I recently had the most startling memory. I was chopping up sweet potatoes and broccoli for my dogs’ natural diet when it came to me. I have never had this memory before, and it must have been from when I was three or four years old.
I was in a strange room with many other children, staring down at some contraption and trying to fit a red square peg into a round hole. It probably looked something like this, in a more old-fashioned version.
I felt great anxiety as I somehow knew that I was about to be judged by how well I performed this task. Needless to say, my efforts to fit that square peg into that round hole, though very earnest, failed miserably. So miserably that another contraption was substituted, one I could hammer away at to my heart’s content and succeed in spectacularly. This was the exact toy that gave me immediate relief and brought me success. I remember it well and will be forever grateful to whoever set it down before me!
The point? An anxiety-ridden experience is my sole memory of my prekindergarten experience. No wonder it got buried deep in my subconscious!
If you are like me, you have probably had similar experiences. I think many of us, at some point in our lives, feel we are a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Like we just don’t “fit in.”
Fast forward to the last two weeks, present time, beginning early October, 2015, wherein I embarked upon an intensive series of acupuncture treatments with one of the oldest and best known practitioners in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ostensibly for my painful chronic back condition.
Little did I realize…
After just the second treatment (two per week), I had a day of extreme free-floating anxiety, and later the emergence of old buried memories began, all of which “el docteur” (please translate into Japanese) identified as the “re-tracing” that goes along with true, deep healing.
We heal from most recent imbalances/illnesses/insults to oldest, in that order. And, of course, that includes our emotional bodies.
Geez Louise! Could healing please be just a little bit easier? And why am I posting about this?
Because I think so many of us who are “sensitive” feel like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole–at least at times, though maybe our entire lives. I know many of my clients and students come to me feeling this way.
We “square pegs” learn early on how to compensate for our sharp, 90-degree corners, how to look and behave in a way our culture deems “normal.” We are very smart so make good grades and go to name-dropping schools. We start fabulous businesses. We marry well and have gorgeous children who excel in all areas.
And our healing journeys, once we begin them in earnest, are often painful. Along the way, however, we slowly learn that who we truly are is magic! Our reality may a bit “different,” but trust me, our understanding of how our square-pegged’ness can help move someone else forward into a deeper understanding of their own truth is important.
So, my sisters and brothers. BRING IT! You are not a square peg for nothing. If you feel like a square peg in a round hole, please share your beliefs, your differences, your causes. Talk about your experiences and follow your heart’s longings. Many will “get it,” others may not, but you will always help someone feel validated. You have a great square-cornered gift. So please, share it!
And may your healing journey be a kind one.
POSTSCRIPT: One More Square-PeggedMemory: I started first-grade at mid-term, after the rest of that class had been there all fall. I did not know I was “behind” or entering the class three months late, and I could not believe how everyone else in the class seemed to understand everything that was going on, including the reading and spelling part of it all! I do remember feeling totally lost. It was January, very cold. Our coats had been carefully hung in the cloakroom that morning. At the end of the day we were instructed to go get our coats and lunch boxes and then to come sit back down in our seats. I remember feeling very smug and grown-up because I was able to follow these directions. I went and retrieved my belongings, but then, forgetting that we had also been instructed to always push our chairs into our desks any time we left them, I sat down, once again, as instructed… on the floor—-OUCH! 
And THAT is my only memory of first grade! (Guess I have a lot of healing left to do.)
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