Yoga and Journalling Workshop

Today I attended a yoga and journalling workshop run by a friend of mine. It was, apparently, exactly what I needed.

I realize that I’ve been fighting against the call to move forward in my healing journey. I’ve been resisting taking the steps I know I need to take. Today helped me move forward a little further on that healing road.

Below you will find some of what I wrote today. For those readers who are deeply religious, please do not be startled when I refer to the Divine in terms of the feminine … our Creator is both Mother and Father, and I speak to and of God in either fashion. I don’t think our human minds can easily encompass all that is God with just one mental image, and so I move rather fluidly between various ways of thinking of God.

That said, here is what I found in my heart today…

~

I have issues with control.

There, I said it.

I realize that control is an illusion … but it’s an illusion I don’t want to let go of. I want to believe that I can do it all. I want to just try harder to make my mind behave, to make my body live up to my expectations … but this isn’t a problem stemming from a lack of effort. More effort isn’t going to make things better. More effort is how I got here, for heaven’s sake!

I spent years and years holding down the trauma effects by sheer force of will, squashing my feelings, ignoring all the warning signs, just working harder so I didn’t have to think about what happened, didn’t have to face my guilt, my shame, my complicity, my sins.

But the truth will not stay hidden. When eventually I did look at all that I had been avoiding, when I finally told my story, I saw that the girl who lived through that mess deserved compassion and forgiveness … and things improved. I did the work, faced up to my past, changed the way I thought about my story and said, “whew, the hard work is done and now life can get back to normal and it will be all better.”

Only the injury was deeper than that, and the healing journey nowhere near done.

And I got mad.

I don’t want to do any more work. I don’t want to cry any more. I don’t want to learn how to manage my life so that I can live fully and make the most of my gifts while staying within my limits.

It’s frustrating having to pay so much damned attention. I want the ease of autopilot, the simplicity of routine.

Except that the life I had before was dishonest. And I wasn’t the kind of mother or spouse or friend or co-worker or human being I want to be.

So I need to find another road.

And the first step on that other road – the light only has to shine on the next step, after all – the next step is

surrender.

It’s okay not to be able to wrestle it all into submission by applying the not-insignificant power of my will.

My will, in this case, is entirely the wrong tool.

The divine, Ordol says, cannot fill anything but an empty vessel. When we are full of our own will, there is no room for the divine within us. We must make room in our souls, move aside so that Powers greater than we are have space to work.

I kneel before the Mother of Summer, the great Healer, and I say, “I can’t do this.”

And the Mother says, “You don’t have to,” and enfolds me in her loving arms.

~

I have been fighting for so long, and I’m tired.

I see now that I don’t have to keep fighting. I can choose to lay down my weapons and stand unarmed and vulnerable before the world.

They can, after all, kill me but once.

And I am, always, held in the hands of God … and I am perfectly, utterly safe.

It is my own weapons that convince me I am surrounded by danger. I am carrying a semiautomatic with me everywhere, cinching tight the buckles on my Kevlar and bracing every moment for the incoming barrage. But it is my staggering display of weaponry that prompts everyone else to bristle, makes them draw their own guns and train them on me – just in case, you know – because that bitch looks like she means business.

What if, instead, I walked up to them with my arms wide open, wearing my colourful silks and singing of summer and sunshine and love?

What if I were to say, here, have a cup of tea?

What if I were to listen, instead of shouting?

What if I were to trust the Mother of Summer to heal my wounds, to relax into her embrace, and allow the old injuries to be tended by the only Power great enough to heal them?

What if I were to fall asleep under my God’s loving eyes, and allow my soul to recover?

Then,

 

I would never need to pick up my weapons again

 

and my soul would be filled with song.