I am not sure if we need to wilfully seek our healing on the pathway of integration. I believe we only need to become willing to be open and surrender to what emerges naturally without fighting it. And these feelings of integration or having realisations almost seem to burst through at unordained times when it is just right we will have that revelation or cry those tears that shed even more defences allowing all the love we hid or feared so deeply inside allowing it to burst through and flood us clean.
I had just such a moment driving to the park with Jasper for our walk two hours ago. I felt my father’s presence and my longing for love from him so deeply. We only got this kind of connection a few times when he was alive and on two of them we or he was close to death or facing its immanence. But today the burst through of love and longing along for grief with all I did not get from him just burst through and I found myself crying as I saw so much of my life path more clearly. It is happening to me a lot lately and so I just surrender to open and then I like to ground the experience through either journaling or poetry
I am so glad for these water shed moments when they happen, my relationships with males have been frought at times with all the pain and distance I had with my father. Echoes of old themes of invalidation had appeared at times and in the last relationship my rage over it was enormous and my ex got a lot of that pain as I got the pain over his own wound over his mother’s abandonment. I now see that relationship existed for the purpose of stirring it all up so I could get a better look at things. It was so painful when it ended and he chose to end it as most of my relationships have always been ended by my partner. I would rather try to stay to work through and sometimes it was not for the best to hold on. And its interesting as I lost one of my favourite jumpers on my walk today. I stripped down over the walk as we warmed up and I was jungling the lead, pooh bags and my vest and jumper and when I got back to the car my jumper was missing. I went back to look for it but could not find it. I felt myself on the brink of tears but then the thought came to me. NO! It is gone, you have to let it go, its not life threatening and you can buy a new jumper. This was a lovely jumper don’t get me wrong but its not the end of the world. I need to keep perspective and who knows maybe due to the fact I have integrated a lot of my grief now I am not holding on so much to this kind of trigger/echoes.
It was a relief today to allow myself to feel the longing I had for my father’s love and how much loss there is around never getting to form an adult relationship, I know that unless I open my heart I cannot love another person and that includes opening my heart to disappointment without shutting down while maintaining healthy boundaries (not accepting abuse). I really feel capable of loving. I have been able to release a lot of my pain and so my fear of being fully myself is not as strong either, as today I had the thought that I fear relationship because I fear my feelings will be TOO MUCH FOR OTHERS TO HANDLE. It is a message I was often given and also my two sisters got the same treatment then they needed empathy. Instead they were medicated without therapy…. I know with both the feelings existed deep down inside but they learned to fear them and so they burst out in all kind of inappropriate ways. It was good to recognise that fear today. It gave me a great deal of insight as fear is not always true sometimes its just based on past experiences that will not necessarily always repeat.
Emerging From The Dark Night 