Have you ever wished you could just feel happy when you’re feeling off? You distract yourself from facing your inner demons. It’s a form of resistance.
Whether I decide to share this with you or not, and if you’re reading this, I was brave enough to share, I have decided in this moment to honor what is trying to come to the surface to heal. Music always helps me so I turned my music on and Grace Vanderwhal’s song, Dancing in the Moonlight, came on. The line that stuck me was, “Remember last year when you told me to always stay here and never leave me? The light from your eyes made it feel like we were dancing in the moonlight.” A flash of a memory came into my awareness that helped me get in tough with those old buried feelings.
Each morning I pull a card from my Shine card deck. This morning’s card said, “I won’t move very far while carrying old, heavy baggage. What is ready to be released?” As much as I wish I had nothing to heal, I said, “Thank you, Spirit for the confirmation of what I’ve been feeling. I’m here. Please help me release what is ready to release today.”
It’s easiest for me to figure out what’s swirling in my energy when writing, so here goes. Ever since I reunited with my childhood sweetheart, there’s been this underlying mistrust and anger in me that I’ve tried so hard to talk my way out of feeling. His actions have given me no reason not to trust him. He brought me all the way across the country to live the rest of his life with me in our beautiful new home we bought. He’s verbally expressive of his love. I can feel his sincerity too. When asked if I think he’d ever do anything to hurt me, the answer is an honest no. We are so good together. Still, I have felt like a crazy person whenever these emotions arose.
This morning I realized where it’s coming from. When we were kids, I had a condition called tongue tied where the tip of your tongue is connected to the bottom of your mouth inside. A friend of mine had made me aware of it when we were playing around sticking our tongues out at each other. She kept telling me to stick it out for real and in my mind I was doing exactly that. She looked closer to see what was going on and said, “Ewwwww. What is that?” Being a young girl, I took this as there’s something wrong with me and took a hit to my self esteem along with it in that instance. Young girls are already self conscious.
I ran home crying asking my mom to tell me what was wrong with my tongue. My mother had explained the condition and was afraid I’d have a lisp if I had the procedure to correct the condition. As much as I wanted to have the procedure, my mom refused to let me have it, for fear I would have a lisp. I was only eleven at the time and at that same time, my boyfriend, the one I have reunited with now as an adult, kept wanting to French kiss me. I was so self conscious that I refused no matter how hard he tried. A few weeks later I found out he had French kissed that same friend of mine, which hurt, but she was my friend and I loved him so I unconsciously told myself to stuff it. It was in that experience though, that I had my first experience of being cheated on, not being able to trust, and made up a belief that girls are quick to steal my guy and your guy will find someone else if you don’t give him what he wants.
When his family moved away a year later, we wrote letters for years until I was around the age of eighteen. One day I received the letter that this same love, who I thought would be with me forever, had gotten a girlfriend. I’d already been longing for a couple of years and now this? The betrayal. The devastation. The RAGE arose in my teenage body. It was all consuming.
In a hasty attempt to protect my aching heart and control what I could about a situation I had no control over, I dumped all of his letters and pictures. I decided it was over. Any further letters from him were unopened and trashed.
My pattern after all of this was to meet a guy, mistrust him, he’d cheat and I’d lose him or meet a guy, give him what he wanted and leave him before he could leave me.
Throughout my teenage and adult years, In my quiet moments I had this longing that pulled me into a deep sadness. You could say this started when my parents divorced. I’d even go as far to say that it started before I was born as I had found out in my college years that my father had stabbed my mother in the chest while she carried me. It was a seed planted of feeling betrayed by my own father. You could even go as far back as past life times. In dreams and visions I’ve seen my father lock me in a barn and set it on fire because he thought I was a witch. The other visions are too graphic to copy and paste into anyone’s psyche so I’ll spare you the details on that. I digress.
When we were around the ages of 18-19, that same girlfriend of mine who kissed my boyfriend, decided to get married. She invited our childhood friend, my long lost love, to the wedding. That was the first time I’d seen him since we were kids. He came from the Midwest with his girlfriend. I remember the scowl I gave as I’d seem him enter the wedding hall with HER. I know, I’m dramatic. What I didn’t know was that she was scowling at me as I was his girlfriend from California. She’d seen our pictures and letters. Those letters, by the way consisted of the words, “I’ll love you forever and I can’t wait to be with you again.” So you can see why I’d felt like she’d stolen my guy and that he betrayed me when he told me he had gotten a girlfriend. To a rational person it makes sense that he was just living his life as a young man. To an injured teenager, it made no sense and was just plain wrong. Once we reconnected I prayed for another chance to be together. The timing was finally right and it happened!
When we reunited as adults, I told him about the hurt, longing, betrayal and sadness. He felt horrible that I’d had to experience that and he apologized several times. He even promised to spend the rest of his life making it up to me and showing me that I’m wanted. While all of that helped a little, the wounds belonged to me and I’m the one who has to heal them. I believe that no matter what’s happened to us in life, we can recover and learn from it and come out better on the other side. The work I do helps people with just this. It all started for me starting this process of healing for myself.
Rationally and spiritually, I know that circumstance that pulled us away from each other had to happen as he wanted to be a father and I was across the country. He now has two beautiful children and I’d never wanted to have children of my own or be a mom to young children. Now that they were older, the time was right. It worked out as it needed to, but to my unhealed inner teenage self, it reveals itself as betrayal, anger, sadness, longing and it’s ready to be released. I’ve held on to it deep down where I’d shoved it. It’s shown up a lot while I’ve been living in Michigan. I’ve moved a lot of it without knowing where it’s coming from, feeling crazy the whole time.
Today I move some more, with compassion for this hurt teenage self I’ve carried and buried for so long. Having compassion for however long it takes to heal this, I move forward and allow this to just be here and ask for help from spirit to move it. I’ll use the powerful tools I have as well. Today I am my own client. I believe that when people are in enough pain or discomfort, they will have no choice but to face their inner demons and heal.
I released some trapped emotions using energy healing and went outside for a walk as nature always helps me too. I walked over to our spillover from the pond which always reminds me of a waterfall. I’d done a retreat where we look at the murky side of the water and let our old energy flow into it. As I did this I started a water release ritual, “Childhood me. Release the longing and sadness, the abuse, the suffering, the grief, the betrayal, the mistrust, the broken trust. You don’t have to carry this anymore. You’re safe now. You’re cherished and loved and adored and always were. You just couldn’t feel it yet. You’ve made an amazing life for yourself despite all that suffering. You can let go and enjoy and do the things that make you smile. You can do whatever you want with your life. You always did and now you can do it feeling a little lighter. I love you. Let’s go life the rest of our lives together in peace. I thank the spirits of the water for helping me pull this out from the depths of the shadows of the shadows where I put it. I say goodbye to it and the me who had all that pain and I say hello to the me who is here now and ready to enjoy her life in gratitude for it all. Thank you for being brave enough to let this go now. Forgive yourself for thinking you’ve done anything wrong. It is done. And so it is.