“You acknowledge the trauma as your teacher, and thank it as the unique lesson your Soul devised for you in this lifetime as a strategy for calling out your best and highest faculties. This is no easy task. You might feel bewildered and resentful, yet your subconscious mind is eager to re-claim this aspect of your lost power and re-integrate it. Ask yourself what gifts the trauma has given you, and why it was necessary for you to receive them. Your Soul knows the answers to these questions.”
I live in the space in between the crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs and the glimpse I catch of potential on the horizon. It could be better; it might be better; hello, look, here I am better for a little while; but look again, here I am crumbled, it doesn’t ever last long.
It is the aftermath. The recovering from the betrayal pain trauma that has never healed. My life is the aftermath, the need for rest and regeneration and healing and pause and allowing myself to feel into the extent of it so that I can actually take the path into the new way of being.
But underneath that: more grief. More loss. The pain so deep the offerings of transformation and nourishment aren’t even visible. Look away, look away, I don’t even trust them.
And underneath that: watching watching watching everything. Observing everything. Making everything into a story that is either true or untrue. This serves me well; often my skills of emotional and psychological insight are greater than those around me, and they learn and are grateful for the insight. But it can become compulsive. I can’t stop seeing every little detail that is wrong wrong wrong. I can’t stop listing every infraction. I can’t stop noticing all the things that should not be the way they are.
Sometimes, when the ghosts come, it is impossible to be awake in the present moment. All there is is indecisiveness, restlessness, carelessness, and a lost path. There is no here/now. There is no building of stability because why? Stability is lost and will surely never be found.
Way down deep in the bottom of it all, I am untrustworthy. I do not trust myself.
In my highest of high selves, connection can pull me out of it. The spark of new love. The spark of insight about being in relationship with myself, with the living earth. Fueling each other, asking each other to share our lives. The mirroring that can happen. The deep feeling of being understood. The deep feeling of life meaning something, because it can be shared and others can witness and feel seen and understood, too.
And when I can get out of my own way, I can see where I am going: king of my own passion. King of my own emotions. King of my own sovereign kingdom. I know where the boundaries are, and I know how to keep them. I know my own strength and I’m not afraid to use it. I have control, mastery. I know my limits. I know how to take my seat and not give it up, to hold my ground and be willing to fight to keep it. I know my worth. I trust my worth.
I trust that I will be okay, regardless of what happens around me.
I can say no, I’m sorry, that just isn’t right, and I’m going to remove myself from that situation. I can say yes, that is the right thing for me. Yes, that is where I am going. Yes, I have a vision I have values I have goals I have experiments to do, and I’m going to do them, they are all in alignment, they are working together harmoniously. Oh, there is something wrong? Totally cool, tell me the details and we will work out a solution.
I will not take things so personally. I will not identify so deeply with the pain, anguish, suffering.
When I can resurrect what has been taken from me, what trauma has strangled and left bleeding, I can get back to my own trust. I can trust my own proprietary experiences. I will build my own stability, a fertile ground where I can grow into the person I have always wanted to spend my life with.
