“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?” ~Rumi
As another year comes to a close, I am astounded that I’m still standing.
So many times I have been knocked down and struggled to get up. So many times I wanted to just give up. So many sleepless nights fraught with anxiety and rage. So many fantasies about eternal sleep.
Then I am gifted with a powerful message from the Great Sphinx of Giza. I am called to her… to lay my hands on her and receive her ancient wisdom….
“REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE. When you remember how powerful and precious you are, there is nothing to fear. When you remember your divinity, all feelings of not being good enough, of not being worthy of love will fall away. Stand strong in truth & integrity and know that you are loved, protected and valued beyond measure.”
As I received these words, I broke down and sobbed. I cried for my younger self who endured so much suffering at the hands of others. I cried for all the abuse I inflicted on myself because of the very wrong ideas that sprang from this suffering that told me I am unworthy of love.
I cried for all the years I spent hustling for my worth in doing, doing, doing trying to prove I had value at the expense of my physical and emotional health.
Those lost to their own sense of worth will never see it in another, so spending my life trying to seek that validation from others was a fool’s errand. Our value is inherent…. The choice to hand that power over to another wounded soul seems silly to me now. How lost and misguided I was.
Now is the time for reclamation.
As I reflect on my recent experiences in Egypt, I am profoundly grateful for the powerful message from the Sphinx and the call to courage bestowed upon me.
I am exhausted and overwhelmed but I am clear on my mission and trust that I am fully supported and capable of navigating whatever challenges come my way.
I leave you with these words:
“Go at it boldly, and you’ll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid.”
The past few birthdays have brought a reckoning for me.
I’m usually found crying, raging, or both. Each year I fall into a pit of despair and self pity. And then an epic existential crisis unfolds….
Why am I here?
What is the point of it all?
What have I accomplished that has any real value?
Am I truly loved?
How can I truly love others if I don’t love myself?
Did I fail as a mother, a wife, a friend?
Did I take more than I gave?
Did I sacrifice too much for safety and security?
Did I waste my life by not following my own dreams?
And on and on it goes….
But these breakdowns always precede the breakthroughs.
When I feel my heart breaking, I lean in and then pivot.
I allow my heart to break… wide open.
Now is the time for courage…
For releasing the false truths that bind me to suffering….
For trust.
For dreams to unfold.
No more shame inducing toxic positivity.
No more ego driven pursuits.
No more resistance to vulnerability.
No more meeting bitterness with bitterness.
In hating my enemy, I have become my own worst enemy.
I will stand up for truth and honour… WITH truth and honour.
I will not be reduced by the ancient storylines of trauma, my own or another’s.
I will feel all the feels and express them openly and unapologetically.
I’m no longer interested in false bravado for image’s sake.
My strength and resilience are the truest gifts of suffering.
My strife has been my greatest ally….
A faithful servant no matter how much I rage against it.
I am in the arena getting my ass kicked.
That is what I signed up for in this life.
I chose the path of the warrior.
Some days I quiver and fall apart, but I always get back up and get back in the arena.
Why? Well… this quote by Brene Brown says it best….
“I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked.
We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.
Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.
Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.
A lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. They just hurl mean-spirited criticisms and put-downs from a safe distance.
The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. But when we’re defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives.
For me, if you’re not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.”
Today I was despairing over the realisation that forgiving someone, whose continuing actions of general douchebaggery knows no bounds, was simply outside my wheelhouse.
I was then reminded by my gorgeous and very wise sister, Lisa, that perhaps the work is to forgive myself.
Truth bomb! 💣
Of course this needs to come first. If I can’t do this for myself, there is no way I can forgive anyone else.
I must find a way to forgive myself for the part I played in this clusterfu€k of a situation.
For my wilful ignorance… For giving away my power… For trusting someone who is simply untrustworthy… For ignoring all the red flags because they got in the way of what I wanted… For selling my soul for a false sense of security and the illusion of stable ground under my feet… For choosing ease and comfort over courage.
And in the spirit of full transparency, I admit that my fu€king ego liked the status and luxury this new life afforded me.
I was sick of the hustle and the struggle. So I made what I thought was the “safe” choice over the many braver choices available to me.
I could never regret the choice I made, however, as it brought two extraordinary humans into the world that I love and treasure more than life itself.
But the reckoning has come. It’s time to take this sword away that consistently hangs over my head by finding the courage to face the truth that I chickened out.
That I clung to all the carefully constructed lies he told because it was easier than facing the truth, which would’ve required me to leave much sooner than I did.
Instead I chose a superficial life over a more authentic and connected one.
I chose quantity over quality.
So… where to from here?
I guess this public confession is as good a place to start as any.
I know that shame can only live in darkness, in secrecy, so saying it out loud is the most potent medicine I can apply to the oozing wound of distain that has been festering in my heart these past too many years.
They say resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Insanity at its finest!
So there it is. My shame, my sadness, my intense desire to release all the cords of disappointment and betrayal that keep me psychically tied to this poisonous union.
One day soon, I hope that I will find forgiveness in my heart so that I can set myself free.
Only I hold the keys to my liberation.
I once chose the gilded cage and now it is time to choose freedom. To choose trust over fear, courage over comfort, forgiveness over judgement.
My life these past few years has been ALL about practising patience and acceptance.
I admit I have spent most of this time fighting and pushing; raging and wallowing in despair; using “positivity” and “high vibes only” to completely bypass “negative” emotions and calling it patience, as opposed to sitting with these feelings and allowing them a seat at the table.
I have shut down and gagged my anger because anger is bad, right? There is nothing worse than an Angry Woman! Or so I’ve been led to believe…. Anger is a sign you’re not in a place of acceptance, which is true, but some things are simply unacceptable. Tolerating abuse is not practising acceptance.
I am well aware of the pitfalls of allowing strong emotions to take over and becoming completely dysregulated. I’m certainly not promoting that. But bypassing them altogether and thinking that makes you more spiritual or some kind of ascending master is foolish.
So, the work (for me) is all about feeling all the feels, and meditating & reflecting on what is really being communicated. Then, and only then, will I hopefully gain some wisdom and skill to know when to act and when to sit still, when to speak up and when to stay silent, and to always question & investigate, and not just blindly trust, especially when my intuition is telling me something is off.
Spiritual practice is a funny beast. It’s the key to unlocking wisdom, compassion, peace, trust and love. However, it can be used as a tool to harm myself and others with shame (“I (you) should be doing more”; “I (you) should not be feeling this way”). Or to avoid and escape the (sometimes) harsh truth about myself and others in an attempt to avoid the shadow work because “that’s so 3D” (read: low vibration). The list goes on and on and boy has many a self proclaimed guru figured out how to exploit this very mentality for financial and power gains!
Today I simply strive to be gentle with myself and others, and gentle with my practices. In gentleness is where I’ll find peace, harmony and forgiveness. And this is where true acceptance, resilience and patience resides.
Below is a beautiful piece of writing I found by author Sukriti Chhopra, which I found particularly relevant today.
Namaste 🙏🏻
“A reminder about acceptance, resilience, patience… three life lessons that have repeatedly been drilled into me.
Acceptance
Acceptance that we neither control the situation nor the outcome.
That control is an illusion and its pursuit will only lead to misery.
That impermanence and uncertainty are truths of life.
That suffering is inevitable.
Life is like a sine curve, there will be crests and there will be troughs and then there will be crests again.
Patience
Acceptance that control is an illusion leads to developing patience.
Things will happen at their own time. Hard work and smart work and passion do not drive results on our terms. That is a capitalistic narrative.
Things may not happen despite practicing patience; that loops us back to acceptance.
My life’s biggest lesson has been that of patience. It is a quality that requires constant refreshers and uninterrupted practice.
Resilience
Once we’ve accepted that suffering can’t be done away with and developed patience to work through the situation without despair, then resilience is the next natural step.
When I am in the midst of a strife or an undesirable situation, I remind myself that this is the trough of the sine curve; the wave will turn and things will get better.
Also, during the good times, I stay aware that this will not last, as the laws of physics (mimicked by life) dictate, the wave will dip. This is not pessimism; this helps us be prepared and to tide over the troughs.
This is resilience.
And with these three tools in my armour, I continue to find joy even in the worst moments and look forward to the next day while living in the present.”
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