When you grow up in France, you grow up speaking French!

Ha, that seems like an idiotic thing to say doesn’t it?

When you grow up in France, you grow up speaking French!

Of course! Naturally! Who would expect anything else?

When you grow up in Spain, you grow up speaking Spanish!

Whoohoo! On a roll now.

Grew up in Germany? I bet you anything that you grew up speaking German!

What’s my point?

What emotional, physical, and energetic languages did your family speak? What did you grow up learning and then exhibiting?

I had a really clear lesson in this just this morning with my father. It was so damn obvious that I was laughing at the size of the signpost to my autopilot behaviours when I ended the call.

Yesterday, I had released a Nature and Nurture segment on Facebook Live about suicidal ideation, what it means, the pain of the one part overwhelming everything else, like a toothache that has your whole body throbbing. And as I like to do in these posts, I usually demonstrate what I mean with a personal story.

Job done. I thought no more of it until I received a call from my father late in the evening, and he was clearly agitated and upset. Some ‘family’ had taken what I’d said and twisted for their own illicit pleasure in gossip to find his ear and drip into it the poison that I was on Facebook talking about taking my own life.

I was horrified that someone would upset an elderly and ill man, who’d been self isolating since last March in such a mindless, thoughtless vicious way. I was equally as annoyed that someone had taken my teaching and twisted it so maliciously to get their dopamine hit.

I talk about why gossip is another distraction tool and method of self destruction in today’s live, you can view it here.

I was in the middle of training so I quickly reassured my Dad that I was okay, that this wasn’t what it appeared and when he confirmed I was okay, we left it at that.

This morning I wanted to check in with him again, make sure he was okay and to learn exactly what he had heard and from whom. Trying to unravel a gossip chain is horrible, you can see each person involved in your mind’s eye and picture the vicious, ‘Oh my God’ juicy glee they had in twisting this tale for their own purposes.

To make their own mean little lives seem less mean and miserable.

And yeah, I really wanted to type that line – payback’s a bitch!

But back to France.

When I said to my Dad that this was a case of whispers and malicious twisting of what I’d said, he dropped one of the classic controlling lines of my childhood, ‘Well, you should be more careful of what you say.’

BOOM!

Its all about me. What I do and say. I should hide, never speak up, never step up, who the f*ck do I think I am!

I did try to gently suggest that this wasn’t about what I said. If those gossip mongers had been listening to the story I told and reacting from an openhearted place, the first person they would have contacted would have been me, to see if I was okay.

They didn’t. They instead concocted an immediate cause for concern for an elderly man and caused great anguish and distress.

All for that momentary pleasure of viciousness.

Which, as I acknowledge in the video was how I once was too. Because that was our French.

To be gossipy, malicious, vicious and turn our attention away from our own lives to better tear down someone else.

I stopped doing that a long time ago. But the call of being vicious and the hit it gives me, is still strong. I think that’s obvious from how often I’ve veered into name calling here! (Self Awareness – I see me! lol)

But the bigger revelation, the more important one is what my Dad said.

‘Well, you should be more careful of what you say.’

This is my French. The need to stay hidden, to not rock the boat, not outshine anyone else, not be seen. Be quiet, Shut up. Don’t speak. Don’t act. Don’t exist,

When I was young, if such a thing as this had happened and I’m sure similar situations did, where I created a ruckus and as my Dad said this morning ‘had the whole family talking;’ I’d have been beaten for it, punished for drawing attention, humiliating him. My Dad’s French is pretty awful too.

The point is when you grow up in France speaking French, that’s normal. That’s who you are. You’re French.

But identity is just an adoption of your surroundings. A person can be born in France and yet if brought up in Ireland, speaking only Irish, they’d still be French but not be able to speak the language.

Same with whatever we all grew up with emotionally, physically, energetically, intellectually, all aspects of ourselves. Much of it is learned. It’s not actually who you are. Its just learned behaviors, thoughts, ideas about how the world is that are not necessarily true.

‘Be careful of what you say.’

Once that sentence from that man would have stricken fear and guilt into my heart and soul. Now, its anger, indignation and sadness. For him, for me, for the past and what it was.

Being able to hear him say those words and not react as I once would have done, a momentary flash of guilt before I dismissed it shows me how far I’ve come in releasing some of the restrictive bonds I grow up in.

I’m changing my language, slowly but surely I no longer speak our ‘French.’

This has come about through years of angst, anger, therapy, self development and training. Its not easy, this work but I would never undo the process. I’d much rather be the version of me that I am now than that totally oblivious woman I once was.

Every day, I step up to be better than I was. That’s part of my process, just as meditation, journaling, tapping, being in nature, learning and sharing are both tools and part of my process.

What this story also demonstrates is that I’m not some guru sitting on a mountaintop having figured it all out. I’m on the same path as you. Sometimes I’m a few steps ahead, sometimes I’m learning from my clients. And its all exactly as its supposed to be. Right now, things are great and I keep working towards them being even better.

You can stay stuck in the daily sh!te of bargaining away your personal power to the things you use to numb you; whether its alcohol, drugs, food, sugar, sex, porn or gossip

Or you can decide it’s time to be better.

I’m glad I chose to be better.

Your choice, your decision is stay where you are, making yourself miserable, sick and making people around you unhappy or change. Be better than that. Be a better version of you.

Know your family’s version of ‘French.’

Is it a language you want to keep on speaking?

If not, then start learning a new one.

Love,

Cynthia xx

PS. If you need more help get in touch. That’s what I’m here for! And if you really want to learn the techniques I describe above and learn how to help yourself faster. Then treat yourself to a few sessions, it will be one of the best things you can do for yourself. I promise/

My Signature Program, Change for Life. Ready to enrol new clients, yippee! Are you ready, willing and able to do what it takes until it takes to get the life you want? Are you ready to step up and invest in yourself and commit to building the life and the identity of your best self?

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