What happens when we feel forced to give up those who mean the most to us?
Do you mean a person you love dearly who is clearly not good for you? What I have come to realize is that the pain of losing someone who is toxic, isn't anywhere near as painful or as costly as staying with that person. It certainly doesn't feel like it (as I'm kicking and screaming to stay in an abusive relationship....
oh, please, just one more day!
) But now, given the perspective of time and distance, it is all that much more clearer to me.
What we experience in the losing may feel like hell, but what
happens is that we gain a freedom to finally heal and perhaps, if we allow, open up to experiencing life as we were meant to. If we are patient, we will begin to feel the freedom more than the pain.
Can we pretend things will be fine some day? Or, is this something we tell ourselves to go on one more day?
Yes...we can pretend things will be fine some day, if that's all we can muster! There's nothing wrong with that, as if pretending somehow makes it not valid or something.
Whatever it takes to move us from feeling paralized to feeling more empowered is fair game. In living, where so much can be stacked against you, I don't think there's anything wrong with "fixing the odds" in our favor to heal!
I don't think this makes our strength unreal...I think it takes us to it, which I guess is more an uncovering of the power we have always had within.
Just because something doesn't feel real to you at the time, doesn't mean it isn't. It could be that it is real, it's just that the pain, the trauma you experience from emotional pain and betrayal is covering it.
It is also a movement of consciousness. Lots of times, we start out with an intellectual understanding and then make it our own when it becomes an emotional reality. One happens quickly, the other takes time...it's the movement of seeds sending roots down into the earth.
I have really come to appreciate this process. Not realizing this had for a number of years made me very judgmental toward myself. I was filled with regrets, because as I looked over my life I'd look at some of my choices and behavior and think, "I should have known better!", and I did!...I read the books, I understood the concepts, but it wasn't real for me emotionally, and I couldn't live up to a standard that wasn't a part of me. I could aspire to be there, but I had to live my life where I was.
I guess intellectual understanding is being able to see the distance, and emotional ownership is actually flying there. So use your understanding or pretending as a grappling hook to compassionately take you where you want to go...and give yourself the time to get there.
Be strong and all will work out....be wrong and all will fallout.
"Be strong"..it will work out if working out means moving you from restriction to freedom. What that freedom looks like might not be what you think it should right now from where you are. Like mum says, if you let go those attachments, it can be a liberating thing.
"Be wrong", and it will also work out! I wish I could say I was one of those naturally enlightened people or those smart ones who can see the signs ahead and make the right turns. Me? Whatever I've learned, I've done so through making mistakes...lots of them. Yes, I read, yes I listen to others, but I have to say I have learned more from my mistakes than anything else.
Some of us are just hardheaded that way!
But I'm not so afraid of being wrong anymore. To me it's not a matter of making a right or wrong choice as much as taking care to be as clear and clean as I can about any decision I make, regardless whether it turns out to be the "right" one or the "wrong one."
I'm not afraid of pain anymore...it's just pain. I am afraid of self-deception. But if I meet that with compassion, as well, it's amazing how quickly even that can be transformed!
Well, thanks for asking your questions that got me to do some thinking. Wishing you some comfort and a whole lot of peace.
