A big lot of sadness happened to me today talking to my Mum. I was open to her own lonely girl from the past, but also to the love she has for me. Its been hard to feel this love, for in many ways Mum doesn’t want me to be where I am. She doesn’t want me to be sad and in pain, but I am and she doesn’t want these things because she loves me and wishes it were different. But when she wishes this, she cannot really be with me truly where I am today. But you know what? This doesn’t make me angry today, and I can feel my Mum’s love. There is a silence and space on the phone and I know I am giving voice and expression to all the pain she doesn’t want to face or feel, or even say is real.
This sadness is over so many things and I would be lying if I say it is all about what others have done to me over my life, when the truth is some of it is also about what I have done to myself and others through being disconnected at times and being forced into disconnection and dissociation at times due to trauma.
Trauma made me feel that the only safe space to be was within my cocoon. And certainly when we have been physically or emotionally overwhelmed or traumatised we need space to heal and rest. But we also need connection and comfort. These things are as essential to our healing as air.
Sometimes the worst place to stay is folding up inside of ourselves and disconnected, but how can we trust if we reach out that we wont meet the same trauma, the same invalidation, the same abuse? The truth is, we do not know what we will meet on any day, out there in the world but still I know that I need to keep reaching at times for connection, and that I can also know that as long as the deeper connection with myself is not broken I will be able to maintain my self, soul and emotional integrity. Do others have the power to hurt me when I am in this place? Maybe so but I will have the inner tools to deal with it. And if I don’t remain permanently folded in and disabled I will have the strength to assert a boundary when necessary and grow stronger.
When I stay permanently disabled and immobilised by trauma I don’t develop the muscles to push against what is wrong and assert for what I need. Trauma on some level involves a disabling of the will and power we have as beings of integrity. When I stay permanently immobilised I cannot reach for what is healthy, healing and good, that which fills up my spirit rather than depletes it. And I cannot free the expression of deeper truths and feelings that must flow out if I am to heal my disconnection and loneliness.
Today with my Mum I tapped into deep pain. I could not have it validated but that was okay. I was glad to be able to shed the tears I needed to shed, the tears that when held back keep me barricaded in a fortress of safety that can begin to feel like a prison within which the beating pulsing flow of my heart and soul remains dammed up and constricted, blocking love, blocking spirit, blocking light. I don’t want that anymore. I cannot live like that any more.
Emerging From The Dark Night 