on receiving support

and conscious contracts (an essay)

photo by me

I logged on the other day to see I had a “pledge” of support. I didn’t quite understand what this meant. I’d never turned on paid subscriptions here, for a whole host of reasons.

mostly I didn’t want people to have to pay to read my writing. I don’t really write in order to be rewarded with anything except perhaps for my own clarity, and more understanding of the world I live in (and the people who inhabit it).

but I’ve had these nudges lately. towards receiving. and what that means.

there’s a theme that runs through my long-form writing about unconscious contracts. I feel I’ve been subject to many of them in my life, starting in childhood. so much has been done to me in my life. people might say “without consent”. but that addendum isn’t necessary. to be done to is to control. it’s obvious in its naming. and there’s a lot to unravel if one is to try and sort this out, to heal and move forward.

to recover is to see we have a choice. a choice to acknowledge what’s done to us, (instead, I suppose, to that which is created in collaboration with us) and to respond. to recover is to see we have the ability to respond. the response-ability. and then we may practice what it means to be responsible to ourselves.

this is what is often named, but framed poorly, as self care. a few years ago I launched a project to help people learn self care. I did it anonymously & freely. I posted all sorts of ideas, inquiries, tips to taking care of oneself. I’d post inspirations to point towards this deceptively simple idea that actually evaded me, as it does so many others. the fact was: I was teaching myself how to care for myself. working it out by coming up with ideas to help illustrate the concept to others. I learned as I went. and I don’t even know how long it took for me to even realize why I was doing it.

when we are not cared for well by others, often in our formative years, we also do not know what it is to care for ourselves. for if our caregivers didn’t value us, then how we can value ourselves.

and so I set about to rectify this. and, for the most part, through trial and error, I’ve reached a place where I felt successful. and one of the components of self-care is acknowledgement of what receive from the world. we don’t entirely care for ourselves. everything we are in life is supported by a myriad of systems we often don’t even think about. I acknowledge these daily in my gratitude practice.

but I think I forgot all about the work required to accept random explicit offers of care from others. due to the unconscious contracts in my past, I find these tricky. and serendipitously this week (because I’ve been setting up a Patreon), I came to see that I can set up conscious contracts all on my own. these render the unconscious ones null & void. they don’t exist.

so all that to say: due to the pledge I received here, I’ve decided to open up “paid” subscriptions here on Substack. and what this means to me is: I’m allowing myself to receive the support & encouragement from others who freely offer it. and that’s it.

all posts will remain available to everyone who subscribes for free. if you enjoy my work and feel you want to support it, beyond likes and shares and comments (and the most important: simply reading!), you can also start a paid subscription, if you wish.

thanks to all of you for being the wind beneath my wings. I think I’ll soar now.

-with love & gratitude, Shannon

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