Pretty catchy title, don’t you think? Guess who I need to credit for this phrase? Not our 10-year-old boy (or the 21 year old;-), but our family doctor. When we first heard her say this, we giggled (as I am sure you did too, as would the 10 and 21 year old). The thing is, it is something that has become music to my ears. Yep, you read that right.

Dan has a lot of stuff from his childhood and from the family he was born into. Like so many, he thought he was OK with everything. Like so many, he wasn’t. About 20 years ago, Dan developed some physical issues that he assumed were from excessive weight, lack of regular exercise, heredity or poor food choices. And these things contributed to the worsening of his symptoms, but they weren’t the cause of the problem.

The root cause is how Dan is processing all of these things that happened when he was a child, and even similar things that happened as an adult. During the event(s), he developed an insecurity about himself, but he didn’t know he had done that. If you look at Dan’s life from the outside, you would never guess he had an issue with self esteem, security or worthiness. You see, he gives all that he has away. He takes great care of me and the kids, he works hard to meet the needs of his customers and he loves greatly. However, on the inside, he is depleted. He is depleted because he thinks he has to be, because of the way in which he stored traumatic things in his life.

Happens to a lot of us, possibly all of us.

The beauty is that we can move these things into memories instead of letting them control us. Dan’s body was asking for him to feel confident and let go of the things (and people) that weren’t working or that which are simply over. Our minds (the subconscious that runs over 95% of what we do) has a very hard time doing this. For Dan, he developed a belief that doing what he wanted to do (what felt right to him) was “wrong,” and doing what he thinks others need or want to be “right.” So he creates situations that keep him busy doing for others, and never having any time left to do for himself, and therefore he avoids doing what is “wrong,” by simply avoiding having any time or energy for himself. But the thing is, what feels right to him isn’t wrong. Doing what he wants and desires is the only thing that is right. Hence, the confusion and running in circles over and over and over again.

So instead of those childhood things just being independent memories, they got connected to his identity of himself. Dan, and all of us, are good and love…period. Nothing that happens to or around us changes that. What changes is our opinion of ourselves when we don’t move those incidents into memories and instead allow them to attach to our identity. When they get stuck to our identity, they take over. They think they are who we are. They aren’t. They are just occurrences.

Back to farts…

When Dan allows these occurrences to take over and “run the show,” he begins to build resentment. He doesn’t do what he wants, he does what he thinks they want. Much like the child that succumbs to the needs of the parent because they need food, clothes, shelter and love. This resentment settled into his digestive system. When he builds up too much resentment, it causes blocks. Blocks cause pain. I will spare you the details, but the results aren’t pretty.

When he allows these occurrences to not connect to his identity and they simple move on through, that is when he can experience socially acceptable farts. No blocks. No pain. So believe it or not, his farts are music to my ears. When I hear them I know that he is in charge, instead of the old beliefs that got connected to his identity. I want nothing more for him than to be free of those things. They are just things that happened and he doesn’t have to relive them or be controlled by them. They are just memories, they are not who he is. The metaphor of them being farts is a good one for sure.

I think it is a safe bet that most women don’t smile on the inside when they hear a fart from their husband…

I also think it is a safe bet that you’re smiling now!