“But perhaps you have not noticed: the truth is forever changing.”
The fortuneteller to Peter in The Magician’s Elephant
THE PRELUDE
“But why mommy? Why do the stars shine? Why does the sun come out in the day? Why do roses bloom? Why does he act like that? Why do I have to go to sleep now? Why, mommy, why?
I was one of those children who must have driven my mother insane with the amount of times I asked the question “why?”. I can remember driving in the car after school, my mother asking me how my day had gone, and then launching into endless questions all beginning with why. I do not really remember the content of those questions, but I do remember the incessant “whying“.
For whatever reason, I have been created to want to know the whys in life. To want to make understanding of my world, to put puzzle pieces together and to have some solid foundation from these puzzles to move forward. Now, as I glance back at my life and see how tumultuous the times were from the time I was born – understanding a few different theories of psychological development of the human being – I can certainly understand or guess that perhaps I had this “need” for it helped me create an idea of safety and security in my unsafe and insecure psyche and physical world.
When I began my quest to remove myself from abusive relationships, most of it was driven with asking the tough questions in order to understand how we as a world developed our abusive patterns with the hopes that if I understood where and how these abusive patterns began, that I could find a way to unwind the web of deception and hurt and pain that abusiveness is bringing into the world. These questions have led me on a long path of uncovering cultural webs so deep and unseen about the idea of gender, gender roles, relationships, co-depedency, hierarchies and the like…giving me much understanding and what I do believe is a unique approach to approaching and eradicating abuse – at least an approach that is not as commonly used by the general public.
These questions have also been reflected back to me as I have allowed them to, allowing me an inside glimpse of how to heal my own wounded psyche. I would say that every time I found or had an “ah ha” moment about the world…I would shortly have an “ah ha” moment within myself.
Yet, one thing I have found as I’ve dug into history is that history is not as concrete as we would like to think. That the real point of studying history isn’t to think we know exactly where we have been in order to know where not to go. The real point of studying history is to see that there are many views of history, many different experiences of it, and many experiences of it we will never know because we were not physically there.
To say this another way: knowing that there are more views on history than what I was taught in school or by the media or culture, I have come to understand that two realities (or more) can co-exist at the same time and be equally valid. I.E. – “the truth is forever changing,” the more I read, study, talk to others and get outside of my own limiting stories and beliefs.
Knowing this, I have taken it upon myself, being fully vested with my own authority, to move through the elements of my past – to feel and honor the pain, anger, sadness, loss, etc – to the other side and then take up my “pen” and rewrite that past from a different point of view (reality) in order to move from the reality of fear and hate and blame into the reality of pleasure and passion and love.
Yet, the latest element of my past to have been stirred up – the pre-verbal sexual abuse – has spun me right back into my old pattern of asking why. And I would say that I don’t even stop at this question….but move onto the “how could he do this to me?” Whether that “he” was my father or any of my former partners to men at large.
THE FOREPLAY
These questions got spun into a hurricane this weekend as I felt my anger resurfacing and investigated how to handle it. Maybe I needed to dive into the victim role, get into it so I could really get out of me whatever it was that was still keeping me in anger. I hollered out to my coach asking her advice and sharing that she does offer a practice that allows one to get in touch with the energy behind the victim role without getting into the story. I decided that was what I needed to do.
Yet, the Divine had another plan for me. One in which I would have to once again dive so deeply, so intimately and yet so unknowingly into the victim role that I would literally become the crippled old man I wrote about last week. One where I was so desperately clinging to my questions and my feelings that I was entitled to answers from those who have come into my path and acted in ways that have left me feeling hurt or angry that I ended up flat on my back in physical pain.
As I went to bed Sunday night, I knew I was done with allowing others to cling on to me out of their own invisible emotional neediness. I have looked at the past year and see where I needed to learn from my lessons on relationships, sure up my boundaries and make a conscious decision to do my relationships with both men and women different with these new boundaries. Not out of putting up walls, but in attempts to ensure I can stay in Love and Wholeness as much as possible without owning something that was not mine to own.
That night, I was awoken twice during the night by my children. The 2nd time was to rush my child to the bathroom before the throw up was all over our bedroom. In the process, I unknowingly jacked up my psoas, throwing out my back and throwing my muscles into unseen spasms. When I finally realized I could not stand up straight, my pity party began…cursing my life and my situation and looking outward at others and asking that fateful question “why?”.
Why did these others, especially men, get to move on with their lives seemingly effortlessly, without pain and hurt? Why do I get stuck with round after round of illness and dis-ease, unable to get my feet back on the ground and to start my career I am so desperately wanting to start? Why do they ignore me, blame me, play victim, run away from their own emotions and problems, and the wake of hurt and pain they have left in their path? Why do I have to be the one to pay for others inability to grow up and face themselves? Why do the women and children all around me seem to be the ones paying the price for the problems of our society while the men seem to get off scott free? Why doesn’t our culture hold men accountable for their actions? Why, why, why?!?!!?!?!?
The questions and anger and venomous hatred steaming out of me reached a peak right as I was about to walk into my friend’s office to have him work on my body. My own personal wake up call came on the radio “Wake Me Up” by Avicii, and I turned it on so loud, screaming in so much anger at the world and the men in the world to “wake the f*ck up” to the reality they have helped create. That we women, we need their help desperately to “fix it”, to undo the thousands of years of abuse on our bodies and psyches…that us women, we are falling apart literally and cannot do it on our own anymore…that we don’t want to…that we are desperate for men to join us on this journey by waking up and helping us with their gifts.
What I couldn’t see in all my anger and rage was that I had become the clingy old man
clinging to Others out of
my own neediness to know “why?’…
THE PENETRATION
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| Photo Credit and fitting article about connection between the psoas (the muscles that I am suffering from spasms) and the Soul. |
As I lay there on the table in pain and anger, the tears flowing, my friend* calmly started to work his magic – both with the body work and his words…both of which penetrated me in ways that are still paying off 3 days later.
We both said a lot. He really never said anything new that I had not heard, read or thought of before. He reminded me that it really is not about this side or that side, the feminine or the masculine, the light or the dark…but about wholeness, oneness, completeness in and of myself. That we are all creators and that we have polarity between the masculine and feminine in order to become the creations and creators within our own bodies and souls.
He encouraged me to stop beating myself up emotionally, psychologically and now physically by asking the “why” question repeatedly…and allowed me to sit in the self-refleciton that by doing so, I was really trying to change that which I cannot change…was staying stuck in the old and not letting it go…that I was holding on to other people’s baggage for them instead of moving into the love and pleasure and joy I desire to live in.
He reminded me to back up and “keep it simple.” Feel the energy, don’t deny it, but don’t hold onto it…breathe through it and move it out. Rewrite my stories to serve me. Do not live in other people’s stories, especially ones where I will most likely never know their truth due to circumstances I cannot control. Remember I am already whole, I just need to feel it, breath it, live it, allow it.
He spoke much more direct and simple than I write. Such is the way I am finding with men – and women – who get their gifts and bring them to the world.
They don’t mess around, they don’t get knocked over by others in their rampages, they don’t take things personally and then turn around and start abusing me or running away from me. They do not internalize the pain I seem to internalize and own even if it is not mine.
They simply take a deep breath, remember who they are and then move forward in love to gently penetrate the world – and me – with their purpose of clarity and love. They have the ability to get me out of my circuitous head f*cking that comes on with all the questions that have no real answers or resolutions any how. They have the ability to look beyond my words to the heart of my energy, of what it is I am really needing to see about myself or the world or whatever and move me to that place where I can heal.
These type of people don’t make a lot of noise, do not draw attention to themselves and do not feel the need to fix the world. They simply live their purpose, become their purpose. In doing so, they are changing the world.
The thing is, he was not the only man I reached out to or who reached out to me during these last three days. The thing is, my other dear friend who happens to be male and who heard me bitch also did the same thing for me from a distance. The thing is, it was mostly men who responded to my need for physical help with my body and my family life – giving of themselves in ways that leaves me completely humbled…completely.
THE ECSTATIC TAKE AWAYS
There are many:
* It is much easier to fall into victim mentality than I would have thought, even after setting the intention not to do it.
* My attempts to move my anger away from me onto others, to get others to pay for my pain backfired on me big time. I cannot believe I am saying this – but thank God/dess. What this brought me was so much outward focused energy that my body had to do something drastic to wake me up and remind me that S/he (cannot use the word “it” for that word is so impersonal) was what needed attention.
* That while I want to change the world, the only way I can is by focusing on myself and sharing from my own story. The rest is delightfully not up to me!
* That I already have great examples of healthy “masculine” living in men and women all around me, offering me their gifts and that I just need to open my eyes and my heart to receive them.
* That I have been afraid to surrender to Spirit and thus still block my own energy from myself fully. For in my mind Spirit is associated with the masculine…and we have all seen how wounded I feel my masculine is…and how that woundedness has inflicted pain on me and my feminine being, making “Him” untrustworthy and unable to do what only I can do for myself. In the end, it is me that is suffering from this fear about myself. In the end, by keeping my own Spirit “out of me” fully, I am not able to claim my fullness of Oneness.
* I have now consciously seen how wonderful it is to be penetrated – to be stopped dead in my tracks of my endless emotional flow. I have seen the freedom of surrendering to the unknown and unanswerable questions. In the end it is up to me to internalize the concept of allowing Me to penetrate myself, to allow all the Light of Me in to mingle with all of me…and that I am a whole/holy Soul already waiting to be unleashed.
* I have a love of poetry and prose and mythology and depthness, to go deep and make connections others do not see readily and to bring these connections back into the “light” of day. I will continue to love this for this is me. But in the end, what I really need to do more often than not is to:
Keep it simple.
Remember I am One and One with all.
Stay in my own story.
If another hands me their’s or the world’s story,
or I realize I have picked up another’s story,
kindly hand it back to them,
say no thank you and
move on.
