Dear KOM-ers!
We’re so happy to feature a new book giveaway!
Please enjoy this excerpt from “Align: Living and Loving from the True Self” by Harmony Kwiker.
There are 2 ways to enter to win a FREE hard copy:
- Leave a comment below with your email address (so we can contact you)
- Email us at KOMWriting@gmail.com with the Subject: (book title) giveaway entry
The winner will be randomly selected on 11/21/22 and announced on our website and social media. *
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Align is a book that will guide you back to yourself and into connection with others.
There is a fundamental core within each of us where our true nature resides. Our learned patterns of relating to ourselves and the world cause us to get pulled off our center, coming out of alignment with our True Self. While these conditioned patterns were at one time useful, continuing to live from them prevents us from experiencing the ease and beauty of our own true nature.
In this remarkable exploration of the human condition, Harmony Kwiker provides a clear and comprehensive map to rediscovering how to live and love from the True Self, including how to come back to wholeness by accessing your subtle energy body, how to embody your alignment in all of your relationships and how to explore sexual intimacy in a sacred way.
Excerpt: Chapter 17: Revealing Our Truth
Keeping an Eye on the Inside
In order to reveal our inner world to another, we must have an eye on the inside. We observe our inner world from our witness mind, and then we speak from our witness, not from the emotion. Even when we are emotionally activated, we can learn to speak on behalf of our pain rather than from our pain.
When a younger part is activated, we most likely don’t realize that this is the case in the moment. However, our emotional reaction is an indicator that something deep is coming to the surface. If we speak from the emotion, we speak from our younger part. We say things we typically wouldn’t say, and we react in ways that aren’t typical for us in a regulated and aware state.
Clues that a younger part is activated:
We are blaming the other person for our feelings.
We want the other person to be different so we can feel okay.
We are unable or unwilling to be curious about the other person’s perspective.
We want to disappear.
We look to the other as proof that we are lovable.
We betray ourselves to try to please the other person.
We quiet our truth and feel small.
We think we are responsible for the other person.
We feel trapped.
We feel powerless.
To be in an experience where a younger part is activated and stay in a healthy, aware state takes tremendous practice, and it is possible to do this. When we become aware that big emotions or an antiquated narrative is rising to the surface, we can learn to stay in contact with our Self and offer love to our inner young one. Giving ourselves what our young one needed at the time, we attune to our emotions, we see ourselves, and we love ourselves unconditionally.
From this place, we can speak on behalf of our emotion and younger part, without speaking from them. When we speak from them, we are projecting. When we speak on behalf of them, we are in our sovereignty.
This is where the practice of revealing inner experience can really create deep intimacy in relationships even when there is conflict. The sentence stem, “I notice…” is a way to illustrate that we are aware of what’s arising within.
For example: “I notice that my emotions are starting to grow in strength, and my mind is creating stories against you. As I slow down and look within, I can touch the place in me that felt voiceless as a child, like my opinion never mattered. Now I’m in touch with my sadness, and I have a lot of compassion for my inner young one. They really want to be heard by you. And I’m going to slow down to make sure they feel heard by me, and remind them that you are not the parent who ignored me.”
Noticing our inner world happens in the present moment. We discover what is happening within us as it’s actually happening. Giving voice to our lived experience from a place of self-responsibility is an ongoing practice of staying in contact with ourselves as our experience unfolds.
When we first practice revealing, we might not recognize how we were affected by an interaction until much later. It is good practice to go back in hindsight and share, “Earlier, when we were talking, I didn’t realize how big my emotions had become. In hindsight, I can see that a younger part of me was activated, and this part was projecting (Mom/Dad/caregiver) onto you. I know you’re not the person who ignored me when I was a child, and yet when it seems like you’re not hearing me this part of me seems to take over. I’ve spent some time connecting with this part of me and I want you to know that I take full responsibility for my reaction.”
With an eye on the inside, we can have a baseline of what it feels like to be us alone, separate from our relationships. Then we can keep an eye on the inside and know our experience of ourselves in the moment of relating with others. Again, this does not mean that we feel this way because of the other person. It simply means that in our design, with our attachment wounds, conditioning, sensitivities, etc., this is what is arising within us as we interact with this person.
From here, we get to decide what we want to do with this information about ourselves. When we consider that a different person could have a completely different response or reaction to this same experience, we can see more clearly how our own imprint contributes to the way we are affected by a situation.
Revealing is the path to honoring ourselves and cultivating deep intimacy, while also creating more agency. When we reveal, we are honoring ourselves as human beings with a vast inner subjective experience rather than ignoring what happens within us and treating ourselves as objects.
* By entering this contest, you give consent to Kind Over Matter to use your name for promotional purposes on our website and on all social media.
NOTE: You can pre-order Harmony’s book from Hunt Publishing or on Amazon.
