Living in Agency

Living in agency is energy deadening.  Within the family or in the community, the words “I want,” “I need,” or “Can you…?” pull individuals into agency.  If you respond to the needs of others at the expense of your own needs, you are living in agency.  You have stopped listening to your own inner voice.

Feeling fully alive and filled with energy is your birthright.  Helping becomes agency when we devote our life to the needs, desires, and goals of others at the expense of our own needs, desires, and goals.  If we constantly live in agency, we will end up suffering in some way physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, or relationally.  If we are constantly concerned about how everything we do is affecting others, rather than having self-concern, we are in agency.  This is called external referencing.  This means we are understanding our own wellbeing through the feedback we receive from others rather than going within to sense our wellbeing.  Living in agency drains us of our energy, vitality, and life force.

Agency Begins in the Family

As it pertains to family dynamics, any child who is unconsciously attempting to share or carry the emotional burden of a parent or other family member is living in agency.  The child does this unconsciously to ensure their own survival and the wellbeing of the greater family system.  This body holding pattern may have originated in utero, at birth, or in early childhood if mother or another family member was emotionally stressed or unwell in some way.  The child unconsciously and energetically senses whether family members are emotionally needy and they try to come to the rescue. This body holding pattern becomes a life-long pattern unless we shift it.

Sometimes the individual will sense that they were born to help mother because she was emotionally needy in some way.  Perhaps she was anxious, depressed, unsupported, or otherwise stressed, busy, or turned away energetically.  Perhaps father was emotionally distant and he was the emotionally needy one.  Perhaps the child felt their role was mediating peace in the family to keep their parents together.  The child will also sacrifice their own wellbeing to carry transgenerationally the unresolved emotional trauma of the ancestors and family system through epigenetic inheritance.

The child is unconsciously seeking resolution to any family system imbalance or wound.  In these situations, the child will be unable to fully take in their own life force energy or connect with their deep authentic inner core self.  While in childhood or adulthood, the individual will suffer in some way in life and develop symptoms that reveal this wound in the family system.

Strong Core Self

This individual doesn’t get the opportunity to fully individuate, develop a strong sense of core self, or develop healthy boundaries with others in the first few years of life.  They will grow into adulthood and give, give, give to others.  They will fail to take enough for themselves.  They will contract their body and life and be afraid to take up enough space for themselves.  They will ignore their own self-care.  This individual will then seek external referencing rather than going inside to feel and ensure their own wellbeing at their inner core.

No Thanks

You can tell you are living in agency if you continually help others without acknowledgement, thanks, or receiving anything in return at the expense of your own wellbeing.  This is choosing to be in agency.  It’s okay to choose to be in agency once in a while but not all the time.  If helping is done out of a sense of duty, guilt, or obligation, then you are living in agency.

Recognizing Agency

The body knows if you are in agency for yourself or living in agency with others. You may be living in agency with your intimate partner, parents, other family members, co-workers, your children, or community members.  If you find your own needs and goals swallowed up by the needs and goals of anyone else, you are likely living in agency.  If your work is taking over your life and leaving no time for yourself or your family, you are likely living in agency.  If your whole life is your children, you are likely living in agency.  If you have everything you materially need for comfort in life and yet you have this empty feeling inside or keep yearning for more, you are likely living in agency.

If you continually say you’re going to change things in your life using the word “until,” you are likely living in agency.  For example, if you say “I will do this until my children leave home,” “I will do this until I get a new job,” “I will do this until I have more time,” “I will do this until I retire,” or “I will do this until I find a partner,” then you are putting off your own needs, desires, and goals.  Living in agency often carries with it a sense of resentment, frustration, or hopelessness.

Body Response to Agency

The body feels and builds up the inner rage of self-abandonment when you are living in agency.  This will eventually be projected outward to those around you in relationships or reveal itself through body symptoms, conditions, or chronic illnesses.  Agency causes the body to contract or tighten and all feelings of vitality and wellbeing diminish.  You can no longer connect to your core self and you end up constantly feeling empty or left searching or wanting more.

Chronic conditions and illness are a common body response to living in agency.  When we hold anger, resentment, guilt, shame, blame, hurt, pain, rage, sorrow, or grief in our bodies, we take on symptoms of unwellness.  Check with Part 2 of this post to learn how to get out of living in agency and how to transform your world.  The goal is to live your life more fully with love, joy, peace, abundance, and magnificent energy.