The most subtle form of self abuse

And 6 prompts to liberate yourself

If you’ve been following my work, you may have seen me share the thought below on social media…

I know it can feel like a slap in the face when you are dealing with deep self repression… Yes I am aware that hiding our expression initially comes from a place of wanting self protection.

With that said, there is a certain degree of nuance necessary. There comes a time where self protection flirts with self abuse.

Let’s explore that even deeper. I’ll start with a personal story.

I’ll share with you at the end 6 prompts to disrupt this pattern.

“Your invisibility cloak is canceled”

This phrase in quotes came up when I was journaling during an episode of acute anxiety about 7 years ago.

Between the years 2016 and 2018 I was going through a quite challenging dark night of the ego.

I was lost professionally. I was running a struggling health and fitness coaching business. My relationship with my family of origin was strained and my personal health was worrisome.

Even though I strived to maintain a healthy lifestyle, I started developing asthma symptoms out of the blue. Doctors couldn't make sense of it and suggested that I start using inhalers. I was dealing with small episodes of acute anxiety and I was flirting with depression.

Yes I know, I painted a quite dark picture. But please bear with me here. It's going somewhere.

My first response back then was to become more of a freak about maintaining a clean diet. Even doing that did not work as well.

I was in deep emotional repression and I knew my body was compensating. I was hiding in many areas of my life. I wasn’t showing up to address the emotional conflicts within me and their repercussions on the outside. I felt like a failure. I was avoiding friends and isolated myself. When I think back, it is a little miracle that I didn’t get any sicker.

The turning point was many episodes of acute anxiety that started happening in 2017. I knew I wasn’t listening to my inner knowingness. I knew life itself was trying to get my attention. It took me a while to harness the courage to face what I was running from. And eventually I surrendered.

A practice I started developing back then during the episodes of anxiety, was to pull out my journal and to start writing randomly the thoughts that emerged. I wanted to take the spiral out of my head and on paper.

I started treating my anxiety like the distorted voice of my intuition that I ignored for a long time. I stopped trying to run away from my own thoughts. I also reminded myself that I didn't need to believe every single one of them. It felt like I was in a dialogue with the spirit of anxiety itself, and that spirit was taking me through a rude awakening.

Most of the time the thoughts that emerged at first were just echoes of my inner critic. You may call it the dirt above the gold. Sometimes the self shaming spirals were debilitating. Yet every time I kept going, at some point I would receive what felt like profound insights I needed. Here are two of them that I’ll probably keep with me for the rest of this lifetime:

1. Stop resisting life

2. Your invisibility cloak is canceled.

They resounded in me like a rallying cry. They completely stopped me in my tracks. One thing I was sure of, was that I needed to engage more proactively with what I was running from, not just within but also in my external life.

When you approach anxiety with an open heart and curiosity, it can turn out to be a psychedelic experience, where life is attempting to reveal and liberate you from all the ways you've been living in falsehood.

That’s what my episodes of acute anxiety ended up being. I knew I had to stop hiding.

Over the months that followed, I started the intense work of reconciling with my family of origin after years of estrangement. As dreadful as it felt, it lifted a great deal of heaviness within me.

I announced to my business partners that I needed to step out of our health and fitness coaching venture. I had deeply felt for a long time that I was invited to serve in a different way. That was the first time I moved through the resistance and chose to step away.

I had reached a point where continuing to hide from my life was a form of self abuse masquerading as self protection.

Heart centered authenticity is the path

I truly think that your entire life is conspiring to get you to reclaim your heart centered authenticity.

That is the commitment I made to myself back then. And what I have realized is this…

Authenticity is a master healer.

Let me say this again… in this paradigm, hiding your true nature will often reveal itself to be a subtle form of self abuse. These times require a deeper level of transparency.

Here are a few inquiries to start illuminating the areas of your life where you feel the least authentic. I hope they can deepen your self liberation. Complete the following prompts as spontaneously as you can…

• The areas of my life where I feel the most inauthentic are…

• It is challenging to express my authenticity in these areas because…

• What I fear will happen if I express my authenticity in this areas is…

• The parts of me I have to shut down to remain inauthentic in these areas are…

• Meeting these parts of myself with more compassion looks like…

• If I fully trusted that the universe wants to support my heart centered authenticity, what I would do is…

What comes up for you as you ponder these inquiries? Please share in the comment section below.

Fast forward to this year

I’ve been feeling over the last 4 years the calling to start writing. I am not just talking about writing on social media. I am talking about a book. I pushed away that idea for years.

It may come as a surprise to you but I never saw myself as a writer, even though every time I find a new word, I must look up it’s etymology… haha.

I had a repressed love story with the written word. One that no longer wanted to be buried.

The calling to write a book started to be so loud that it began manifesting itself on the outside. Between 2022 and 2023, I received a total of 4 inquiries from publishing compagnies to start a book project.

I initially disregarded the invitations.

Some of my favorite rationalizations were:

• We have 3 young kids under 5… I’ll never be able to carve out time for this.

• It will take too much time away from my coaching and facilitation work

• Who am I to think I can write a book on shadow integration and personal transformation anyway?

The list is much longer but I will spare you the details.

In 2023 I started feeling again the tightness around my chess that I knew very well from my episode of deep repression back in 2016. I knew that my body was starting to ring the alarm bell.

So I started exploring the fears that were under my unconscious rejection of something I had been dreaming of doing. I resolved my inner resistance.

I no longer needed to go through suffering in order to surrender… So I did. I committed to the process.

On April 24th I signed a book deal with Hay House to publish my debut book that will come out next year. There's a part of me that’s still in disbelief… yet it’s happening.

I can feel both the excitement and the responsibility to put some of my best work in writing.

This whole experience is what causes me to say that there comes a time where self repression becomes not only a subtle form of self abuse, but also a great thief of joy.

My intention for you is that when you become aware of these moments, you live yourself enough to take brave liberating action.

What are you currently liberating yourself from? What are the areas of your life where you are anchoring more heart centered authenticity?

Thank you for being here.

In gratitude and reverence,

— Xavier