This is a little piece of self reflection I wrote over a month ago. I am conscious tonight that a huge shift was occuring for me during this time as Pluto was stationing to move forward in September. So, I am publishing it tonight. Its interesting to note that I am now feeling more like moving out into the world than I was when I wrote it, which just goes to show life and the way I feel is continually evolving.
Sometimes when I am at home, alone in my lovely rooms its hard to want to even reach out or go outside. I’m not talking about the garden here. I love the sun and the feel of the grass between my toes and if I could go out into a world of nature then I would love it, its just when I go out, even though I take myself I feel that somewhere I leave a little piece of myself at home.
There is a completeness, a wholeness, a peace I find alone in stillness and with my puppy Jasper that I just don’t get so much in the outside world, particularly in man made environments. I don’t know why I am writing about this today. I am experiencing the same old resistance to being out in the world. Maybe it is my Saturn Moon that feels this way. I get in trouble from others or just get the questioning glance. For instance, my brother made one of his very rare visits on Monday and when he said to me, “Well, what else has been going on?” I didn’t have anything much to say.
My brother is a super achiever. He has made a lot of money due to the creativity of his designs and ability to take risks to stretch himself in business. In fact he is constantly on the go, which is great for him. For me. that kind of lifestyle would be a nightmare. I got a little twinge of self condemnation when I didn’t have much other “news” to relate but part of me had to think I am just not a person who is in to doing as much as I am a person who wants to be.
It may be a result of being the youngest in family where there was so much doing going on that being was not possible. Many times when I was trying to be, for instance engaging in some art work, which Ioved, I would get in trouble. One time on a holiday I even got 3rd degree burns as my mother had been cleaning the caravan floor with boiling hot water. I was so caught up in painting I put my foot down into the bucket on the stairs of caravan right near where I was painting.
I don’t know why I mentioning this now. Its just lately I feel there is such a preoccupation within a lot of the people around me with going somewhere and doing something and then a judgement of me for not going somewhere and doing something. The greater truth is that at any moment I am engaged in my life. I am doing something of value whether it is writing this blog, sitting the garden soaking up the sun or vacuuming the floor. It certainly wont earn me a million dollars but my life still has value.
The best thing is that today I know it does and has, I don’t have to prove it to you by having huge adventures to report. I am not going to judge those who go on adventures. Why would I? That could be their soul purpose. I have one friend who is always off on the next adventure, she doesn’t really like to stay still and can be critical of people who do, but she is living her journey, it just isn’t my journey. I like to hear about her adventures. I just could not live that kind of life and be happy.
After many years of struggle I am beginning to learn what it might mean to be happy, to be me. I’m sure I am not the only one out there who has judged herself by the standards of the world and come up lacking. Maybe this is even what the culture around us encourages us to do. I just don’t think its a very effective or healthy way of being and relating to our own insides.
As I have shared elsewhere on this blog I spent a lot of my life, not really knowing myself and liking or loving myself. I did not realise this. In fact it took a lot of pain and seeming wrong turns which were not really wrong turns just seemed like them due to the fact I was open to and internalising others judgements of me, a person who was lost and spun off from her own centre wandering around and trying to find the way back.
So often I have judged myself for not being in the right place, for not making the right choices, but in the end every so called wrong choice was an opportunity to learn something new, something about myself or others I was not aware of before. We aren’t all born into this world with a massive amount of self awareness. For me I feel I have wandered around in a fog of confusion for years. It may have been something to do with being the youngest in a far larger family, or it could have been just a condition of my soul in response to an environment not very attuned to nurturing who I was.
In any event, I had a long journey to travel in order to gain self love and self awareness. I know the journey is not yet over. I haven’t arrived anywhere and my life is still in process, as it will be until the day I die and yet lately I am feeling a sense of peace. And the truth is that peace has come as the result of all the pain, difficulty, self judgement, loss and separation I have suffered. It has also come from finding out what makes me feel better to be in touch with on daily basis.
For me the thing I most need to be in touch with is myself. Some around me call this selfish or narcissistic. I don’t really care to be honest. I am not that concerned any more with your judgement of what is right for my life. Affirmation is wonderful but I don’t need it to exist any more, thank God. Lack of empathy and affirmation may hurt but the hurt wont lodge as deep as long as I can care for validate and nurture myself. In some way I think all roads are leading me home to this realisation lately.
I went out for a coffee with a friend that I made through my support group. My idea was that I was going to ask this lady to me my sponsor as I had been feeling a lot of grief lately and wanted to find a person to share it with. We had a lovely chat and she told me she was not in the position to be a sponsor. I accepted that as I felt it was meant to be. That was yesterday but this morning I started to feel sad. Why is it always this way I was asking myself. Anytime I want to rely on someone they aren’t able to be there, I even shed a few tears. But then I logged onto WordPress and began a blog to come to terms with my feelings. As I began to write a miracle shift occurred. I was no longer feeling sad and bereft. I was finding my own healing by linking into myself in this way. Wow, I thought. This is really my North Node in the First House kicking in to gear. No wonder I keep having these same issue repeating in relationships.
With my friend yesterday we had a long chat about becoming our own best friend and nurturing ourselves. My friend had very abusive parents and had to go no contact with them many years ago for her own health and sanity. She has grown a lot through the experience and has a lot of understanding to share, especially about healing her inner child’s wounds. I found myself crying towards the end of the things she was saying to me. It was all stuff I knew and had been practicing by my self any way. We went to the meeting of our support group and both shared. I came away feeling centred, happy and strong.
Realisations are coming for me. As I write the piece I am working on morphs from one thread to another, something new gets woven in. I started out with the heading “the way through the world” as I was thinking of that quote I read somewhere “the way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it” I guess it was referring to the need to live in the reality of the moment and what is and yet on some level at times I feel I want to check out and unplug from the world out there and feel more inwardly complete, whole and satisfied when I do.
That said little Jasper sits patiently on his cushion and I am aware that we need our daily dose of the park. In the park with other dog lovers I can feel connected to a degree. I am still conscious though, that for me. wholeness is an inward job. I’m not as hungry as I was for something out there to fill me up. I feel closer to the centre and deeply connected to the infinite where on some deeper level we are all connected and all whole. There is nowhere I need to go or no one else I need to be. I am enough as I am. Its just a wonderful feeling after a few days of depression to again feel this connection so deep within my soul. So I feel the need to share it.
Emerging From The Dark Night 