Fierce Heart
Dear Blessed One,
Are you ready for change? Will change mean letting go of something? What are you afraid of? Losing someone, or something? Not-knowing what the new life will look like? Change for most of us means letting go of what no longer serves our highest good…often the past.
Letting go of the past does not mean that you’re in agreement with it, that you like it, or that it didn’t happen. Allowing the past to stay in the past only means that you are no longer willing to let it taint your present experience.
Even something as “minor” as the argument you may have had this morning can create a feeling of heaviness later. It’s important to feel all the feelings that get stirred up, and talk about it (when you can) until the charge is gone. This creates healing, integration, deepening, and there is less chance of it leaving residue to be triggered by something else.
Fifteen years ago when I got sober, I remember struggling with how to live a happy, productive, and free life when everywhere I turned, the life I was living looked like hell. I didn’t know that I was all tangled up in a web of blame, anger, shame, and pain. The mess of my past was just recycling and validating the mess of my present, making me right over and over again about what an awful life I was trapped in. I used to cry out to a God that I hated to ‘please just take me now because life is not worth living!’
The quandary I was facing was that I was mentally, emotionally, physically, and sexually abused for many years as a young girl, and it was affecting my self-esteem, self-worth, and relationships. However, if I moved on from the wreckage of my past, what would that mean?! Who’s to take responsibility for my dysfunctional way of living? Will moving on, no longer crying “victim”, mean I’m okay with what happened? Will it look like I’m giving it the ole thumbs-up? Will I have to take full responsibility for my life today? That might mean I will no longer be able to use my past as the reason for my life being such a mess, and it is such a mess, and it’s not MY fault! Who to blame? Oh, the immense internal pressure I was feeling…
With curiosity, and desperation, something was able to leak into my consciousness (enough pressure and a fissure is bound to happen). I began challenging the way I was operating, first with baby steps and timidness, and then with a fierce heart, not letting myself consciously get away with anything. I began asking a lot of questions when the story of victim would arise. Things like:
– Whose voice is this?
– Is this belief keeping me trapped?
– Does this belief create lightness or heaviness in my body?
– Does this serve me in some positive or negative way?
– How can I move forward with this wound from my past and am I willing to do so?
– What would life look like if I no longer told myself this story?
– What positive, nurturing thing can I do for myself right now to feed self-love?
– How can I allow my painful history to be the catalyst for strength and courage today, rather than an immobilizer?
It wasn’t easy moving on from the blame game. I had deep sadness, and white-hot rage that needed to be felt. I must have cried an ocean of tears. I also hung a punching bag and at times bloodied my knuckles while feeling into the anger that was trapped in my body and energy field. This combined with support from others who had risen like a phoenix from the ashes, began my journey of healing, integration, and eventually living a balanced, and free life.
Bringing my attention to the present moment over and over was a powerful way for me to move out of the story of my past. Being present with what I was doing in the moment, whether it was preparing a meal, or taking a walk, kept all the insidious little voices from luring me into my story of woe.
Eventually, the identification with my past dissolved. When the line to that anchor was cut loose, the freedom and excitement I began to feel about life was immeasurable.
Oh what a Mystery…
Much Love and Blessings to You,
shellee
“You are always a valuable, worthwhile human being — not because anybody says so, not because you’re successful, not because you make a lot of money — but because you decide to believe it and for no other reason.”
~Wayne Dyer