You are a zoo! Living inside your skin, in your neurobiology, is a whole menagerie of creatures. I am not just Hannah. I am: ... the primal reptilian part of me that can behave like a lizard when threatened. ...the watchful protective part of me that can roar and claw like a lion when scared ...that can run in circles like a scampering squirrel when anxious ...that can attack like a wolf when my husband violates my idea of what he should be doing ...that can bounce around like a monkey when confused... ...that can contract like a turtle into its shell when it’s all just too much. You and I, we are not simply human. We are made up of all these incarnations, these different phases of our primal to mammalian biological evolution… (Yes, this totally has to do with love and relationships, bare with me here!) We aren't beyond the other animals that we look around and see ….so many of them are in us: the way they’re physiology works, the way their brain works, the way their nervous system works... ...It shows up us, in how we think, feel, and act --and react. It’s truly a zoo in there! And that zoo can get pretty wild--- in our marriages most especially! So if you ever feel a little wild, a little out of control, or like you can’t live up to this idea that we have about how humans are supposed to be (calm, productive, happy, always respectful, always loving with your partner, always positive, energized and eager to please), listen: That is not human.
To be human is to feel like many creatures in one (and there's a lot of good in this!). AND YET, you are also something way MORE than those wild critters! (Thank goodness, because when we humans get stuck in these more ancient wild parts of ourselves, we end up in developmental arrest and have little sway over our experiences in life.) You are the zookeeper, too!! And as a zookeeper, you can step back and witness all these parts... You can love and respect the wildness, the hunger, the ferocity, the urge to hide and withdraw to self-protect, the goofiness, the jitteriness of all these creatures inside you! You can stand in awe of the tiger in you. You can watch when it gets angry and scared. You can enlist it's ferocity when you need to. And. . . if you want, you can learn how to care for it so it calms down and becomes more like a sweet purring kitty.
You can step into this caretaker part of you and learn how to work with the whole menagerie--with each one of these critters when it steps forward and rears its head, howls or bares its teeth in anger, ineffectively scampers all over the place, or retreats protectively into its shell… You can learn how to soothe each animal inside you, and feed each one, and get to know what it needs to feel safe, to settle, to become playful, joyful, satisfied. In this way, you can shift your whole mind-body-heart-system back into the more evolved human part of you: The loving, respectful, clear-thinking, insightful, deep-connecting, solution-oriented, problem-solving, receptive, creative, love-and-life promoting part of you. . . .And live from there more and more. . . .And, by example, take the people you love with you. Let’s stop pretending we’re not animals. Let's, instead, learn how to guide to safety, to nourish, to love the animals in us. . . . . . so we can become the clear-seeing, life-and-love-generative humans that we have the potential to be... that we ARE NATURALLY when we know how to guide the wildness inside us...
When you come to coach with me, step by simple step, you will become the loving zookeeper of your own primal to highly-evolved full-spectrum self, the shepherd of your mind and heart, the steward of your own experience-- and you will therefore catalyze the loving marriage you want.
How to get started? Apply for and schedule your free consultation here to see if working with me is the right route for you to take.
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