Memories come and go and with them sometimes feeling rise and surge flooding our inner space or landscape. I am amazed sometimes in early morning when I am waking of the memories that may come, at such times I find myself vividly recalled to a (seemingly) past/passed experience that still lives on. I heard a comment recently about time and in it the character speaking said ‘there is no such thing as past only memories you remember and mean something important to you and others that you don’t. I know the experiences were in our past but so often the past is present as well all know and David Richo wrote a book with this title a while back speaking of how current triggers may spark past experiences, and feelings often repressed can so easily reawaken in the present moment where we need to deal with and respond creatively and skilfully to them.
Like most things memories and feelings rise and fall, we can attach to them and magnify them, we can tell stories about them we can use our travelling inward mind to feel in our body how it felt then, the tight clench of loss, the tense jaw in response to invalidation or injustice the kick in the guts of emotional or verbal abuse, or we can choose to loosen our grip on these feelings and set the free, noticing, not attaching and letting the flow, flow out. We do have a choice of how to take care of ourselves in the midst of this and a choice of whether we open or close, soften or go rigid, enfold and/or accept or push away, deny and resist.
I have been thinking a lot about this push pull acceptance resistance dichotomy lately. I noticed this week I travelled a lot better when I came to view something painful and frustrating with a sense of humour and could laugh about it. I didn’t do so well last night when I was being pressured, I had a lot of work to do to feel the no in my body and resentment about being pressured over and over again to do something I didn’t really want to do. This morning my gut was in a bit of a knot again. It helped when I talked it over with the person and they apologised for putting undue pressure on me.
Anyway I had some vivid memories of a road trip I took with my ex partner this morning. I don’t know why these memories chose today to rise to consciousness. I don’t feel as much of the pain associated with our challenging relationship that was so full of conflict today as I used to. I have been able to let it go but letting go has been easier now that I understand and accept what went down. At the time it was very very painful and felt very very frustrating and unfair.
Accepting the things I cant change doesn’t always mean I like them, its not up to me either to give or not give them permission to exist, if they do, much as I don’t like them they must be part of some life plan I don’t have insight into. I can choose to walk away or I can choose to engage. I can decide to pursue or retreat and for each choice there will be repercussions or consequences that often I could not foretell when making the choice but only based on past knowledge or experience.
Anyway as a bit of an intense reactor I know if I am feeling intense there is a reason and its often based on a past emotional thread linking back all the way to pre birth when Mum held off going to the hospital to give birth to me in order to finish all her home duties. It is sometimes said that anger or frustration is a sign of some need not being met or some invalidation going down, however life is life….sometimes we just don’t get what we want (and some of us seem to get less of what we want anyway at times). The Rolling Stones said famously that we do get what we need however and many of us would like to put our fingers up to that one at times!
For today I will ride the tide of it all. I will let the memories rise and then pass away, I will have conversations in my mind with loved ones now passed. I will try my best not to resist and struggle with the knowledge that despite the fact I have the resources to help someone the material 3D world hell bent on suspicion and protection will keep doing its damnest to block it. I will keep looking for another way or just realise that no matter what goes down I do have love in my life with someone the Universe will not conspire to help me meet yet. All is really okay even when it isn’t working out the way I hope for, even when I don’t get what I want there are things in the day that can give me peace and joy and hope and meet my true needs if I look for them and energise myself toward positive action. There are things I need like sunlight, fresh air, good food and peace and I choose to anchor my energy in these things, some of which come for free my day feels a whole lot brighter and just sometimes I can take great comfort in the memories.
Emerging From The Dark Night 