Getting back to Basics

“It is a beautiful gift to share the kind of love where we encourage one another to become more of ourselves.”

- Mark Groves

As a mediator, I’ve done my fair share of communications training that taught me wonderful and practical techniques to determine and express feelings and needs. 

And yet, only through thorough self-encounter have I gradually realized what it really means for my core needs to have gone unmet – and what a practical life tool it is to unravel the ensuing dynamics and perceptions that have determined my entire life.  

Our core needs are universal, such as those for safety, acknowledgment, or autonomy. Likewise, many of us share the experience of not having those needs met, from conception onward, by our parents and caretakers. 

Slowly, I realize that my life has been shaped by a sense of unsteadiness and vigilance, and how much this has been the undercurrent of my life’s challenges. 

Over decades, I’ve subconsciously tried to balance out this shaky ground through relationships, by living in different geographies, and by changing employers frequently, while at the same time turning all of the above into the source and reason for my lack of safety. 

Only since the birth of my daughter has this mental and viscerally felt construct begun to fall apart. Suddenly, I’ve become aware of the layers of projection and survival mechanisms I’ve piled up to keep myself safe. 

Now that I’m coming to understand this intelligent, intricate dynamic, I’m in awe of the simple and profound truth of the method of self-encounter: by unraveling which primary needs were not met, by seeing and embracing the pain that has come with that, I am able to stop looking to have those needs met by others, and I’m gaining the capacity to take care of them myself. 

And while before, my primary relationships were the source of my sense of powerlessness, it is exactly in close relationship that I’m becoming empowered.

Working with a community of self-encounterers, with others in resonance, equipped with patience, grounding, and without judgment, I can encounter myself in all my facets and facades, and eventually reclaim my authentic, safe, and spacious Self. 

What a joyful beauty!