Heal thyself...
With the ending of my marriage I find myself embarking on a new path. As I look to the future I envision the joy and splendour it can bring.
There is a sense of great optimism growing within me. My heart is open to new possibilities and yet there are times when I am overcome with a deep sense of fear. It is not a fear for my material well being. No matter the circumstances I am thrilled at the prospect of for the first time in my life, flying by the seat of my pants. I want to experience life to the full.
This fear that I have, it comes from deeper within, from the inner recesses of my subconscious. It is a fear that I thought I had overcome, but as I struggled with it last night and this morning when I awoke at exactly 404am I realised that there was still work to be done.
When I got married I thought that, this was going to be it and I never entertained the thought of someone else. The truth of this was difficult to come to terms with at first but now I find myself thinking about the possibility of new love entering my life once again. As I do this, the fears begin to surface. They are not fears of letting love in because I feel that I am open to this. It is a fear of loss and abandonment that I didn’t realise I still had, a fear that leaves me feeling insecure at times.
As I rose from a breath work activation that I felt called to this morning, an act that in itself needed a degree of surrender, for this is an intense experience that I had only done once before. The first time leaving me with a mild sense of trepidation, having been so incredibly intense that there were at least three moments during which I thought I might die.
This deep meditative state, unlike the first time, which left me feeling blissful and empowered, this time left me with a sense of heaviness. As I composed myself, going about my morning chores I felt a sudden urge to write in my journal, something I don’t do as habit but rather only when I am called to. I realised then that the meditation had cleared a pathway for me for what was to come.
As I put pen to paper the insights began to flow. Over recent years I have done a lot of work on myself and to release such fears. Fears that stem from a sense of abandonment that I had always carried inside me. I guess I hadn’t realised that on a deeper level these things were still affecting me to some degree. I wasn't able to feel them because I thought that I had let it all go. Ending my marriage helped me to see these things and to want more for myself but it was the thought of being vulnerable to love again that triggered these fears to come up once more. I am able to see now that in the past I had always had a feeling of there being something in me that needed to be healed and I looked for that healing to come from others. I thought that if they loved me the right way that the pain, the fear and insecurities would go away but because this was external to myself, it was always dependent on someone else and left me vulnerable to toxic relationships.
What I hadn’t realised was that on some level some of those insecurities still remained. So I have come once again to face these shadows voluntarily. I am willing to face these uncomfortable aspects of myself because of the healing I know this brings and I am thankful for these lessons.
It is not possible to heal ourselves by taking the bits of ourselves that are missing from another person, but instead the aim is for us to heal our own wounds. In this way we will always have the best of ourselves to offer to others. This does not mean perfection, as we are always growing and changing. Life is a constant evolution and we evolve with it, but when we are willing to look at ourselves instead of to someone else for fixing what is wrong in our lives it becomes transformative. When we do this we begin to regain control over our own lives and we create healthy environments for love to flourish. We are not meant to take another person’s energy from them by force, coercion or manipulation, even if done unconsciously. We can receive their energy when it is given freely.
This to me is love, pure unconditional love. To love someone so much that you want to be the best you can be for yourself which also has the subsequent effect of being the best for others. It is in this way that we attract the best versions of others because they mirror back to us these versions of ourselves. In this way we do not hurt each other while we learn our lessons on one another, the blueprint for most relationships. When we master this art of self reflection we will uncover ways to heal and can continue to do this work throughout our lives and within relationships, without ever risking them becoming toxic. As our lives transform we see ourselves being gifted with people in our lives who support our growth and are able to be there for us in ways we never thought possible.
It goes without saying that I want these things for myself but I also want them for whoever I will share my life with. I want to be my best self because I want to be the source of comfort, peace and joy for someone else. I want to be their safety, their home and I want them to be mine. I understand now on that same deeper level, that I can never make someone else responsible for fixing things in my life. Their willingness to make me happy is not their responsibility but a cherished gift. A gift that need prove nothing. This kind of love offers us a different kind of healing. It is a healing that comes from experiencing a new kind of love, a truly unselfish and unconditional love. A pure love that only desires the best for those whom we love romantically or otherwise.
When we start opening these wounds they can seem insurmountable. How can we heal a lifetime, maybe many lifetimes of trauma? It helps to remember that there is nothing wrong with us and that life is a journey on which we are constantly learning about ourselves and the world around us. We need to have compassion for ourselves and those we love. I have found that in most cases the healing comes simply from a deeper awareness of what needs healing. We become aware of our triggers and how to deal with them. This becomes a practice that we embody as we live our lives more consciously.
We can ask to discover the lessons we've yet to learn and they will surely be shown to us. It has been crazy at times witnessing these prayers being answered in my own life.
When we allow ourselves to feel, to be vulnerable, open and honest with ourselves and others. When we cease to fear those shadows that lurk within us. When we let them surface despite the torment they may sometimes unleash. It is then that we heal and the walls that stand between us and our happiness begin to crumble.
With love, Basia
