 It is not loving your body that will heal your relationship with your body.
It’s loving the voice inside that hates your body that creates actual healing. It’s accepting that right at this moment, you may not love your Self like you think you should. It is accepting that there is a part within that wants to control. That thinks it can protect you from the hate, by hating first. By hating louder. It’s about acceptance not fighting your Self about it. Not fighting that part. Not making it fight back. It’s about letting that part be seen. Be loved. Without agreeing with it. Or withholding your Self from it. It’s about loving that part of you without reservation or condition...simply because it is there. It is you. It’s about recognizing that the part is a part of you. A part of the Whole. And any violence committed against it, it violence committed against you. It’s about taking that part in, instead of pushing it away. Reminding it that it is home. That it is Loved...just as it is. It is then that the war stops. It is then that the healing happens. Sometimes what we really want to do is let go.
Let go of that pain. Let go of that pattern. Let go of the wall that is in the way. And, sometimes, what we really have to do hold it close. Even that pain. Even that pattern. Even that thing we want to be done with so damn much. Sometimes, what we have to embrace it. We have to stop pushing it away. Stop trying to separate our Selves from it. Stop trying to separate our Self. And I want to be beyond clear here, none of this is saying to let your Self hurt. None of this is saying to hold abuse or abuser closer. None of this saying to not walk away. What I am saying is that we cannot walk away from our Selves. We cannot walk away from that voice inside that spews venom. Or the part that weeps and aches and tries to fill itSelf up in all the ways that it can. We can not walk away from the parts we hate and the parts that hate. The path to healing is rarely, if ever, about abandoning your Self. And if you try to shame your Self into change. If you try to ignore the voices that rage. If you try to run from the parts that hold the fire. You are trying to abandon you Self. And if you will find your Self stuck. We have to let those parts and pieces of our being. know that even though they hurt...even though they have hurt us...we see them. We love them. We have to re-member them to the whole that is our Truth. We have to let them know that the behaviors will change. But the part of us that has held on...the part of us that has tried in its own way to protect us...needs to be shown the way home. That thing you think you should be over.
That one that keeps showing up, even after you said you were done with it once and for all. Maybe it’s a story about worth. Or laziness. Or safety. Maybe it’s a fear of being seen. Being left. Being alone. Maybe it’s a stuckness that tangles you up right before the newness begins. You can do all the work in the world to heal it and it may still be there. Because healing is not the absence of symptoms. Healing is a shift in perspective. Healing is the refusal to enter a war with your Self. Healing is the willingness to embrace every piece of who you are, yes including that one that you thought you fixed long ago. But that piece is still there. It may always be. It may rise up in need. It may bring attention to its ancient aches. It may speak to you in whatever language it has been taught, including shame and anger. The goal is not get rid of any part of you. You can’t, even if you tried. All of you is all of you. And that part...the part that has been hurt...is still a part of your experience. The healing happens when you see it and stop running from it. The healing happens when you stop believing its story to be true. The healing happens when you love that part of your Self just as it is. In the middle of its being exactly who it is. If you are willing to be different with that experience...if you are willing to learn that is showing you the way to what you need...if you are willing to listen to your depths...healing happens. And that is when you become more of your Self than ever before. I’ve been thinking about breakthroughs. And how when we are aching for one, we only think about the through.
About what is on the other side. About having what we want. We think about breakthroughs, we forget about the break. But for a breakthrough to happen, we must allow something to break. We can’t get through without disturbing...destroying...the space we have been stuck in. We must allow for the image and perceptions we hold to shatter. We must let the worn out grooves crumble. We must let the stories burn. There is no breakthrough without a break. And yes...it can be hard. And yes...it can be scary. There is comfort in what we know. Even if it is too small. Too tangled. Too painful. We don’t know who we will be...how we will be...when we land on the other side with what was in pieces around us. But the seed rises and breakthroughs the soil. The landscape is changed. What was is no more. That seed cracks open the surface and creates space for itSelf to become. And we must do the same, if we are to rise and become... Root to Core to Crown. Healing must include destruction.
We must be willing to cleave our Selves from the stories that have anchored us to stuckness. We must be willing to break apart the walls that create distance within our Selves. We must be willing to burn away the haze that clouds our vision. Destruction is as vital, if not more so, then creation when it comes to healing. And we must embrace it. We must rise up in our Selves and clear the pathway for all the newness we desire. Healing requires sacrifice.
We must lay down the stories that feed the stuckness and shame. The ones that were passed down through the ages...the ones woven into our being. The ones holding protection and pain. We must shed the identities we wear as a second skin...the shrouds that allow us to hide in the wide open. We must offer our fear, our clenched fists, our roundabout patterns to the fire and let them to burn. We must tear apart the mythology that whispers lies of conditions and worth. To remember our Wholeness and Truth we must lay it all out on the altar of life. We must sacrifice all that we are not in order to become who we have always been. You’ve had those moments...the big ahas.
The intense grace. The healing where the skies part and things look like they are shifting. Finally. And for this nice chunk of time, things are good. Until they aren’t. You wonder why. You wonder what you did wrong. You wonder how you can get back to what was. You may try. Flail. Scream. And fret. Desperate to get back. To go back. To make it how it used to be. But you can’t. The big changes that happened, whatever they were...they weren’t rooted. They were being fed by the same stories, the same beliefs you have carried with you for ages. The patterns may have had that sudden transformation, but what fueled them remained the same. So, eventually, they curled back in on themselves...sliding back into the same old grooves you knew all too well. You don’t get to go back. That’s not the point. The point is to do the work of the roots. The point is to use the moment of grace as a guide. To see what is in the way. To see what, in your roots, needs to be untangled. Destroyed. And replanted. So that you know who you are. So that you live in your power. And so that what you create is fueled by Truth. Do the work. Go to the Roots...then rise. So, I am sitting here.
Right now. And I can feel this part of me. This not so little part. Hiding. I watch her. The little green monstery looking fluff. Living in rage. In fear. In smoke and mirrors. Because being seen is on the agenda. And she is not just hiding. That doesn’t do her power justice. She rips and claws. Pulls every bit of me that she can manage behind these thick, red curtains. For reasons I don’t think I even have words. Yet there she is. This scream that wants to rise from my belly. This ache to crumple in on myself. This paralyzing apathy that just sits. This haze that swirls in confusion telling me I don’t know what I want, when really…I so fucking do know. I can fight her. I have. She wins. Because she has a skin in the game the whole of me never will. So I won’t. Instead. I will love her. Because it’s what I do. Not because it will fix her. She doesn’t need my patronizing glare. But because I am more of my Self when I do. And then I will listen. To a knowing. That this moment. Right now. Is an invitation. To not hide. To show you. My Self. I will remember that when I know the invitation. I can hear my Soul. And when I hear my Soul. I can honor the adventure. That is way bigger. Than what this moment seems to be. And though I don’t know what it all means. I will accept the invitation. To show up. To not fix. To heed the call. To live the adventure. To embrace the wildness of my human experience. To do the shit that I do. To be seen. As is. As I am. In this moment. There is this moment.
When I am doing my own inner work. My own inner explorations. And I stumble across a story that I didn’t even know was story. It was so tightly glued to myself…like fruit rollups and that piece of cellophane they are stretched across…I could barely see it. Those stories…they hang on the tightest. They are woven into the tapestry of what be believe about the world and who we know ourselves to be. And they fight to stay alive because they fear what might happen if the vital protection of their stories was no longer present. The fear of shame and pain and death is real, even if it’s only real to a small part of you. So this moment… This moment happens when I start to feel the stories dig in. I start to feel the resistance. The fear, mostly unknown and murky, rising to the surface. I feel the defenses up and at the same time, I feel these parts retreating into me. Not wanting to get caught. Not wanting to be hurt. And that is the moment, when my most electric, authentic, whole Self rises up. Meets the retreat and overtakes it. With acceptance. Total and complete of what is. Looking with clarity. Seeing every piece of the puzzle. Knowing that even in its pieces it is whole and complete. Those parts met with love. Fierce and clear. Unending. Willing to acknowledge the bullshit. Willing to create change. Willing to surrender as I embrace all of myself. That is where I meet myself. That is where I become myself. There is this moment.
When I am doing my own inner work. My own inner explorations. And I stumble across a story that I didn’t even know was story. It was so tightly glued to myself…like fruit rollups and that piece of cellophane they are stretched across…I could barely see it. Those stories…they hang on the tightest. They are woven into the tapestry of what be believe about the world and who we know ourselves to be. And they fight to stay alive because they fear what might happen if the vital protection of their stories was no longer present. The fear of shame and pain and death is real, even if it’s only real to a small part of you. So this moment… This moment happens when I start to feel the stories dig in. I start to feel the resistance. The fear, mostly unknown and murky, rising to the surface. I feel the defenses up and at the same time, I feel these parts retreating into me. Not wanting to get caught. Not wanting to be hurt. And that is the moment, when my most electric, authentic, whole Self rises up. Meets the retreat and overtakes it. With acceptance. Total and complete of what is. Looking with clarity. Seeing every piece of the puzzle. Knowing that even in its pieces it is whole and complete. Those parts met with love. Fierce and clear. Unending. Willing to acknowledge the bullshit. Willing to create change. Willing to surrender as I embrace all of myself. That is where I meet myself. That is where I become myself. |
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