The Garden of Becoming & Relationships

Attachment Disorder and Healthy Relating - Healing beyond avoidance, denial, dismissal and emotional masking. Unravelling the White Roses Poem, video at the bottom of the page.

Fire Ritual Relationships - The White Roses Gather, white rose petals with writing heart, love and truth.

by Amanda McGregor - The White Roses Gather

I grew up in an environment, in which truth was not tended to; It was hidden beneath carefully curated beauty; in flowers, country living, seasonal distractions. What looked like care and light on the surface, was underneath, avoidance, denial and deep emotional disrepair. The air in my early life was filtered through distortion, there was no space for deeper sharing, rooted growth, the encouragement to bloom was through very specific channels of realisation in which it was very hard to be holistically heard or understood. The silent expectation to stay small, to play to invisibility, a withdrawn quietness that was encouraged.

In families like this, what’s protected isn’t the child, it’s the image. What’s cultivated isn’t safety, it’s control. Love becomes something that must be earned, proven, or decoded through seemingly impossible riddles and a search for truth. It is no wonder, that people in this situation respond through either a mistrust of their own longing for connection, or fear in the vulnerability of being truly seen. Seeking invisibility for the fear of the unpredictable experiences that may follow. We may trade in the experience of deep connection for stability or safety, finding comfort, but losing the excitement of vulnerability and the profoundness of deep synergy found in true love.

Emotional Safeguarding and the Inheritance of Avoidance in Relationships

The most profound and intimately relationship we have is with our mother, but if there are reasons that we have to safeguard ourselves from a primary care taker; for instance if you are raised by a parent or guardian who is avoidant or highly defensive? Maybe they live in denial, dismissing or belittling your emotional truth and your reality? Your nervous system learns early that intimacy may be dangerous, unreliable, or even humiliating. You will form a coping strategy. You may search endlessly for connection, only to feel abandoned again and again, or constantly unsatisfied, going from one relationship to the next. You may retreat entirely, building a protective wall around your heart, finding independence to be a more reliable and stable asset than avoidant love, or spaces and environments that lack safety and voice.

This is the terrain of unhealthy emotional safeguarding that seeks to hide, that gaslights, that distorts - that protects the emotional journey experienced through projected pain; the emotional reality of the child is dismissed in order to protect the ego or distortions of the adult.

It leaves deep traces in personal relationships such as:

• Avoiding emotional exposure.

• Over-attuning and caring for others, whilst neglecting yourself.

• Over achieving through busy work loads that give little or no time for personal reflection and living.

• Confusing performance for love and silence for peace.

• Creating sexual relationships that avoid deep, profound and meaningful sexual connections but have elements of over performance. You may find you relate to exploitation, unequal power dynamics and forms of sexual aggression that avoid involved and sensitive sexual relationship.

• Feeling unworthy of being truly held, seen, or stayed with.

• Denial of emotional intimacy.

• Denial of sensitive sensual sexual intimacy.

• The journey from radical doubt into truth and enlightenment; the philosophical journey.

• Trauma ADHD - Attention Deficit or/and Hyper Activity

  
  

Eventually, a new seed is planted, sometimes through pain, sometimes through grace. If we listen, we begin to sense a truth growing just beneath the surface, a buoyancy above the disorder, the illusions, the deceptions. As this grows, so does our need for unconditional love, acceptance and a profound accounting of emotional and physical depth through mutual respect, equality, values and healthy boundaries.

The Body as Soil for Truth

The turning point often begins in the body. It’s the body that feels the tension of concern. The body that constricts, when deception or control is present. The body also softens, expands, feels elevated and breathes deeper in the presence of truth, forming a deep safe connection with another, that can enable a foundation for life.

A real connection is known first not in the mind, but in the body. It feels like:

• A full breath.

• The loosening of armour.

• The release of the mask.

• The quiet joy of being met without having to perform - in appearance, sexually or through social dominance.

  
  

True love creates warmth in the chest. It draws us inward and outward at the same time. It brings a sense of containment, without control, in freeing us to be ourselves and to follow our calling. A freedom, without abandonment. It is not something that needs to be proven. It is something that grows, when the soil is ready.

The Layers of Healing

Healing is not a destination, it is an unfolding of truth, emotional processing and an ability to form healthy relationships with high values that are constructive and meaningful. Like petals opening slowly with the sun. It comes in waves and returns in layers, like seasons cycling through the soul. Some days you feel free, other days, old patterns rise like weeds. But over time, the garden changes. We learn to sit in the discomfort of growth. We learn that what we are building is a garden of becoming, a space where authenticity can root, bloom and bear fruit by fertilising the soil through our needs being met and safety in transparency being clearly embraced.

The unmasking never really ends. But inauthenticity falls away more readily. We stop seeking validation in barren places. We stop explaining ourselves to people who cannot hear or have their own agendas and we begin to plant our lives where truth is fertile.

From Emotional Scarcity to Soulful Reciprocity

Healing does not mean rewriting the old narrative to make it easier to digest. It means refusing to engage with false narratives at all. It means choosing to relate only with those who walk in truth, who acknowledge harm, who see through the superficialities of family branding, societal masks, and emotional performance.

Relating to others through a mutual understanding of truth, rather than inherited illusion, becomes a radical act of self-respect and self care, it is how we rebuild belonging, from the fertile ground up. Let those that want to live in an institution curate their perfect pictures.

Let the Garden Be Wild and True

We belong in spaces where:

• Reality is acknowledged.

• Pain is met with presence.

• Emotional truth is not minimised but listened to, healthy boundaries are put in, with values of transparency and kindness. This is supported by friends, in relationships, creating an architecture to safeguard truth, availability and constructive relating.

• There is room for play, depth and spirit.

  
  

Let the garden of your life be wild with truth. Let love be real enough to hold your full becoming. Let the past fall away like old leaves returning to the soil and let connection, true connection, be tended to, like a sacred seed.

Let Alice have her cake, let her eat it in the sun, resting from the pain of her upside down adventures. Let her be free of the Mad Hatter’s riddles and the Queen of Hearts demands. Let her rest in a garden, not of illusion, but of becoming. Here, she is no longer performing for attention or love, she is finally home.

For more support and development please get in touch - www.insightforlife.co

The White Roses Gather - Poem by Amanda McGregor

Tending the Garden Within

A meditation journey from survival to soul connection

Begin by finding a comfortable position.Let your body settle.Allow your eyes to softly close and take a deep, nourishing breath.

Breathe in... and gently out.

Feel the weight of your body supported by the ground beneath you.Nothing to prove. Nothing to fix. Just this moment. Just you.

Now imagine yourself standing at the edge of a garden.This garden is your inner world, untouched by the expectations of others.It is wild. Free. Honest and real.

With each breath, begin to walk slowly into this garden.

Notice the path beneath your feet..., the soft rustle of leaves..., the light filtering through trees...and the quiet hum of life all around you.

This is the garden of your becoming, a sacred space where truth grows, where nothing needs to be hidden. Here, the soil is made of your experiences. The sunlight is your awareness, the water is your willingness to heal find nourishment, inspiration and connection.

As you walk, you arrive at a small clearing, and in the center of it... you open your hand to find a seed. This seed holds your capacity for love, real love. Love that sees you, love that stays, love that honours your whole self- body, mind, and spirit, you kneel down and place your hands gently on the earth, and with a full breath, plant that seed deep into the ground.

White Roses Gather, Fire Ceremony- white petals with words Holy Spirit.

Now bring to mind someone, real or imagined, who can witness your truth with gentleness. Someone who understands what it means to hold space, without needing you to shrink or cope, or hide. Feel their presence beside you, supporting you. No words are needed, just warmth, containment, knowing. Notice who they are, how the present and how they support.

Let your body begin to soften in this presence. Notice the sensations, tingling in your chest, an honouring of self worth, a gentle heat in your heart, a sense of being seen. This is the feeling of safe connection, of love without fear, a love that is stable and secure, that grows with connection and presence. Let that feeling spread gently through you. Like light through the leaves. Like water through roots. Now, speak inwardly to yourself:

I am safe to feel. I am safe to be seen. I no longer need to perform to be loved. I choose truth. I choose deep presence. I choose real connection.

Let the words echo through your garden, like a soft rain falling on fertile soil.

As you sit in this space, know that healing doesn’t have to be rushed. You are not broken. You are becoming.

You are learning how to belong, to your body, your truth, your soul, and those who can meet you there.

Let this garden grow as slowly or wildly as it needs. Let it be messy. Let it be beautiful. Let it be yours.

Take a few more gentle breaths. Place your hand over your heart. And say silently:

I am home in myself. I am becoming whole.

When you're ready, come back to the room you are sittin in. Feel the surface beneath you, and slowly, gently, open your eyes.

Carry this feeling of truth with you. Tend to your inner garden with care and nourish it so that the white roses may grow freely.