The fairy tale of the Sleeping Beauty is a story that offers us an explanation about those parts of ourselves in which we sleep. Those are the parts of us which we guard carefully, and that we are overly sensitive about, if somebody speaks to them.
A thick thorn hedge protects our susceptible parts.
It maintains the distance between them and the rest of the world. It allows them to sleep.
When you think about where you have let your thorn hedge grow around you, think about all the situations in which you react exaggeratedly. What makes you go out of your mind? When do you immediately start to defend yourself?
When you find these fields, do explore them. There is a treasure sleeping behind this thorn hedge which you use to stick people on. One part of you wants to dedicate yourself to it; to check it and find out if it is time for it to awake.
What does it mean “to awake”?
In personal growth, awakening means that you start being aware of something. To receive in all conscience and to decide what you will do with a certain lesson.
What does this “awakening” give to you?
It enables you to achieve an emotional stability. When you actually become aware what triggers an emotional reaction in a certain situation, you can decide in all conscience how you will react. This way you decide for yourself how you will feel in a certain situation. Do not leave this decision to people around you.
Think how people who know you affect your mood.
They can try to “hurt” you because they want the best for you or because they want to hurt you. Both groups have the same purpose in your life: to get you going.
What does this mean in practice?
If a person who loves you reminds you that it is time to finish your diploma, school or to stop smoking, start exercising, losing weight or eating, this can trigger an exaggerated reaction in you. You feel guilty, furious, unworthy, lazy, incompetent, sad. You can go through a whole array of emotions.
A person who is supposed to love you could mention by the way and with an air of accusation that the house has not been tidied yet, that it is noon and there is still no lunch on the table, that you somehow look strange… and all this can put you in an emotional state of guilt, shame, anger, sadness, feeling of unworthiness…, and this has a great impact on how you feel and how you live your life.
Both times these persons attack the susceptible part of you that wants you to have a closer look at it; to recognize what is true. Both types of people are here for the same reason. To awake you. To realize who you really are.
Are you afraid of this truth?
Every time we meet the emotions of shame, fear, guilt, poor self-image, of our own worth, we think that the truth will be horrible, and we flee from it.
The longer we hide behind the thorn hedge, the less we believe that there could be a person on the other side who is worthy, who does not have a reason for shame or guilt. However, this is exactly what this thorn hedge of emotions wants to tell us. That we are OK, that we are worthy, that we are loved.
You can direct the thorn hedge against others and/or against yourself
We can easily understand how we direct the thorn hedge against others ― we defend ourselves, and we even fight. But of course, we can direct it also against ourselves.
How does one sting oneself?
Have you ever realized that you talk badly to yourself, accuse yourself, blame yourself how bad you are? These were the moments you turned your thorn hedge against yourself.
Behind every such talk there is a susceptible part of you who is asking you to give it a hug.
It is worth it. It makes you incredibly wonderful. It asks you to look at it, to clean away the clutter of opinions, to forgive yourself, to receive it as a part of yourself.
