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In this week's video I tell a personal story about how one small change may have saved my daughter's birthday breakfast, so check that out for the juicy details!
On the same theme, what I want to share in this newsletter is my journey from Master-Controller to Zen-Plant-Lady.
One of the foundational concepts we talk about in The Expansion Project Community is Adaptations. These are automatic responses and coping mechanisms that we developed during our formative years to manage through unpredictable environments, challenging home situations, or simply the ebb and flow of life when we were too little to make sense of it all.
I really love the word Adaptations, because it reminds me that those approaches WERE adaptive, that is, they actually worked to keep us alive and intact at some point in our growth and development as children.
The down side is this: the very same behaviour pathways that made us feel safe and secure as children tend to keep us trapped during our adulthood.
Let me give you an example.
When I was about 10 years-old, I started folding my socks so they were all the same size, and then organized them by colour and texture in my sock drawer. I didn't think anything of it at the time, I just know it gave me a warm feeling in my heart when I would open that sock drawer and see all those socks neatly lined up, just waiting to be worn.
I continued this sock-folding-tradition for many years, and when I was 15, I had a great internal reckoning.
Here's what happened.
Every school morning throughout eighth grade, I would stop at my neighbour's house so we could walk to the school bus together. And every single morning of that academic year, this was the scene when I knocked on the door and waited in the front area for my friend to get her shoes on:
- Curtains closed with dark, depression vibes
- Last night's dishes on the coffee table
- Clothes,jackets, backpacks, and shoes strewn about
- Homework sheets half done and serving as a coaster for coffee mugs
- A musty smell
- My neighbor rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and rummaging through the Sock Bucket
You see, in her house, things were a lot more chaotic. People could tell by looking through the front door that there was a lot going on in that family, and that the adults in charge were barely managing to hold it all together.
Our Sock Bucket was for the single socks that my mom couldn't find.
Their Sock Bucket was for ALL THE SOCKS.
And when I would see this, day after day after day, I would become more resolved in the superiority of the way my mom ran our single-parent household.
I'll admit it: I thought my mom ROCKED amongst the other parents in our neighborhood.
Though there was a lot of pain, suffering, and chaos, no one could see it from the outside.
Things and people in our home were organized and tidy, and we all had immense pride in how she could stretch a dollar and, in her words, "Slap your cheeks to keep them rosy." It was almost magical how she could go from screaming at us one minute to answering the phone with a cheerful "Good evening, Jamal residence!" the next.
My mom had found a way to juggle all the moving parts of raising three kids as a single, immigrant mom on welfare with very little backing or support.
The unintended message I got over the years was that order on the outside meant people would assume there was order on the inside, which is how I developed my favourite Adaptation: Controlling Behaviours.
Now, it probably started WAY earlier than 15, and probably even before 10. I decided, somewhere along the way, that if I could control my external environment, everything would be okay - or at least seem like it was to others.
And so I continued this way for decades, until I had my second child who balked at any type of control from the outside.
From the time she could walk, she had her own mind that saw the world very differently than I did, and I had to re-think my demands on her as she grew.
She was not going to be the child who would fold her socks and line them up by colour and texture in her own sock drawer.
I had to re-think the whole system.
What I came to see is that while Controlling Behaviours may have worked for me when I was little, as an adult they never really took away that feeling of dread that people would see the chaos inside me, resulting in rejection and isolation.
What I came to see is that the same Adaptation that had once helped keep our heads above water in my family-of-origin were now pushing people away and threatening to squash the spirit of this incredible child of mine that wanted to bloom in her own direction.
I fumbled through with trying to engage less in Controlling Behaviours in her early years, but the real shift happened only a couple years ago and is still a work in progress.
You see, I needed a whole new metaphor now because the tidy sock drawer could only take me so far.
Enter my saviour: plants.
Plants have really helped me let go of Controlling Behaviours, because plants don't follow the rules, kind of like my daughter.
I've had to build relationships with the various plants in my home and garden to learn what they need and figure out what it takes for them to thrive. They are all different, even if they share a name or location, or have similar preferences for light or water.
It is through caring for my plants that I have learned to let things be a little more messy and have started to see the value of the outside truly matching the inside.
Looking back on all of this so many years later, I wonder sometimes whatever happened to that Sock Bucket at my neighbour's house, and what her sock drawer might look like today.
As for me, I still fold my socks and line them up, but I don't force anyone else in my household to do it (so I take that as a win!)
And when the Control starts to sneak up on me, I know its time to commune with my plants and let them teach me a few more things about letting go.
Guess it's better to be a Crazy-Plant-Lady than a Folded-Socks-Enforcer, right?
Yours in Trading-Socks-for-Plants (without wearing plants on your feet, that would just be weird...)
Dr. Saira
NOTE: To learn more about Adaptations, you can join our Expansion Project Community where you get FREE ACCESS to our current courses, and if you are ready to start letting go and finding a new way, join us for a Wednesday evening online meditation - open to all.
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