In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit the east coast of the United States. It is considered to be among the costliest and deadliest Hurricanes of all time. With maximum wind speeds up to 175 mph, it’s no surprise that much of the east coast, was devastated. Homes that had sat along the coastline of Mississippi for centuries, were gone in an instant, the only thing that remained were the trees.

If we can take a cue from nature it would be that those with the deepest and most secure roots can endure even the gravest of circumstances and all that is flashy and without substance can be gone in an instant.

Who Are You?

I was Mike and Elizabeth’s daughter, my Narc’s fiancé, Connie’s best friend, Mike Jr and Andrew’s sister. I was an employee. I owned a home, cars – things. And when all of those things and people were gone – who was I?

Like most people my sense of identity was rooted in things outside of myself, they were rooted in my connections to other people, what I did for a living and what I owned.

At a seminar, Wayne Dyer did for PBS, he flashed pictures of himself across the screen. The pictures were chronological from birth, to early childhood, to adolescence, as a young man, as a father, all the way to present day. “We are not our appearance, we are not our bodies,” he said. “Because our appearance is not permanent. Our bodies are always changing. We are not our jobs, we are not our relationships.  We are that part of us that never changes.”

Answering the question, “Who am I,” for a Codependent is tough. Because we have been conditioned to look outside of ourselves for our worth, we never ever asked the question,’ Who am I?’  Because it wasn’t relevant to our environment.

But what I have come to understand is that being able to answer that question and get to the heart of it is how we find that indestructible part of us. It is our roots, it’s what grounds us and what keeps us standing tall when everything else has fallen away.

That part of us that never changes is our spirit, our divine energy, our essence. What our spirit wants most is to be happy, to love, to grow, to have freedom and to expand. When we feel lost it is because who we are is anchored to our partners and to the things we own and to what others think of us.

When we are grounded to our spirit we become strong and stable. Like the tree, when we know who we are, our roots connect us to source energy. When we know that we have God energy inside of us, that God is in us and we are in God, no one can ever again make us feel small and insignificant, because our spirit and who we are is everywhere and connected to everything.

Unblocking the Root Chakra

I remember back to that time when I had lost everything and I was so alone and so afraid. I was looking for any kind of answer and I started to learn about the chakras and I had decided that my root chakra was blocked. I had no deep connection to my family – to anyone. I really liked the idea of chakras, though I am only mildly learned on the subject.

One of the exercises to unblocking your root chakra, I read, was to take off your shoes and go stand in front of a tree and align your spine against its trunk and feel yourself connected and rooted. I really liked the feeling it gave me and I did get something out of it. The theory was that before one can proceed to balancing the other chakras, we must first start with the root, or we will lack the stability and rootedness necessary for true transformation and personal growth.

It is believed that the root chakra connects us with our spiritual energy and the energies of our ancestors, their challenges and their triumphs. When our root chakra is blocked we will find ourselves perpetually off balance, unstable and out of synch.

Author Wayne Dyer believes that we have two selves: the ego, or the false self and the higher self, the spirit, or the divine self. Dyer says that we have not been trained to recognize the higher self and that instead we’ve been taught to identify who we are and our worth by what we have, who we know and what we do.

“In the springtime observe the blossoms on the fruit trees. The blossoms vanish of themselves as the fruit grows. So too, will the lower self vanish, as the divine grows within you.” – Swami Vivekenanda

Author Heatherash Amara says that, “In order to be safe and loved we give ourselves over to impermanent things: our partner, our children, our jobs… We define ourselves and find a sense of being by our connection to things outside of ourselves.”

She warns, “Do not anchor yourself to the specifics that can change, but to permanent places such as, your own self-love and to your connection to the divine. When you anchor your roots to something outside of yourself, you will never feel completely stable.”

As we seek to rebuild our lives and ourselves it’s important that we make sure that we begin our rebuild with a solid foundation and that our roots run deep. We need to be grounded to that which is real, to that which never changes, regardless of time or circumstance – that which is our true essence. We must, as Amara says, “Anchor yourself in infinity, in earth, in the life force.”

In order to do that, you must let go of who you thought you were, let go of the importance of things and what other people think of you, let go of what happened to you,  –  we do that, according to Amara, by letting go of our old story. Here’s an example.

The story that I used to tell people goes something like this: My ex narc was an awful, miserable, angry, selfish person. He victimized me over and over again. He blamed me for all of his unhappiness, eroded my self-esteem, isolated me from loved ones, made everything all about him all the time, he manipulated me, used me and made me feel like I could never do any better than him and then just when I need him most, he tossed me aside, in the cruelest manner possible, for another woman.

Instead, I can choose to have a different perspective. One that comes from a divine place, a place of learning and of growing. A place that is empowering such as this: My ex showed me the parts of me that were still deeply wounded and in need of healing. He opened up my eyes and I was finally able to look inward and see the truth. As a result, I became focused on my healing, on living an authentic life, on finding purpose and happiness in my life and on reconnecting to my true divine self.

Transformation starts with how we use our words, how we communicate our truth, our story. We must free ourselves from our past and from our ego’s perception of it. To create our own stability, we must find out who we really are. Once we know that, outside things will have little influence or importance. When our roots are deep, we cannot be bent, moved or destroyed and we cannot be made to feel less than what we are.

You have been given the opportunity for a rebuild. Use this opportunity to see the truth about your life, of what happened to you and the next stage of your journey.

Your Comments!!!!!!

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