~ The Initiation ~

I am in a situation that is incredibly difficult to talk about. Because it is happening right now. In my heart & in my home. I am being pushed, challenged, tested & judged harshly. I believe that life is always trying to initiate us into the next level of healing in our lives. Because of that belief, I truly feel everything is happening FOR me and not to me.

And so, I am here, feeling the wounds around women at the forefront of my experience.

I am being judged. Harshly & openly by other women.

I am experiencing emotionally abusive messages.

I am being bullied into doing what someone else wants.

I am being shamed into silence.

My character is being put on the chopping block of gossip.

I am being blasted with an anger that feels truly unwarranted.

I am experiencing the attempt of being controlled & manipulated through shame.

I do not share these things lightly. For they are not light. This is the muck, the darkness, the places that fucking hurt to explore. I cannot help but feel that I am being triggered into some very old wounds & being given the opportunity to make different choices this time around. In the past, when I have had these experiences rise up, I shut down. I mean, really shut down. I would submit to the anger of the other person. I felt worthless. As though my life truly meant so little, that I deserved to be treated this way.

I was afraid of that kind of anger. I never learned how to stand up for myself, to stand in my power, or know that I am worth more than this. It is all rising to the surface right now. The stories of abuse & living as a victim are showing their faces.

I can feel in my bones that this I am being initiated into my power & out of these stories that have controlled my life. Here is the raw truth of it:

I had learned to be scared of people. To be afraid of what they are capable of.

Women scared me the most. The way they could lie, betray , put on a face & control through the viciousness of manipulation.

I remember the emotional abuse.

I remember turning to my writing as the only solace from my life & the emotional incest of having my journals read.

I remember the addictions taking over around me & my life being controlled by the ups & downs that come with living with an addict.

I can look at these experiences and have compassion for the young version of me that truly was powerless. That was living at the whims of the adults who were supposed to take care of me. But I am not living that life anymore. And I choose to look at this as though it is all happening FOR me.

I get to have this initiation into my POWER. I deserve to live my life from a place of feeling powerful & not powerless.

So what does it look like to respond from a place of my power? Because this is the initiation. This gets to be the turning point.

It looks like owning that I have a right to be here.

That my power is in my softness & kindness.

Returning to my own power is to stop believing there is something inherently wrong with me. There’s not. I am a human that experienced real trauma, but that does not mean there is something wrong with me for having lived through it. For having to develop coping mechanisms to survive. There is nothing wrong with me for not knowing I was living in survival mode & also not knowing how to stop living that way.

Returning to my power is to to honor the deep knowing that I have a right to take up space.

I do not have to let other people make me hard or close up. I do not have to respond to someone else’s harshness with a closing up of my kindness.

This next one is a big one: Remembering that nobody controls me anymore. I no longer have to live in fear of what’s to come. I control me. I control my life now.

This message surprised me, but the truth of it hits home: Forgive them, for they know not what they do.We are all operating out of the wounds we got from people who hurt us. And those people were hurt by people before them. Until someone is willing to feel the pain of the cycle & disrupt the pattern. Whatever path you have chosen, they are both hard. The path of remaining in the pain of the cycle. Or the path of choosing to break the cycle. Both paths ask for more forgiveness.

I acknowledge that my reactions used to protect me. But my ability to not react is what will protect me now. That is real power. The power to not react.

I was being prompted to go into a meditation and give up my own anger to the fire. The meditation experience was so beautiful & intense, I had to document it. This experience surpassed meditation and alchemized into something that felt closer to ritual than meditation. Perhaps it is all the same. I will share it in my next blog post.

I feel a return to my power in a way that I have never experienced before. I am not here to play small. I know that I am serving no one by staying small. I am asking myself, who am I without my stories of needing to play small?

Who am I on the other side of knowing my worth?

I haven’t experienced her yet. But I am excited to find out and can feel that I am on my way.