I have been doing this writing thing here for a few months now. Trying to share a bit of my unfolding journey as catharsis for myself and to offer any support for someone else that I might. A whole lot of what I do though is a lot of mental activity, engaging the thought processes more than working from my emotions. It is easier for me to come at the world from this place. It is familiar and keeps me just a little more comfortable because it feels safer. I get to keep the "out there" and my inner world just a little more separated than if I just let all that inner truth ooze out all over the place. But I realized over the last few days that where I wanted to be was not going to be where I was going if I stayed comfortable.
Every time in my life where I ever made a change that really shifted the direction I was going in it was done with that familiar fear coursing a bit through my veins. The fear was coursing but I did it anyway. I had courage. I walked into or out of rooms and ways of being afraid but unwilling to let it stop me anymore. We have all reached places like this before, maybe we asked someone on a date, maybe we tried for a job we felt might just be outside of what we could do, maybe we dared to sing,speak or be a little bit more of ourselves while risking judegment. That's what I wanted to write about today, that risk, that speaking up, that truth.
I said I realized I had to not just get out of my comfort zone, get out of my own way, but walk forward with that fear. The fear wasn't going to go anywhere unless and until I stopped listening to it so faithfully that it stopped me from being and doing what I really longed for. The way I got there was following that inner urging to move forward, following my gut to "go here" and "do that". Yesterday it ended with me doing a meditation and an exercise in standing in my own story. You see, because of the varied events of my life I suffered a lot, but I urgently needed to make that suffering have more purpose than any pain it caused me. I wanted what I have been through to help someone else in some way shift from their own feelings of being adrift or lost into a place where possibilities existed. My being comfortable was not getting me there and me hiding behind a certain level of intellectual banter to keep distance between me and other people wasn't going to get me there either. So, I walked forward with that fear of just telling the truth as messy and imperfect as it might be.
Here's the truth of it then...
I have been walking around for most of my life feeling broken. I felt not just broken from the pain I experienced at the hands of other people, people I frequently thought loved me, but I felt inherently flawed because those things had happened. I took all the responsibility for the events of my life because I could so easily see the people who perpetrated these things didn't really know what they had done, they were operating from their own pain. It doesn't matter if it was logic based, it was how I opened my eyes in the morning and shut them at night. I had been molested by my grandfather, raped by the first boy I ever loved and his best friend, beaten by men who claimed to love me, men who said they loved me tried to kill me on more than one occasion, I had been cheated on by more than one lover, bullied, ignored, humiliated and used in too many ways. I really believed the crux of the problem was with me.
After my last fiance, the father of my youngest child and I parted ways because the relationship was abusive I got stuck. I got trapped in the idea that all of these events were my fault and that I didn't know what I was doing wrong so I couldn't stop anymore of it from happening. I just stopped. I stopped dating. I stopped friendships. I stopped taking care of myself. I essentially just stopped doing life. Last year around June maybe, it came to my attention where I was and that I was not going to get where I really wanted to be by doing what I was already doing. I realized I was not going to get to a place where I could offer help to someone else. I realized I wasn't going to find peace within myself of peace and solace. I realized I wasn't going to find "my person". I realized I wasn't going to fix the problems with my family. I realized I wasn't going to make any of the things I had gone through really have meaning if I stayed where I was.
My next step was making little changes and those little changes complied and became big shifts. Everything I was doing essentially boiled down to taking care of myself first and others second. I decided, I chose, to face whatever I needed to face and walk through what I needed to walk through to get out of being stuck. I became willing to do the work I needed to do, whatever it was, to free myself. No one was going to come in on a white horse and rescue me and even if he did it wouldn't have mattered in the long run if I wasn't willing to let go, trust and be more honest about who I was and what I needed. So I ran, walked, fell down and crawled through a shit load of pain. I dismantled myself imposed limitations, I faced a fear here and a fear there. I did what was put in front of me that needed to be done to get where I wanted to go. And let me just say here, where I wanted to go wasn't (isn't) some particular place, person or job. It is a state of freedom from my own limitations, it is being as I was at 3 or 5 in that I wasn't going to show up already apologizing for who I was. "Where I wanted to go", was being genuine, honest, and true to myself whether it was pretty and perfect or messy as hell. Along the way I have learned I didn't have to be perfect, I just had to show up (still actively working on this one). I learned I could just do the one next step and not know how it would work out and it would be okay. I learned to love where I am and have been because it is the foundation for where I am going, and that is a beautiful place! And I learned to let go, allow, and trust the process because there is a wisdom fatpr beyind my own rhat can see where I can go and how to get me there.
I am not "done"... Being done with the unfolding of a more honest self and becoming a truer version of who I am I don't feel ever really happens. I don't get discouraged though by that fact, it is actually pretty beautiful! This opening up and allowing myself to just be who I am vs. who I thought I should be has been liberating. I have moved away from waking up fearful, feeling unworthy of the things I have always wanted most for myself, to waking up with love over flowing, into joy and hope. Knowing this is already where I am and that every time, EVERY TIME, I heal something I am rewarded by a new level of understanding that settles me and lets me feel just a little more free... Well, just think of it, I know there is still more "work" to do, that means there is even more gorgeous love to feel, joy to flow in and out of my life, life to feel unfolding in the direction if my own greatest hopes! This journey, however bumpy the road might get from time to time, it is so worth every fear I face, and every time I fall down.
I hope for you, reading this right now, that you are so VERY uncomfortable! I hope you are suffering just a little too much to stay where you are anymore or as you have been for far too long! I hope for you that you take one step today forward, then one tomorrow forward, and away from what you have know. Go not into your story of pain and suffering but into your own hopes and your own freedom!!!! You my dear, you have the power to set yourself free. Get out of your own way, take a moment to stand in your truth and walk forward with that fear coursing through your veins! I PROMISE YOU it is worth it.
Every time in my life where I ever made a change that really shifted the direction I was going in it was done with that familiar fear coursing a bit through my veins. The fear was coursing but I did it anyway. I had courage. I walked into or out of rooms and ways of being afraid but unwilling to let it stop me anymore. We have all reached places like this before, maybe we asked someone on a date, maybe we tried for a job we felt might just be outside of what we could do, maybe we dared to sing,speak or be a little bit more of ourselves while risking judegment. That's what I wanted to write about today, that risk, that speaking up, that truth.
I said I realized I had to not just get out of my comfort zone, get out of my own way, but walk forward with that fear. The fear wasn't going to go anywhere unless and until I stopped listening to it so faithfully that it stopped me from being and doing what I really longed for. The way I got there was following that inner urging to move forward, following my gut to "go here" and "do that". Yesterday it ended with me doing a meditation and an exercise in standing in my own story. You see, because of the varied events of my life I suffered a lot, but I urgently needed to make that suffering have more purpose than any pain it caused me. I wanted what I have been through to help someone else in some way shift from their own feelings of being adrift or lost into a place where possibilities existed. My being comfortable was not getting me there and me hiding behind a certain level of intellectual banter to keep distance between me and other people wasn't going to get me there either. So, I walked forward with that fear of just telling the truth as messy and imperfect as it might be.
Here's the truth of it then...
I have been walking around for most of my life feeling broken. I felt not just broken from the pain I experienced at the hands of other people, people I frequently thought loved me, but I felt inherently flawed because those things had happened. I took all the responsibility for the events of my life because I could so easily see the people who perpetrated these things didn't really know what they had done, they were operating from their own pain. It doesn't matter if it was logic based, it was how I opened my eyes in the morning and shut them at night. I had been molested by my grandfather, raped by the first boy I ever loved and his best friend, beaten by men who claimed to love me, men who said they loved me tried to kill me on more than one occasion, I had been cheated on by more than one lover, bullied, ignored, humiliated and used in too many ways. I really believed the crux of the problem was with me.
After my last fiance, the father of my youngest child and I parted ways because the relationship was abusive I got stuck. I got trapped in the idea that all of these events were my fault and that I didn't know what I was doing wrong so I couldn't stop anymore of it from happening. I just stopped. I stopped dating. I stopped friendships. I stopped taking care of myself. I essentially just stopped doing life. Last year around June maybe, it came to my attention where I was and that I was not going to get where I really wanted to be by doing what I was already doing. I realized I was not going to get to a place where I could offer help to someone else. I realized I wasn't going to find peace within myself of peace and solace. I realized I wasn't going to find "my person". I realized I wasn't going to fix the problems with my family. I realized I wasn't going to make any of the things I had gone through really have meaning if I stayed where I was.
My next step was making little changes and those little changes complied and became big shifts. Everything I was doing essentially boiled down to taking care of myself first and others second. I decided, I chose, to face whatever I needed to face and walk through what I needed to walk through to get out of being stuck. I became willing to do the work I needed to do, whatever it was, to free myself. No one was going to come in on a white horse and rescue me and even if he did it wouldn't have mattered in the long run if I wasn't willing to let go, trust and be more honest about who I was and what I needed. So I ran, walked, fell down and crawled through a shit load of pain. I dismantled myself imposed limitations, I faced a fear here and a fear there. I did what was put in front of me that needed to be done to get where I wanted to go. And let me just say here, where I wanted to go wasn't (isn't) some particular place, person or job. It is a state of freedom from my own limitations, it is being as I was at 3 or 5 in that I wasn't going to show up already apologizing for who I was. "Where I wanted to go", was being genuine, honest, and true to myself whether it was pretty and perfect or messy as hell. Along the way I have learned I didn't have to be perfect, I just had to show up (still actively working on this one). I learned I could just do the one next step and not know how it would work out and it would be okay. I learned to love where I am and have been because it is the foundation for where I am going, and that is a beautiful place! And I learned to let go, allow, and trust the process because there is a wisdom fatpr beyind my own rhat can see where I can go and how to get me there.
I am not "done"... Being done with the unfolding of a more honest self and becoming a truer version of who I am I don't feel ever really happens. I don't get discouraged though by that fact, it is actually pretty beautiful! This opening up and allowing myself to just be who I am vs. who I thought I should be has been liberating. I have moved away from waking up fearful, feeling unworthy of the things I have always wanted most for myself, to waking up with love over flowing, into joy and hope. Knowing this is already where I am and that every time, EVERY TIME, I heal something I am rewarded by a new level of understanding that settles me and lets me feel just a little more free... Well, just think of it, I know there is still more "work" to do, that means there is even more gorgeous love to feel, joy to flow in and out of my life, life to feel unfolding in the direction if my own greatest hopes! This journey, however bumpy the road might get from time to time, it is so worth every fear I face, and every time I fall down.
I hope for you, reading this right now, that you are so VERY uncomfortable! I hope you are suffering just a little too much to stay where you are anymore or as you have been for far too long! I hope for you that you take one step today forward, then one tomorrow forward, and away from what you have know. Go not into your story of pain and suffering but into your own hopes and your own freedom!!!! You my dear, you have the power to set yourself free. Get out of your own way, take a moment to stand in your truth and walk forward with that fear coursing through your veins! I PROMISE YOU it is worth it.
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