Trauma, the stories that we tell ourselves, and our perspectives are so strange, and so powerful.
They can completely cover reality and keep you stuck in unhappy places, yet it’s so clear from the outside that we’re just banging our bodies on glass walls, ignoring the open door, and holding on tightly to the string that was tied around us when we were weak once, and now we believe that we cannot take it off.
It’s so strange that we can be fooled to believe that we will never be free.
Yes, love can hurt, life can hurt, our parents have failed and caused us harm, the people we call family turn out to be our biggest violators, friends can betray, and the ones we trusted with the precious essence of our minds, bodies and souls can play us like puppets on their string. I’m not saying that life is all wonderful and kind and fair. It can make a mockery of the most heinous fiction.
And yet we survive.
We’re alive, hands on our chest like we’re trying to armour ourselves from more hurt, trying to keep our breath, our beat, our life.
We’re alive and we have a choice: to find a way to break and build a life that’s ours, or allow our past to hold us like a butterfly’s taxidermy case, stuck under a glass cloche as others do with us what they will, or simply pass us by.
What stories are you holding?
The excuses that come up again and again when people tell you to try something new. The tales you tell to explain your behaviour. The book you write where you’re the victimised main character of a series of tragedies.
It’s easier to spot other people’s. Outside of the case, we can see what makes them mental.
Try stepping outside your own glass walls.
I’ve had a story in my head…
that I can’t do it, I can’t make it. I’m too young, too naïve, too sheltered. Too afraid.
My love, would you step outside for a moment, and look at you? Look at the life you’ve built.
The way you’ve surrounded yourself with things you find beautiful, and the way you’ve chosen to move with your dreams — you have roller skates my love, and you’ve been skating! You’ve chosen to write, to channel, and you’re actually writing, and you are channelling.
Are you really too young, too naïve, too sheltered and afraid? Are you someone who can be described as someone who can’t make it, can’t do it?
You’ve chosen your name, your path, and you’re building it. Can you see all that?
You, at the glorious age of 36, are so young, and you’re just beginning. Sure there’s lots to learn, but isn’t that going to be amazing?
Oh.
I am still learning, still figuring things out, and I can take care of me.
I made food. I didn’t go hungry today. I worked. I’m blogging, listening to music, in a room full of things that I find beautiful. I’ve chosen my way, and I am working on it.
// I just burst into tears. Like the top of a soda bottle popping off and the bubbles overflowing. Quick, unexpected, and I was smiling. Relief.
// It felt like when Jarrod proposed, and the hitherto unknown tension and span and range of feelings exploded; happy tears mixed with relief.
I didn’t know I was carrying so much emotion pressured up inside.
I’ve chosen my way, and I am working on it.
I’ve had a story in my head…
that I’m no better than anyone else, that people knew better, that I should defer to them.
But there is not “right way”, there is no “only way”. Even my spiritual team can’t tell me what I should be doing. Who I am and who I become is my choice to make. And as the person who has to live my life, I am the best person to be making these decisions.
I can surround myself with wise, supportive, brilliant people, and take their advice into consideration in making my decision. I can listen to my team as they nudge the way forward to my dreams.
The decision, the dream: mine. To make, to learn, to figure out.
I don’t have to be better than anyone else. I do have to be me, and live a life that’s mine.
And now I get to choose, fearfully, my dream. Do I wish to go to America and join Suzanne’s cohort? Do I wish to be a successful global speaker, to be on stage, travelling? Do I want to create from one place, and let my work speak for me? It’s not either/or, and I can do a blend. I’m asking because I want to question each element individually.
What do I want in our marriage, our home, our life? What do I wish for my life, just for me?
What do I want life to be, a year, five years, a decade or two from today?
Will I be able to say I live a life of love, support, respect, peace? Will I be able to say I feel successful? Will I have what I want and what I need?
Will I have built a life that feels like I was involved in the making?
Will I be able to look back at today, and smile, wiser now?
✒️✨🧭
Image of a painted “stained glass art” rose by Nat Aggiato from Pixabay.
