God knows it is not always easy to move on but there comes a time we wish to embrace the life that is happy, one where we can say to those past parts and experiences, you really did happen to me, and now I need to find the part of me that is not defined by those experiences alone.. I guess some are so much better at this than me.. Letting go of old hurts is tough and it does involve putting our focus on something in the now, something we value, enjoy, that lightens our heart and puts the focus on love, rather than resentment, hatred and fear. And yet those emotions all have a meaning and should not be discounted or viewed as purely ‘negative’. Earlier today I was guided to a reading by Tian Dayton that spoke about jealousy being an important thing to understand and work through.. What we may be jealous of in others may be a guide to what our soul most needs and longs for.
As upset as I was on the weekend by someone telling me to “let it go,” I do get it, but perhaps the truth is different, that in fully suffering this pain through we allow it to make us stronger and wiser, to reshape us and fuel our desire to embrace something happier.
I watched the standup performance of Australian comedian Hannah Gatsby Nanette over the past week.. I goes for over an hour but there is a lot of emotion to digest in it.. Her delivery and sharing is powerful and confronting and not only about comedy at heart, more about her own personal tragedy, anger at both the sexual abuse she suffered at 17 and discrimination against gay women. She expresses heaps of anger in the stand up, which is right and true, but towards the end she says how corrosive anger and festering resentment can be : in giving us a sense of missing power anger may help us ward off attack, but the time will come to not allow it to poison us and if we hold only onto the anger we may keep up walls that never allow another’s love and care in..
God knows its not easy letting go to trust and love when we have been so hurt, but I do admire Hannah, I am sure a lot of people attending that performance got a little more than they bargained for as I watched her second one Douglas before this one and she mentions how it was not well received by some.. However many gave her a standing ovation. Expressing it was for her healing and it appeared visibly painful but freeing for her, so much passion in her expression.
Many of us hope for a world in which this kind of abuse of those whose gender, sexual orientation or other differences mark them out for attack could become a thing of the past. So it’s important that those who endure it find their voice which seems to happening much more in our society lately.
Moving on also in some way involves us embracing joy, as well as allowing ourselves to be fully seen and known in all of our wounds, anger and vulnerability. The power of our story is ours, no one has a right to deny it, and as much as we hope it will not define us perpetually, surely it will continue to mark us, hopefully fuelling a search for a happier and more positively connected life outside of it. And yet it is important for us to tell it as honestly and as raw as it can be and difficult for others to hear, sensing in our anger a hatred that is nothing less than an awful hurt at a violation our soul felt to be so so deeply scarring and jarring to it.
Emerging From The Dark Night 