Monday, April 8, 2013

Loss, Shock, Wallowing, and a change in Perspective...


April 4th, 2013

It occurred to me today that, while I say that I know this situation has happened for my Highest Good, I don't yet feel it.  I still feel the loss of of it and since I feel like I lost something so I could move forward with my purpose, I fear there may be more to lose.  If the belief that it is for my Highest Good had truly taken root, I'd no longer feel it was a loss, and I would trust in it.  The belief needs to be rooted and I haven't yet given it the time it needs to grab hold within me.  As I affirm that it is for my Highest Good, even when I don't feel it, I am given the opportunity to see the gap between what I truly believe and what I affirm.  Awareness helps those affirmations and intentions to grow stronger, to spread their roots and take hold within me.

While loss is how I feel, it is not how I choose to perceive the situation.  Loss implies powerlessness and victim hood.  I am one with the Power that created me, I am standing in my own Power, and I am a survivor and a thrivor.  If I choose to cling to this idea that I've lost something then dis-empowerment moves in and fear takes hold, co-creating more situations in which I feel a loss of personal power and in which I feel victimized.  No thank you.

Empowerment and re-claiming my power are themes that have run throughout the course of my life.  Life presented me with reminders of Who I Really Was, in the form of Who I Was Not.  I chose to cling to Who I Was Not and walked away from childhood, which included numerous dis-empowering events, with the perception that I had no power.  I believed that anyone could take it from me and that it was better to just give it away.  Sometimes it is necessary to be Who You Are Not so that you can have the experience of it and decide, by inspired action, Who You Wish to Really Be.

I had to choose to wallow in it for a day or so to remember Who I Really Am.  I had to wallow in it, let the thoughts scamper around in my head, so that I could light the spark and choose Who I Really Wish to Be.  Each moment, each choice, has it's purpose.  While someone might observe a choice someone else makes and think it wrong, they don't realize that that choice they witnessed might just be the choice that person needed to make to change, grow, heal, and/or transform.  Sometimes you think you've taken a step in the wrong direction, until you realize that you needed to take that step to even know it wasn't what best served you, and perhaps for you to see what would better serve you.  For some reason I feel like this isn't flowing today.  My point is that, while some might think that the choice to wallow, even if it doesn't feel like I'm choosing it I know I am, is unhealthy.  And I would tend to agree if a person, namely me, stayed there.  But it was the choice I needed to make to remember that that is not me, and instead to choose to grow forward.

I was in shock on Sunday, after facing the wreckage, and that shock helped me to rise above it.  But, little by little the shock wore off leaving me with a Tuesday off in which I wallowed in it.  Tuesday I cleaned my house and while I did I wallowed in the emotion of it, in the imaginary conversations of it, in the "how could you's" of it.  I got sick of it, I so desperately wanted to just let go of ALL of it.  Just let go, surrender, carry on.  I make that choice every day but some days I am aware that, while I am affirming and intending to let go, I am grasping on tightly.  At the risk of being repetitive, it's a process.  I have found that once you bring awareness to those behaviors, you start to notice them more, which helps to bring healing to them.

So what did I do when I was sick and tired of wallowing, I worked toward making new choices.  What can I do in this moment to let go?  What can I do in this moment to bring myself more peace?  What can I do in this moment to accept where I am?  What can I do in this moment to love me?  What can I do in this moment to be of service to myself and others?  What can I do in this moment to take forward steps towards co-creating my dreams?  Making those choices one time is not enough.  I have to make them over and over and over.  It starts with posing the questions over and over.  As I continue to pose the questions, the energy within me shifts and releases.  Then I have to actually make the choices when I am presented with them, which will shift the energy even more.  I have to allow the questions and intentions time to take root because some of these energy patterns are years worth of deeply rooted.  There are layers of them to peel back and as I do that, and as I set the intentions and dig and process and heal, those intentions will take root.  But it takes time.  And while I usually have an enormous amount of patience, when it comes to healing I do not always.

As I walked away from my writing and let it swirl and dance around inside of me I realized that a shift in perspective would be helpful here.  It's like when I talk about the optical illusion posters.  You strain to see what really lies within the picture and you can't see it.  But, when you relax your eyes and just look forward without trying or grasping to what you think is there, it appears to you.  It can be difficult sometimes for me to remember to do that, to trust in the unfolding of it all.  To trust that when its time, and when I am ready, if my eyes are relaxed, it will be revealed to me.  Sometimes I want so much to just see the purpose, to gain the clarity, to let it go and move on that I get caught in the desperation of it instead of the choosing of it.  Desperation has an energy of noticing that it is not here.  Please, please let me have peace.  Desperation is not choosing, it is noticing the lack of what you wish to choose.  Have faith.  Trust in the process.

"Trust in the process."  It's funny to me, maybe more interesting or some other more appropriate word, that I teach people, guide people on going through the process and I find myself sometimes trying to skip the whole thing.  We teach what we most need to learn right?  I don't try to skip it with all things, there are processes I have been through, but I also can't say how many times I've come to this impatient resisting place of just wanting to know and let it go.  Yet, it's through the process that the digging up of treasure occurs.  It's through the process that I learn what works and share it with others.  It's what gives me the experience from which I write from and guide from.  The process is important.  And having faith in the process, the unfolding of it all, is just as important.  Perhaps I have issues with trusting it.  Perhaps I know that I do.  There is uncertainty in trusting it and sometimes, the not knowing can be a scary place to be.  But if you trust the not knowing, trust the uncertainty, trust Divine guidance, deeply root the belief that everything that happens is for your Highest Good, then the miracles unfold in the most beautifully blessed ways.  I have found, in my own life, that events that have seemed painful, that appeared to tear everything apart, are the events that have brought forth the beauty within me, the treasure as it were.  Four years ago Saturday, April 6th, I was arrested.  I thought my life was ruined.  I was embarrassed, ashamed, depressed, and seriously considered ending it all.  And although it took about 6 weeks for me to start to change my life, I did.  And it became one of the best things that ever happened to me because it brought me to this beautiful, healing, transforming, growing, spiritual, clean and sober place.  And I wouldn't trade it for anything.  And while I do not yet feel that way about recent events in my life, I know that time will come; I choose for it to.

So I work toward being gentle with myself.  Please be gentle with yourself in your healing.  The process will take whatever time it takes, and that's okay.  Patience.  Faith.  Gentleness.  Self-care.  And allowing the new affirmations, intentions, and beliefs the time they need to take root.  One beautiful blessed moment at a time.  And it might not always feel that way.  At least for me it doesn't.  And when those moments hit I remind myself that there's beauty here if I can stay open to it revealing itself to me in the time it's meant to.  I dig, I heal, I bring awareness, and sometimes I wallow because that's exactly where I need to be to change my perspective.  To take off the blindfold.  To relax my eyes and allow it time to appear to me.  And I don't do it perfectly.  This is my path.  This is my unique point of experience.  This is how I use my unique creative talents and abilities to be of service to myself and others.  Herein is where the treasure lies in us all.

Love and Light,
Tia