Hello, hello freethinker!

Today, I am writing to you from the porch of our back house. The sun is shining, my dog is exploring looking like a little sheep grazing in the little pasture of our yard, and there is a gentle breeze that for some reason feels like a supportive hug today. I’m feeling tender coming off a very full weekend of 12-hour class days where for some reason or another I especially struggled to maintain my own energetic boundaries. 

As I pause to notice my inner and outer worlds, I encourage you to do the same. Notice where you are, the textures around you, the colors, and the sounds. Notice any emotions that are present in your system. Notice your energetic boundaries, are your emotions feeling grounded and from within, or enmeshed and intertwined with those around you? 

In this practice, I encourage you not to judge or label any sensation, object, or even the state of your boundaries. Instead, simply notice, witness, and allow all parts of yourself and your experience to the table. Allow them, and you, just as you are in this moment. This is a practice of personal freedom that you can utilize at any time.

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Today, I am exploring the internalized Dominant Dogma that says, “I’m in this alone.”

As I explore, please notice where this discussion feels supportive for you and where it does not. Take what serves you, leave the rest, and always put your safety first.

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This internalized story, “I am in this alone” often results in feeling as though you cannot reach out for help. That you are the only one feeling this way, and that nothing will change no matter how hard you try to relate, connect, think differently, feel differently, or be differently.

You are alone.

This Dominant Dogma has many root causes and can reside lightly on the surface of daily life, or it can be deeply rooted, resulting in a lived experience of depression, anxiety, and overwhelm.

Believing “I am in this alone” can be due to and entangled within very real and valid past or present experiences. Such as the experience of being denied supportive parental love as a child, existing as a disabled person, a person of color, a neurodivergent person, an LGBTQ person, or another minority in a world not designed for you. 

Ultimately, internalizing the belief that you are in this alone is often rooted in a consistent experience of not being heard and not having your needs met.

By claiming the belief, you are in this alone, you are able to move forward in some sort of way. Not necessarily the most supportive way, but a way.

With this in mind, I will explore this Dominant Dogma by imagining your aloneness is providing you with something in return. Providing you with some sort of way forward.

This process is called secondary gain. 

Secondary Gain: While this is a complex and often misused concept, according to Dr. Arielle Schwartz, secondary gain is, “any positive advantage that accompanies physical or psychological symptoms.” – source

By believing you are in this alone, you may be unconsciously allowing some unmet need to be held on to instead of tended to. Instead of facing the potential reality that this need you have or that you had may never be met by the human or humans you wanted it from, it feels easier, to some extent, to hold on to aloneness.

It’s easier to believe you are alone than reach out for help and potentially face rejection…again.

It’s easier to believe you are alone than to seek community, a relationship, a friendship, and potentially face not belonging…again.

It’s easier to believe you are alone than to face the unmet need for love and approval that your younger self had.

Whew. Let’s take a deep breath.

Accepting and claiming the internalized Dominant Dogma, “I am in this alone,” ultimately allows some unlived fantasy to maintain its position in your psyche. 

A fantasy that often looks like rescuing. 

I deep-rooted hope that one day, someone, somewhere will finally see you and meet this attachment wound so you can finally feel worthy of existing.

Again, let’s take a deep breath. 

As I writing this it feels crucial to note that I write from a place of knowing. 

This is not just me as a certified coach and a psychology graduate student offering knowledge and proven information about your psyche. This is me writing as a child trauma survivor, a late-diagnosed neurodivergent person, and a CPTSD survivor. 

This is me writing to you as someone who navigates this internalized Dominant Dogma on the regular. 

In fact, it came up for me only this weekend as I noticed myself playing small, feeling victimy, and then subsequently embodying hyper-competence.

All actions that do not effectively meet my needs, nor do they heal my inner child and wounds. Instead, they perpetuate harm upon myself.

So, how do we, how do I, how do you hand back this internalized narrative that says, “I am in this alone?” How do you give up the fantasy of being rescued?

You rescue yourself.

You become your own healer, your own parent, your own hero.

Not by embodying hyper-competence and over-responsibility. Instead, by inviting self-responsibility through self-tending, self-care, and reciprocity. 

The freedom here is in learning to own what you are responsible for and/also inviting others to come alongside you. 

It’s handing back the belief of aloneness by slowly, mindfully, and congruently inviting others to join you in meeting your needs as they are able. 

To further discuss this, I want to read an excerpt from my upcoming book, Live Your Freedom Now. In it, I share, “When you stay in a state of victimization, you cultivate a sense of isolation and have what is known as an “external locus of control,” a belief that your life is entirely controlled by circumstances outside of yourself. You fall under the belief that, in order for you to be free and experience goodness, the people and circumstances around you have to change. Additionally, you become trapped in this mentality that you are somehow “missing” the life you are meant to have—while the life you do have is passing you by. Goodness and possibility may be right at your doorstep, but with an internalized Dominant Dogma of victimization (or, in our case today, a belief that “I am in this alone”),  you remain completely unaware of it.”

The truth is, yes, you likely have unmet needs from childhood and adulthood that have resulted in your present state of aloneness. And, I truly believe that in choosing to engage with those needs by meeting them, tending to them, and reaching out for the support you crave, you can hand back this internalized belief to claim personal freedom and belonging. 

It may not be easy, in fact in my own experience it is fucking hard and it comes back around time and time again. But each time I rise up, each time I self-tend, each time I ask for help, it gets a little bit easier. 

I am showing myself, my inner child, my shadow, my psyche, that we belong. All parts of me are welcome here, and all parts of you are welcome here.

And that is where I am going to leave you today.

In two weeks, I will share a bit more about the “Freedom on the other side” of this Dominant Dogma through an archetypal myth and musings of my own spirit that I hope will land with you.

Additionally, if deep in your spirit, you want to feel empowered, share your creativity, live with freedom, and finally feel joyful again, then I would LOVE to work with you! My goal is to help you integrate the parts of you feeling afraid and unsupported, hand back the outdated cultural stories, and guide you to rise as the deeply, wildly, and holistically free human you already are. If this resonates and you want to work with me as your coach, your next step is to book a FREE Clarity Call with me! Head to megscolleen.com now to schedule your call!

I’ll see you in a couple of weeks: Freedom is yours, 

Megan