Moving Forward from Pain
I talk about grief. A lot. Mostly because grief has become a welcomed friend. On my own healing journey I have done a pretty good bit or work. I have done my inner child work. I have faced my fears and my abandonment wounds. I know my attachment style in romantic relationships and I know the unhealthy dynamics of my Enneagram number. I’ve plunged myself into years of talk therapy, trauma therapy, and somatic healing practices. I’ve wrestled with the enlightening understanding of our own masculine and feminine dynamics. Throughout all of this, I have strived to remain heart open, holding space and surrendering to every bit of my healing journey.
And yet, all of this is still only one half of the equation. All of that work is like the rear view mirror of the car. It is important to know where I have come from, to check my surroundings and to know why I’m on the road I’m on. When I know where I have come from I can get curious about the choices that led me there. Knowing my pain from wounds in my past is crucial to understanding the dynamics that have brought me to where I am today.
But the absolute truth is that I still have to look forward and choose where I want to take my car. I can’t live life staring only at the rear view mirror.
The pain of grief can come from all kinds of places. Grief comes when we lose something that is important to us. Maybe you lost a relationship due to infidelity. Maybe you are experiencing betrayal trauma. Maybe you are in recovery from an addiction and you are grieving the loss of the substance addiction, sex addiction, or gambling addiciton and everything else that went with it. Whatever the cause of the pain of grief, the pain is there, it is real, and we are slow to move forward.
When we first become aware of our pain and learn to sit with it and not numb out, hide or deflect, halting the grief processing. It can be extremely difficult to remember that we have so much life to be lived, right in front of us. I can both acknowledge everything that I’ve seen, felt and experienced and I get to create what it is that I want most and where I want to go.
Please hear me, bypassing is the avoiding of what’s in the rear view. When we are in grief, it’s so much easier to not look in that mirror, to numb ourselves instead of learning how to face what would otherwise overwhelm us. But we don’t do that just to sit stuck, staring at our past or grieving from our losses. Knowing ourselves is essential to know what we want to change, how we want to move forward and what we want to create.
In our pain, hope can seem elusive. It’s difficult to imagine it getting better than it is right in that moment. However, we can’t move away from the constructs and limitations of our potential if our healing doesn’t make space for us to stop and ask the questions. Do I want something different? What is stopping me from dreaming? If you had a judgement free 15 minutes, how would you live? What would you choose? What would you create?
What’s the one thing that you keep wanting but don’t choose? What’s a longing of your heart that you are too afraid to imagine coming true for you?
Sweet friend, please face every part of yourself, including the grief. Know your pain as an intimate, dear friend. But please, also dream. Imagine and create what it is that sets your soul on fire. Don’t live your one precious life only looking at the rear view mirror. Hold firmly your permission to grieve and your right to dream! Breathe in permission to dream and create, exhale fear. Breathe in trust and surrender, exhale limiting beliefs and what no longer serves you. You are supported beyond your wildest imagination. And in that space, that’s where the magic is.