Leaning into pain…not misery.

Here I go again…that is what I told myself.  How could I have done this again???  Again???? I thought you have moved on from this old pattern long, well at least, moved farther from it.  How??  How did this happen…again???

How often have we said those words to ourselves?  Me, a thousand times is not an exaggeration…but a fact.  Oh, I have read the books, cried the tears, prayed, meditated, sought THE ANSWERS to my seemingly never ending questions.  You know the ones…the ones we just know that if we knew the answer everything would be okay.  Well sometimes, knowing the answer doesn’t fall into my plan of happiness.  Then I get angry for not just leaving well enough alone…you know ignorance is bliss.  Then I move on.  Generally obsessing…that incessant obsessive thinking…of trying to get the answer I want…if I think long and hard enough it will become the answer I want.  Nope…that doesn’t work either.  So what do I do now?  Well, I have continued to move forward..albeit sometimes it is very slowly and grudgingly.  I am in pain and I want it to go away…NOW!!!!!!  But it doesn’t until it is ready to go and often I have kept it so close to me that it has been stuck to me like super glue.  Eventually, the intensity dissipates but the lingering need for my answer remains…like a unpleasant odor that no amount of air fresheners can eliminate.  Until eventually, the air is clear and I can finally breath again.  This…is misery for me.  The holding on to the stale, unpleasant odor of the pain and confusion that follows a life event such as loss of  a relationship.  This has been my Achilles heel for most of my life.  I love, I give, I work to make it work, to do the right things, to build an atmosphere of comfort, love, happiness and all those things that I just know will make it work…and it doesn’t.  Where have I failed, if only I did this better or was better or looked better or, or or….

Maybe…just maybe I did do all those things…maybe it wasn’t me?  What if it was them?  What if I am just not seeing the lesson or appreciating the gifts it brought to me or even better appreciating that I was able to provide gifts to someone else.  Didn’t I profess my unconditional love to them?  So…did I really mean it?  Unconditional means without conditions…so since it didn’t go my way and now I am blaming and thinking of all the crappy stuff…isn’t that placing conditions?  Yes..it is.  All the years and efforts made to become a better, healthier woman have been worthwhile…as long as I choose to be that woman now.  The pain is real and it is mine and it is okay because it tells me I can love…I can feel…I care…really love, feel and care.  Those past efforts have not been lost…they have brought me here. To this place where I can feel loss and pain and not be miserable.  I don’t know when this shift occurred…was it yesterday?  A week ago??  An hour ago???  I don’t care…it occurred and I am closer to that woman I have been working so hard to become…because this woman can live life on life’s terms..receive the joys and the not so joys…and not have it swallow her up as it has in the past.  There is hope.  I can sit with my pains, be gentle with myself, be gentle with “them”, cry and yet I can also see…really see it for what it was…the jewels and the warts.  This too shall pass…it is in the process of passing and is leading me to the next adventure…the next experience.  I no longer need to avoid…I can lean into the pain and not the misery.

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