Paying Homage To The Past

This is a "Note" from my Facebook account that I'm posting this today as a follow up to yesterdays post on "Accepting Peace"....

In the past....the "past" was my nemesis. It often became so torturous that every thought, every sense was on high alert as I consciously and unconsciously avoided the triggers that were guaranteed to send me into a tailspin….yet another “meltdown”.

For a long time I engaged in a variety of coping skills that either put myself in danger or had me lashing out at and hating everyone and everything around me. I was “acting out” and “acting in”. Eventually I just shut down when I could no longer live in that pain and those behaviors no longer brought relief; I lived in a chronic state of dissociation and isolation for many years thereafter.

Then one day I had a very clear realization. I had a moment of insight – one of those “aha” moments where I suddenly became aware that by "avoiding" the past this way - either that of my recent past or that of the far gone past - that I was slowly losing my now AND my future because I was so obsessed with avoiding the pain of facing that which I felt so helpless to affect or change.

Part of that realization was understanding that the rumination of the life I’d had, the resentments, the anger at what I had survived and what I had lost in my lifetime because of other peoples actions or lack of action was holding me in this state of chronic pain.

Another part of this moment of enlightenment was that in order to get beyond this pain, to reclaim my life and begin to create the future I so wanted for myself that it was time to let go and begin to feel the pain instead of avoiding it.

It was time to begin to “go through” the anger not by attacking or lashing out at those around me or those who had hurt me – but by allowing myself to own that I first had the right to feel this rage that consumed me…as well as the responsibility to learn to express it safely and respectfully.

And this act led me to the grief that would wash me free of the pain of the past and free me from the prison I had lived in for so many years.

I was finally able to integrate the pain of surviving what I call “childhood horrors” and embrace who I am today.

And thus my journey to wellness shifted from being “mad at the world” to creating my best life where I became a part of the world around me, learning to live my life to it’s fullest instead of living in the isolation and shame that had held me prisoner for so long.


If you’ve found this note helpful – I’d like to suggest that you take a look at a couple of other notes in my archives…Fighting Forgiveness and Onions Make Me Cry.

Namaste.

“I see the light in you”

Susan

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