Internal Scaffolding
Many of us were born into various families from the most supportive, loving homes, to one where we feel like we were left with a duffle bag full of emotional baggage. If you were blessed to be raised in a kind, loving and supportive home, your internal scaffolding is probably pretty strong. With the help of your loving family, you were able to build an internal structure made out of steel or wood or even bricks. Your foundation was laid on the sturdiest of suffaces where fresh new concrete was poured so that your internal construction could grow tall and solid. This gave you a supportive feeling where you felt invincible, loved and cared for. But that was not the case for everyone.
Most people I know, including myself, were raised in a family home that left us feeling unsupported, unloved and maybe even unwelcomed. This meant that our internal scaffolding was probably unloved and unsupported as well. Instead of bricks and steel like our more supportive friends, our scaffolding was more like straw or very thin bamboo. Not only that, our internal scaffolding’s foundation was built on an uneven surface that was rocky and unweilding. As kids some of us had a connection to the Divine whether you remember it or not. This connection helped to honor, love and support us so it didn’t matter so much that our internal scaffolding was lacking…. But then we got older. For me, it was around the time I became a teenager. It had been about five years since I had seen my angels in the mirror with their encouraging words: “You can’t see us any longer, but we are still with you.” I had been going along ok, it didn’t matter that my internal scaffolding was made of straw, I had my angels guiding me and loving me. So I leaned on them instead of my own inner scaffolding. Then I turned twelve. We moved to a new town, a new school and it seemed like everything was new. I found that I was testing my interal scaffolding and found it lacking. Not only did it not support me, it dropped me on my butt surrounded by a big pile of straw and bamboo.
As I started to get a little older, I started to notice the way I was reacting to things. I don’t think I knew I had bad internal scaffolding, but I knew something wasn’t ‘right.’ As teenagers go, I started to compare my internal scaffolding which was rickety and rotting to my friend’s scaffolding that was strong and sturdy. I started feel alone and I couldn’t quite put a name on what was going on for me. I found I had labeled myself ‘different’. I didn’t act out in middle school and even in high school still believing that IF I was the ‘good girl’ my internal scaffolding would hold me and support me. So I tried on different friends like you try on clothes believing that if I found the right friend they would be able to fix me. When that didn’t work I tried on different religions believing that if I found one that felt right, I could save myself…. from myself. When the friends and the religions didn’t work, I worked on accepting my ‘otherness’, my ‘differences’. Yet, I still came up feeling lacking… always the outsider, wounded and feeling like I was deficient in some way. My self esteem was in the toilet with self loathing at an all time high. Unbeknownst to me, my internal scaffolding was damaged with no idea how to fix it. All I knew was that when it didn’t support me, I would be left yet again in another pile surrounded by the straw and bamboo.
I lived like that for years. I had remembered seeing my angels and a part of me was still seeking out my connection to the Divine. I moved around a lot in my twenties always seeking a better ‘Beth’ in Washington, DC, New Hampshire or Florida. I decided to look further than the East Coast thinking that maybe Los Angeles would be where I would find the love and support I was so desperately sought. This quest was always outside of myself. I tried my luck at different ‘New Age’ book stores hoping there would be a book or something that would put me back together again. I felt like Humpty Dumpty always falling off the wall only to pick myself back up again a little more ‘broken’ than before.
As I continued to seek outside myself moving from city to city, job to job, boyfriend to boyfriend, I found my way back to the town I grew up in outside Philadelphia. My friend invited me to go to a New Age bookstore in Jenkintown. Feeling like I had already exhausted that path, I politely refused, yet she begged. She said there was a meditation class that was started that night. I see now I probably would not have found the class or the teacher had my friend not begged me to go. I did go and totally clicked with Pat the woman guiding the meditation class. I began to see that a connection to the Divine, a connection to my inner world was what I was seeking all those years. The first meditation class woke up something that had been dormat inside of me since I last saw my angels. It was something I didn’t even know I was missing….. until it was found. Pat lit a fire inside of me that had almost burned out. I started going to her class every Thursday, I was her faithful student. I didn’t realize it at the time but in class every Thursday I was relearning how to engage a muscle that lay dormant for a long time. This muscle I used as a way of quieting my always thinking monkey mind and listen to my angels. Slowly, methodically my internal scaffolding began to rebuild itself. This time, however I designed my scaffolding materials and how it would sustain me. I started to gain confidence in my abilities. As a result my self esteem started to blossom and grow.
I also started to acquire wonderful new women friends who helped me and guided me on my journey. I feel very grateful to Pat and the strong wise women she brought to class. Through wise eyes I look back on how much I received from the meditation class I never wanted to attend in the first place! Like most people I thought I was doing fine in my life. The little mind ego system likes to give you a false belief system that you are ‘fine’ when your life is in shambles. It will ply you with false notions that you are doing great even when you don’t have meaningful employment, your family is still involved in supporting you at 28 and your on again relationship is off again.
When you walk outside by a building that is under construction you see the scaffolding right away. It is usually very strong and meant to support maybe one or two workers comfortably. It is easy to know those men or women are being supported. No construction site wants to have its workers fall. Our internal scaffolding system is built with the same intent to be supportive yet, we might not recognize when it is rickety and not helpful. If you are lucky, you get someone who comes along who can help you change your internal scaffolding. The first step is recognizing your structure needs help. This could be the hardest part for a number of reasons. One, the ego mind set often doesn’t want to identify that it needs a construction overall. It wants to think that its internal scaffolding is very supportive and works just fine..(even when it is in a pile on the ground). If you are smart enough to realize that you need help with your structure, you might not want the person offering help to be your foreman. You might think they won’t be able to get the job done. Second we often lack compassion for someone who doesn’t have a good internal scaffolding. When someone is hurting inwardly, we can miss the signals. We want them to get up, shake it off and keep going. When we realize that they are unable, we might prod them even more or chastise them for their laziness or self loathing. Why are we so unkind to someone who is hurting? Why are we so unsupportive to someone who so obviously needs our support? The answer is simple, because our shaky internal scaffolding has butted up against their shaky structure. We see ourselves and we don’t like what we see.
It is only when you have a strong internal system, can you recognize a weak shaky, unsteady one. When you internal scaffolding is weak and lacking, you are unable to support someone else’s. But when your internal structure is sound, you can invite someone who has a weak internal scaffolding to come over to yours and feel supported. This in turn invites the other person to get strong. When they are strong enough, they can then return to their structure. It is only when you visit a strong scaffolding system can you see how weak your structure is. Now this awareness can facilitate the spark of change. It is only when we are able to lean on others, do we see how important it is to feel supported and loved. All it takes is one person with strong supportive internal scaffolding.
I used to think having a family that didn’t support me, couldn’t value me was a fate worse than death. The internal scaffolding my family gave me never could support me. This structure was unintentionally passed down so it couldn’t sustain me for the rest of my life. Much like a phoenix rising from the ashes I see now what a gift that was. On my knees was where I found that inward connection to the Divine. It invited me to search for others who could give me what I needed. I have now created a new ‘family’ who I feel always have my back. But I know that if I have to trust my internal scaffolding, I know it will hold. It’s made of steel….just like me.