'Now you’re just somebody that I used to know….'

I love that song. And it keeps going round in my head as I write this.

It’s easy to forget sometimes how much you change and grow when you are on your spiritual journey.

Yes, you can rack up qualifications and learn new skills. That’s a given. That changes things for sure. But what about the shadow work you do along the way to help you move towards being the most authentic version of you possible? How do you quantify that? It’s not like you can get a certificate saying well done for diving into your shadows and clearing all this crap that was holding you back!

I met up with some friends of mine in Glastonbury at the weekend and as we were catching up it hit me that a lot of the things that used to upset me or trigger me no longer did. I could talk quite freely about things without feeling that catch of emotion in my throat and my eyes filling with tears. Prior to the weekend, I’d had people close to me say that I’ve changed. They were surprised, in a positive way, how I had responded or reacted to certain situations in my life because the Verity from 3 years ago would have acted and responded completely differently.

Fast forward a couple of days and WHAM! Triggered! Out of the blue. Completely unexpected. It always hits hard. For me, it’s like a smack in the face and a big wave of emotion that then envelopes me, trying to consume me.

The difference now is that I know how to deal with a trigger. I can identify it. I know how to process it. I know how to manage it. 99% of the time I am aware of why I’m triggered. The biggest realisation of how much I have changed though is that I no longer fall or I am able to stop myself from falling into the old behaviours and coping mechanisms I used to. And that is HUGE!

So, what I really want to say is, sometimes we need to take a step back and see how far we have come on this journey, not just from the intelligence and knowledge you’ve gained, but from how emotionally intelligent you have become.