I don’t usually walk around feeling like a POS, nor do I consciously believe that I am. However, the circumstances in which I’d placed myself this past year brought several opportunities for lots of old beliefs and feelings to surface.
These last few months I experienced several back-to-back events in my encounters with others that surprised me and poked on some deep core wounds I thought I’d worked through—those nooks and crannies buried in the corners of the damp, dark basement that I’d missed during last years’ “spring cleaning.”
For months I felt like I couldn’t find my words (and if you know me, you know I usually have LOTS of words) as though I was in some sort of black hole or void—yes, that liminal space like the chrysalis. My clarity and confidence went by the wayside. I felt awkward and vulnerable and slow as if trudging through tar. I contracted, went quiet, hid out—it's my instinct to do so during dark, cold winters but this time felt different. I can “know” all day long that this is the nature of change and growth but the actual experience is not exactly comfortable. It’s murky and messy and challenging at times. Ugh. I can be murky and messy and challenging at times. Sometimes I feel uncertain, confused, lost. Sometimes I feel like everything I say or do is wrong.
My work in the world for more than 15 years has been supporting others through their own healing process—bringing what is held in the unconscious to conscious awareness—into the light of day with acceptance and compassion. I am finding that it is how we treat ourselves while we are healing and growing that is the crux of the matter. Our judgments are what keep us stuck in the old stories. Virtually everyone I’ve worked with (including me) unconsciously judges how they feel, what they think, what’s happening or did happen, what someone else did or didn’t do and are frustrated with why something is still “there.” I’ve come to believe that our bodies hold things in “safekeeping” until our spirits know we are strong enough for another layer to release. Man, oh man, who thought up this gig—this human experience??????
As far as my own “stuff,” I can intellectualize with the best of ‘em all day long. At the end of the day, I am a continual work in progress just like every other human I know and the cliches hold true—the only way out is through. When I’m “in it,” I feel utterly alone. When I surface, I know that I’m not. Most of us are more alike than we realize below outer appearances. I do know that my capacity to walk into and through the things that challenge or scare me increases my capacity to be with others as they do the same. The more I accept and forgive in myself, the more generosity I have toward others. The other side of “through” is real freedom. Yet, there is always another layer—no final “tada,” dammit.
After a big build up of pressure, this past weekend brought a relatively quick but powerful snow storm, and along with it all of those old feelings arrived with a vengeance. I felt the weight of the storm and a sense of climbing out of my skin. This is where the rubber meets the road, Julie. I am committed to walking my talk so, down, down, down into the basement I went…
Fortunately, I had the time, space and solitude to put the tools I use for others into practice for myself. I didn’t resist. I softened and let the feelings come. Emotions. E + motion = energy in motion. I stayed present rather than distracting myself—always so tempting though not effective long-term. I wrote out every deepest, darkest fear, every judgment and self-criticism, in a stream of words through wave after wave of tears. I saw this life like a hologram from the beginning until now, seeing clearly that I misinterpreted the painful things that happened to me repeatedly in my young life to mean that I am a damaged POS. I recognized that the way I have conducted myself in virtually all my relationships—friendships, romances, work, parenting—was predicated on that mostly unconscious belief. It freaking hurt. I held that vulnerable part of me with tenderness, compassion and understanding. I kept going until all that was moving ran its course.
Three days of snow brought much-needed moisture and then the storm passed. The sun returned, the snow melted, the birds returned to singing—as they always do. Little bits of green appeared through spots of melted snow. I showered, put on some music, made a nice meal, climbed out of that metaphorical basement and stood in the sun, breathed deeply, cried some more as the energy continued to move, though more gently. I reached out to a couple of close, trusted friends and let myself be seen and heard and accepted—not always easy for me but such a gift. I have more breathing room inside myself. I now feel all the way down to my bones that things that I experienced long ago--that others said or did--is not who I am. I am so, so grateful.
Spring—the season of renewal—has sprung.
