I have been sitting on this blog post for awhile. Partly because I didn't know how to write it. Partly because I didn't know if I wanted to. Partly because I didn't know if what had happened to me was real. And fear....... there is always fear.
These days (because I'm so old now that apparently I have a set of days that are "back there" and are not anything like today's days).......These days social media is used as a major tool. Personally I use it to grow my business, to have convenient communication and as an avenue to connect with my fellow human beings.
But what about the things that I want to communicate that are private? What about the stories that I need to tell, that I think are worth telling but have other peoples stories in them too?
How do I do that and give hope to as many people as possible without turning my blog into some weird confessional? No one wants to read that.....I don't want to write that.
I don't have the answer, except for to be authentic and if I feel like an experience is worth sharing because it will provide light amidst darkness then I have a responsibility to do so.
So here I am...writing.....again.......
I recently ended a relationship and it was ugly. It wasn't the kind where people know it's coming and they go to eat and split the check and say their courteous "wish you well," and "thanks for the good times"....then get in their respective cars drive away...... cry all the way home........ eat everything that contains sugar that is in their house.......
Well....at least that's how I do it........usually.
This one wasn't like that. There wasn't enough sugar in the world to make it taste OK.
Nope, this one was yukky, and scary and dramatic and painful. This was an ending that put the whole damn plan into the incinerator and the only solution was to figure out a different damn plan, cause this one....this one was outta here.
There was no re-directing, altering, rearranging. It was finished..... it was over.....it sucked. It had lies and addiction and broken promises and all that gross stuff that will come along from time to time.
I was heartbroken and I started this "process" called grief.
I don't know about you guys...... but if it is anything to do with something that is titled a "process" I don't want it.
I want a starting point and an ending point and I want them clear and direct and preferably with pink bows and streamers.
And arrows...can we get some arrows up in this bitch so I don't have to navigate much......I'm directionally challenged so that shit would help me out big time!
In short, I want stuff MY way. I want things done by MY "process", where we all smile and high-five and figure the moves out quick and keep making progress. I don't want these days of "process", days of marinating in emotions, days that swing from desperation to anger to just flat out depressed. You can take your "process" and do you know what with it as long as it is not throwing it over here at me.
Tell me "it's all a process"....I fucking dare you. I hear about people and grief, and how they do it gracefully and with dignity and with composure and I know that's not me.
My "processes" are like me, a freaking tornado who believes that by bringing a whirlwind through everything that somehow when I stop it will all look put back together again.
That chaos on top of chaos will negate each other into harmony. So I push and push and pull and stomp and grab and twirl around trying to find my footing again.
I know it's what I am doing.......... I know that I am out of control.......and I know it is because I have come face to face with the fact that I have no control......and that's hard for a control freak.
We don't like that....it's makes us angry...it makes us panic.
But I know this today, about myself and about days of being stuck in the middle. That awareness is all that it takes to make me grateful some of the time.
So I have this ending, and I don't know where the new beginning is. I just know that I am so angry, all the time. And sad, and scared.
I am walking in the woods one day and I have this feeling like the whole experience has crushed a part of me that I will never be able to get back. I feel like there is a part of my character..... of my being......my essence........ that has been killed and will never be replaced.
Then I get more angry that a person/place/thing could have that much power over me. That one human being could do that much damage. Amidst this emotional swamp something else happens.
I start a whole other "process" of acceptance.
I decide on this walk after talking to the universe (which looks like I am some weird lady talking to herself in the middle of trees...because well...that's how the universe and I do it)
I decide that if this is truly what has happened to me that I will accept it. I will own it. I will admit my part, and I will live with it. I will grieve for that piece of me that is gone. If I am to live without it, if it is truly gone...... then I will.
I will keep showing up, and it won't be pretty and it won't always be kind but if that's what is required I will push through. I will keep going.
I ask the universe for help.
I ask to forgive this person.
I ask to forgive myself for a bad decision.
I ask to have my sadness removed.
I ask for help to show up for my life.
And the help comes. It comes by giving me days where I can't move, and days where I can't stop moving.
Most days I immediately do what I always do.... which is turn to busyness so I can't feel. I don't have time for that whole feeling thing.
In the middle of this junk show called a "process" I come out of the other side with 7 jobs.....that's right....7. Five freelance clients, a "normal" W2 job and my business which is growing. Those are just the ones that make money so I can do the really important ones like be a mom and run a house. Did I mention I am also trying to finish a BA I started forever ago in my "free-time" to?
That is what a "process" looks like for me.
I will live by working myself to death.
I resign to that fact, I accept it, I just keep going.
But you know what is amazing? That the universe loves me (us) so much that I can do all of that to not go through a "process" and it still has me go through it anyway.
I do everything I can to avoid or dismiss it but it still happens.
Have I mentioned that I love Marianne Williamson?? Some people ask What Would Jesus Do.......I ask what would Marianne Williamson do......(I think it's along the same lines).
Marianne would say LOVE. Love because it is the only truth. Love because it is the only solution. Love because it is the only way out. LOVE is the middle....Learning to LOVE is the "process"
I want Marianne Williamson to say "You know what you need to do Danielle?? You need to find this person/place/situation...kick in the door, have a shot of Jack Daniel's, kick it's ass and then light up a cigarette and just stand there watching it bleed everywhere"....because yes....I do wish my life was a Tarantino movie some days.
But that is not what she says. And what do you do when you are in a "process" that is so dark and yukky and gross and fueled by anger that you don't know how to love?
I asked.....all the time....100 times some days...."Please help me love, Please help me believe that resentment does nothing but poison me. Please show me how to forgive. Please help me."
Marianne Williamson talks about miracles and she says that a miracle is nothing but a change in thinking.
I ask to think about this experience differently.
She says that a change in perception from hate to love can do what humans cannot. It can repair what we can't fix, it can make the impossible possible.
I believe her, but in those moments it's not happening.
I am in the middle of a "process" and I see no way out. I see no love.
Then, without my permission, in the most unexpected way I get my miracle.
And this is the part that I don't know how to write about, but it needs to be told. This is the part that proves to every fiber in my being that I am not alone, wandering aimlessly. But rather I am moving forward even when it feels like I am on a sled backwards.
I am out shopping with my favorite person. I try very hard not to suck others into my times of misery but this day I cave, and in a very sarcastic way I tell her something that I figured out about this person who put me into this God forsaken "process"
Her response is my miracle.
Without a single millisecond of hesitation she looks right at me and says "Oh WOW! That is so great that is happening, I really think that will help them allot. Maybe they will be able to get better and be happy."
Holy shit....REALLY??? that was the gut response?..that just happened???
My attempt to continue the misery has just hit steel.
I have just encountered the Batman (or girl in this case) of light and love.
I have ZERO response to this.
I have no logical thought that could disagree with her.
What is more amazing is that I don't even want to.
What kind of person would I be if I turned and said "Yeah, well I think that's crap.....they shouldn't have that...they should suffer because I am"????
Even with this feeling that part of my kindness has been taken I still can't believe I am THAT kind of heartless creature. That is not who Danielle is. That is not why I was put here, and I realize at a speed that cannot be measured in time that if I am NOT that person then why I am I living like it? Just because a part of me has been taken away, a deep hurt inflicted, I don't have the right to waste days going around being an asshole.
She is 100% right.
It is a great thing that is happening to this person. A great thing for everyone else in this persons life as well. People that they are responsible for, that they love, that they promised to protect and care for are being given just that.
I am speechless.
I have this wave of calm come over me and it gets really, really clear.
I don't feel angry at all anymore, I have compassion and empathy. When I think about this person and visualize their face I don't get mad, I become grateful and happy for them........and this happens in fucking seconds.....weeks and weeks of debilitating anger and fear are completely removed, it just vanishes.
I start to think that the whole problem, the whole time, my block to love, my block to light was the fact that I was stuck squarely in the middle of MYself. It was ALL about me. It was ALL about my hurt, and my pain and MY"process".
What is even more exciting and amazing is that the part of me that I thought was taken is instantly back.
I don't WANT to feel kindness for this person. I DO feel kindness for this person.
I don't need a relationship with them, I don't need to know what/how they are doing but I do know that the humanity in me genuinely cares about the humanity in them.....and for me, that's all I really ever need inside of me to make a decent life. The humanness in me acknowledging and honoring the humanness in another.
If you take away all the ways I try to hide my need to feel that connection, the 7 jobs, the incessant cleaning, the planning of plans, the designs I construct to avoid it...... that very thing....that LOVE that "process" saves me.
The ability for a human to hurt me and yet still give love, because I know that is just part of the "process"....that was my miracle. I can know something for a long time.....but for me....it doesn't stick until I feel it.
I need to share that because I know there are those out there who are "process" haters like me. So often I hear or read things and people have these miraculous transformations where something just clicks and they have their change in perception, they have their mind set back to truth and love..... they have their miracle....... and I think...
WOW!......"that shit happens to allot of people".......
"I wonder what yoga pose they do to get there!"
OR....
"I wonder how many years they have been meditating".....
OR.....
"I bet they have that whole spiritual thing going on and can hear the good voice in their head instead of the crazy one I hear."
I read about people who are more advanced then me because I want that. I study choices in others so I can try and navigate my own. I read. I talk to the universe and try and stay quiet so things can settle. I get discouraged because instead of allowing room for growth I compare my "process" to others. I get stuck in this place where I don't think I will ever grow out of a bad habit, or stop participating in something that does not serve the higher good. I know I am not alone here....I know there are those of you who have this conversation to.
Why do people like Oprah and Marianne Williamson become famous??....because they make the process shit look easy! I am here to tell you, now that I know it to be true, from my own personal experience that it does not have to be pretty to work. It can be a traveling circus of junk shows and it will still happen...and it will still be just as amazing and beautiful.
This is what I know to be truth today, because it happened to me, because it was real......the ONLY requirement for receiving your miracle of right-mindedness is to show up and know that while it may not be happening to you it does in fact exist.....somewhere.....
maybe on a random Wednesday.....
maybe during a normal errand you have done a thousand times......
maybe it will come from a cashier, the radio, a billboard...
or maybe it will come from your own personal Batgirl......
I don't know. Chances are though, it will happen in the middle....the middle of a "process"
One Love,
Danielle
No comments:
Post a Comment