A Travel Essay from the Inner Journey

You are here to learn from the challenges of Inadequacy. Inadequacy is the fear of not having enough or being worthy enough, rooted in uncertainty about the future.
The Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

For almost a month now, I’ve been working with the Purpose Sphere in the Sage’s Golden Path Retreat. This is deep work. The Venus Sequence of your Gene Keys chart, of which the Purpose is the first Sphere, is the deepest, probably the most important, work you will ever do on yourself. And I have been going deep! I have been contemplating, I have been pausing, I have been journaling. Yet I’ve written and published fewer essays for this sphere than any other so far on this Sage’s journey. This is not because I don’t have a lot to say (I always have a lot to say!!), and it’s not because I haven’t wanted to share my contemplations (sharing with all of you is one of things I’m on this earth to do!).

It’s simply that I have been being more gentle with myself. I have been allowing the work, the insights, the breakthroughs and aha moments, to settle deep within me, and I haven’t been able to make the time and space needed to share these contemplations properly.

But we are about to move along the Pathway of Dharma into our Attraction Sphere, so I want to share some of my insights with you now. Starting with this essay about my Shadow of Inadequacy (Gene Key 48).

My Shadow of Inadequacy

Gene Key 48 governs our developmental cycle from the age of eight to fourteen (your EQ in the Golden Path), so having Gene Key 48 in my Venus is kind of a double whammy! And of course, of the three developmental stages, this EQ period was the most traumatic for me.

Yes, the IQ was turbulent and painful, but the EQ years were when my dad died, and my world crumbled around me. The seed of Inadequacy that was already growing because of my mum’s rejection of me, blossomed into a rotten fruit of absolute belief in my own unworthiness.

My dad, who had been the most important person in my life, my protector, was gone, and I was left with a mother who couldn’t even look at me because of her own feelings of guilt around my dad’s death, and who was utterly incapable of comforting or supporting me. I no longer blame my mum; I know she had her own demons to deal with, her own grief and pain, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was bereft of human comfort.

I was hurtled, in this stage of my development, into a world entirely beset by uncertainty. I literally stepped into quicksand and could find no solid footing.  I was ten years old and I was alone, truly bereft of love.

No wonder I was so afraid of not having enough … there actually wasn’t enough of anything … love, comfort, safety, money! Everything was stripped away overnight. That left ten-year-old me believing that she must be entirely unworthy of love, a belief I carried for decades. I felt unsafe, because I was unsafe. The future was uncertain. And there was no one to tell me it wasn’t my fault.

So, I grew a belief system that said there must be something wrong with me, for such suffering to be visited upon me.

Emotional Immaturity

This sense of Inadequacy leads to emotional immaturity and an inability to take responsibility for one’s feelings, thoughts or actions.

The Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

I never would have thought that I was emotional immature and not taking responsibility, but actually, just writing that sentence in my journal made me realise that I was emotionally immature for a very long time. I used to believe the opposite was true, that having been through so much emotional trauma at such a young age had made me “grow up” quicker than my peers. And in some senses, particularly in a practical sense, that was true. My mother was so absent in those years following my dad’s death, that I had to look after myself in many ways. I was working about 20 hours a week at fourteen years old, fitting it around my school work. I was financially independent from that age. There were so many aspects of life that I had to sort out for myself because my mum’s miasma of grief meant she simply wasn’t there for me.

But emotional maturity? No. With hindsight, I can see that what I thought was “grown up” behaviour was really just a needy child looking for love. I was a hurt and broken child desperately looking for someone to take care of her.

And I wasn’t taking responsibility for my feelings, thoughts or actions. I was recklessly throwing myself into risky situations and hoping one of the “relationships” would stick.

Deep Emptiness and Insecurity

A deep emptiness and sense of insecurity develop into a crippling fear of the unknown.
The Sage’s Golden Path Retreat

Shit, that sentence there just stopped me in my tracks when I read it! That sentence sums up my life from ten years old to my forties. “Deep emptiness” is exactly the way to describe my inner world, my external world, my whole being. Deep emptiness is painful to experience. I was floating in a black hole of fears, no solid ground, no edges to cling onto.

I was alone and cold, and I was cut off from the world.

And the insecurity was my constant companion in that black void. My Life’s Work Provocation was a fine bedfellow of my Shadow of Inadequacy. Fear, emptiness and insecurity mean that I was raw and naked and always waiting for the next blow to fall.

Always terrified of the unknown, I felt that crippling fear for decades. I walked through life like I was walking on broken glass, never knowing which shard might be the one that ripped through an artery and leave me bleeding out on the floor. I was crippled. I was terrified. I was so convinced that I was always going to be alone in that darkness.

And I was terrified in every relationship I did get into, because none of them brought light or safety. They all just seemed to intensify the dark and the fear and the insecurity. There’s no emptiness more debilitating than the emptiness you feel inside a dysfunctional relationship. You should be supported; you should be part of a unified entity. But instead, you are free-floating in a space so dark and scary, that you can’t catch your breath.

This Fear of the Unknown Halts the Natural Flow of Life Vitality

When I finally broke free and started living life on my own terms, I definitely fell into the controlling personality camp, after going through years in the bland, false sense of security role that was the truth of the relationships I found myself in. And I was just so scared, for years. I wasted so much of my precious life vitality trying to create safety as a counterbalance to a fear that was specious. I simply didn’t know that the unknown could be a place of creation, a womb space. So, I wasted vital energy fearing that void, little knowing that I carried my own safety with me all the time, even in the darkness of the void.

I used to fear those aching feelings of emptiness, because I thought they meant there was something wrong with me. But there isn’t. And emptiness is not to be feared … it is the gap before creativity comes forth. It is not even empty! That is an illusion brought on by fear. The void is full of potential. The void is the field of pure potentiality, where anything might happen, where miracles can occur, where opportunities abound.

Transforming My Relationship with the Shadow

The Gene Keys teachings invite us to pay close attention to the Shadow we have here in our Purpose, and how we react to the discomfort it brings. Because the challenge never disappears. Life is challenge, that is how we grow and evolve as humans. Instead, what happens is that our relationship to our Shadows transforms.

I can feel my Shadow of Inadequacy as an undercurrent to the physical pain in my joints that I am experiencing these days. There is this constant feeling that I am somehow failing, because I am not able to do the things I used to be able to do, like kneel and crouch and squat. It really gets me down, and I feel less than. I have to keep remembering that it means nothing about my worth as a person. It means nothing about how worthy I am of love.

I keep reminding myself of Hayley, my wonderful Gene Keys Guide, of how much she has to give, even with her low energy and the chronic pain she experiences. Her physical restrictions don’t stop her from contributing hugely to the whole. They don’t stop her from being of service.

The pain and immobility I am experiencing don’t stop me from being creative. They don’t stop me from loving or writing or laughing. I have to learn to accept this pain. And I know that acceptance is a daily practice. Every day, I must remind myself that I am worthy, that I can accept the pain, and that may allow the pain to show me something about myself. I need to accept that this is where I am now … I am a woman who experiences pain and mobility issues. But I am also a woman who loves, I am a woman who creates, I am a woman of value.

It Begins with Allowing the Painful Feelings to be There

According to the Gene Keys teachings, the first stage of healing our Shadows is about allowing the painful feelings to just be there. “To allow the feeling is to provide some space around it” … isn’t that just a brilliant way to think about it?!

So, the emotions that go along with the physical pain and lack of mobility are anger, resentment, and fear.

I’m angry that this is happening to me now, when I have so much I want to do with my life, when I have so much that I need to do. I’m angry that just when I feel as if I am really getting my shit together … my inner life shit … just when I am feeling so good about myself in so many ways, my body is breaking down.

I am resentful of all the years I wasted my good, strong body on people and circumstances that didn’t deserve me. I am resentful of other people who seem to sail through life with none of the shit I have to deal with.

Oh! Victimisation! I’ve got to add that to the list!! I’m feeling that too! I am a victim to this physical debilitation. I am definitely feeling sorry for myself.

And fear. Fear is the big one. Fear that I will become completely immobile. Fear that I will become dependent on Steve. What if I can’t go to the toilet on my own? What if I lose all mobility? Frankly, it fucking terrifies me. I’m so scared. Allow all that to be here? Allow all that fear to be there? No pretending. No running from it. 

Allowing it to be here, really feeling it. Feeling it fully. Feeling it grip my chest in a rictus. Feeling it. That is a big ask.

Allowing is so Generous

Can I just allow those feelings of fear and anger, resentment and victimisation to be there? Can I just allow the Shadow of Inadequacy to be there? What if this is the way it’s meant to be? What if all this pain and fear actually is a portal into higher purpose and more growth?

If that is true, then I have to allow it all to be there, don’t I? I cannot get to the other side of the portal if I don’t even allow it to be there. I am still learning how to allow this physical pain and fear of immobility to be there. I am much more practiced at fighting my way through the Shadowlands. What if I just allowed it all to be there, without thinking about how I can fix it?

What if I stopped trying to fight it and just allowed it to be there?

What does that even look like?

Oh, this is exciting! This means that if I allow the Shadow to be there, then the Shadow truly does allow me to step through it to the other side.

This means that I am ready to step through to the acceptance of my Gift of Resourcefulness … more about that in the next Purpose essay!!

The photographs I used for this essay are of my morning walk through the wildflower meadow and along the bridleway near my Wiltshire home.

You can see more of my photographs on my Flickr page.