To be light

We don’t talk enough about how we heal. We don’t give ourselves the grace and compassion to feel without judgment, rationalization, or shame. We don’t permit enough space for mourning without feeling we’re taking up too much – anger, missing in terrible agony; tiny, joyful and warm remembrances in between.

I heal by allowing myself to be a mess and accepting that it is human to be so once in a while. Acknowledge my wounded inner child; unhealthy ways of loving as a reflection of the ways she was tended. Nourish her with kindness and boundary setting. Forgive myself for the hurt I caused her, because I accepted crumbs over the necessary whole. Tell myself you were working with what you knew and what you had, the best that you could at that time, while assuming accountability.

To walk away from an anchor and not resist when the thought finally shifts to a slow yet hopeful letting go. Crossed arms softening to the possibility that perhaps the person you lost is a lesson like many others, and there could be other lessons out there on the horizon. To be grounded in uncertainty. To accept that living is not knowing absolutes all the time. To relent to the power beyond your palms. To hand the wheel over to it while doing your best to live according to what honors you. To trust that everything – cuts, burns, ends – is working for your higher good.

It’s been five months since we walked away. Felt like it was only yesterday when breathing felt like crushed glass in my lungs. There is much inner work to keep on. But for the first time in my life, I feel safe with myself and able to trust my own boundaries. Advocate for my good. Love myself as I deserved but wasn’t as a kid, as an overexerting adult who was always attracted to lost, splintered souls because I too was one. I am re-teaching myself how to curl up in the light. Bask and be it.

To be light isn’t always trying to assume luminescence. It’s recognizing your feet are stuck in the mud, and they must first be unstuck before you can pull others out.

We do not attract what we desire. We attract what we are. And as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, what lies behind you and before you doesn’t matter as much as what lies within you.

Annemaree Rowley