lia, you're not telling me that those girls,
[00:16:27] those girls that get raped in war torn countries invited in that pain? No, no, I am not. Those stories rip my heart out, not just thinking about the girls and how those experiences are breaking their spirit, but also of the men whose spirits are broken. This is the story of collective trauma. And because the healing work has not been done, it continues to this day, rape and war and extreme poverty.
[00:17:06] These are results of collective unhealed trauma. We all carry that. And it's why, even if you had this solid loving upbringing, you still might be experiencing dynamics in your relationships that are painful. This is why I believe it's so important to know ourselves that we know our ancestral histories and that we find those safe spaces to share our stories and heal those wounds.
[00:17:37] Because if we don't, we energetically perpetuate these traumas in our world. What I'm talking about right now has nothing to do with what is right. And what is wrong. What I'm talking about is what is in your control and how can you lift up this world and your own world? I'm talking about no longer focusing on what is wrong with the world and the people in it, and start focusing in on what is in your control.
[00:18:10] And use all your means to help others do the same.
So, how do we do that? Well, I think first of all, we start by committing to leaving this world a little better than how we found it. To support that it's helpful to identify your why, why is this so important to you? What will it create for you? For those that you love for the earth, for the people on the other side of the world.
[00:18:43] And then we must claim that how we have been showing up in the world, it's not our fault. You know, we have all been conditioned. We see that in the systems all around us that run our businesses and political structures. We see it in the oppression caused by colonization. We see it in our societal norms and even the language that we use.
[00:19:08] So let's be clear right now in this moment, that how you are today is not your fault. The next step though is crucial because most people until now haven't taken this step and this is the step where we move beyond it's not our fault and looking at all the systems out there. To turning the focus inward to courageously open your eyes, to see how you are contributing to the division in the world, to the division in your own life.
[00:19:41] And this, my friend is where the magic happens. It's also where a lot of pain resides. But once you open your eyes, they can't be closed. And that means we can't go back. We can't keep repeating the status quo. We can only create a new possibility in this work. It's not meant to be done by yourself. So a key piece of this is finding the practices, the meditation, the nature walks to find stillness and allow that spiritual support in to guide you.
[00:20:19] And find the community to broaden your awareness, who will help you find freedom, no matter what. That's what this circle is all about. And it's what our programs are all about. Together, we support each other to find freedom by learning the skills, to be honest, to speak and act with integrity to lovingly say what needs to be said so that new potentials can be realized.
[00:20:46] In that awareness and that awakening, you can then take responsibility with love and compassion for yourself. From that, our love and compassion grows for all of those around you. And you're going to notice how things begin to change your words, your actions, your intentions, your thoughts. What you believe and your experiences, it's all going to transform.
[00:21:16] This is the work of the change maker. So let's start now. Think about that area in your life, where you're feeling tension and really feel it in your body. Maybe you're feeling victimized or taken advantage of or angry at the system. What does that feel like? And what is the story you're telling yourself in this moment?
[00:21:41] You know, maybe it's oh, I'm so under appreciated. Men always get the good jobs and get paid more. Our politicians need to do more. It's never going to get better. So whatever, I'm just going to adapt and I'm fine with it. I'm always doing everything. No one cares about what I think.
[00:22:07] Really look at these sentences, the stories that you're telling yourself and ask, where does the power lie in them. In everything that I've just read the power lies somewhere else. You know, someone else needs to appreciate me, give me a better job, do better create space for me. And in the meantime, I'm just going to settle.
[00:22:28] There's no authentic power there. Find your friend or a circle that you can talk through this with, tell them that you desperately want freedom and connection in your life. And that, you know, that the only way through to that is to take responsibility for what you have control over in this situation.
[00:22:51] Tell them that you want them to be compassionate, but not let you blame others, because you've tried that before and it feels like crap and you want to feel good and see what evolves. Learning about yourself is not easy work. I think it is the most brave and courageous thing that we can do. And I'm so, so glad that you're here doing it with me.
[00:23:19] I hope you continue to be here and join us in our upcoming programs where we really get into this work together in a more intimate setting, because I want nothing more for you than your freedom. I know what is possible. And it is beyond your wildest dreams. So let's do this work together.
If you haven't already listened to episode 23, I highly recommend you go back there because there's so much juicy wisdom. Whether you're in an intimate partner relationship or not, I guarantee that you will learn something about yourself and that's what we're all about here. Anything is possible, my friend sending much love to you. Ciao
[00:24:02]I'm now passing the talking piece to you. If you feel called to put your voice in the circle, please head to humconsulting.ca/podcast and share your story there. I cannot wait to hear what has come up for you as you have listened to what has been shared here today. I wish you love and joy beyond your wildest imagination. Thank you so much for being here in the Circle of Change.
I also wanna express my gratitude to the following peeps: Circle of Change is recorded on Lekwungen territories and I am so grateful to live on this land. Our opening and closing music was created by the talented E-Rol Beats. You can find his creations at erolbeats.com. And special thanks to my coach, Mary Chan, of Organized Sound Productions for bringing this podcast to life. Until next time, Ciao!
Gratitude:
Circle of Change is recorded on lək̓ʷəŋən territories.
Our opening and closing music was created by the talented E-Rol Beats. You can find his creations at www.erolbeats.com
My fabulous podcast coach, Mary Chan of Organized Sound Productions, brought this podcast to life www.organizedsound.ca