Grief is often seen as a roadblock to growth. More often than not, we get stuck in grief by pushing it away or sinking into it. The analogy I now see is that grief is like driving on loose sand; to struggle against it, we can get further trapped. To stop all together, we sink further into it. However, when allowed, grief can also bring forth a new level of growth. Just as with driving on loose sand, when we allow a gentle, steady movement, then we can keep going and grief becomes an engine for expansion. Driving on loose sand is also easier when we let some air out of our tires, another form of expansion, right?
What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.
Haruki Murakami
For several days now I’ve had a song stuck in my mind. The same lyrics haunting me at various times throughout the day. It is a song about loss, it seems an unrequited love after a woman’s death. The song also touches on incomplete grief, memories, and how the songwriter grasps at taking back control of his life through understanding the need to move through and past his grief.
I’ve attempted to block the song from my mind, have meditated on it, and finally just listened to it on repeat with lyrics and allowed the emotions to flow through. In allowing without pushing, without fretting over “why am I stuck here, again?” or without immersing myself into the feelings, they have moved through. Now I’m seeing where a new layer of understanding and growth has come through.
May we each allow the grief process to unfold, so that we may move into a new level of freedom.
Namaste
P.S. Many life transitions can trigger the grief process and navigating through it can be difficult to do alone. Life coaches and counselors can help us with using tools to get ourselves unstuck. Please reach out, you are NOT alone; even though that’s often what it feels like. Find your strength through your vulnerability.
Healing from heartbreak can be a drawn out and difficult process. It can seem to take forever because we don’t like feeling hurt or that we are broken. Often we suppress our feelings and try to rush the process in our desire to feel “A-OKAY” which can further prolong the process.
Idealizing the person and the relationship keeps us stuck and from moving forward. These thoughts become an addiction. It is up to us to choose when we no longer wish to ruminate, when we would like to move forward. Just as with changing any habit, to be successful, we must replace our old habits with new ones. Initially, this takes effort and near constant redirection. Here are some of the tools I have found helpful in breaking the habit of idealization:
Burn Letters – This can be very transformative. Pour out your emotions onto paper. Say whatever is on your mind, or that needs to be gotten off of your chest. Then place the paper into the fireplace, or fire pit and let your feelings be transformed. The stronger the feelings, the more times this may need to be done. For some, it may be one and done. For most, it may require repeated efforts.
Sh*t List – List out the things you did not like or that went wrong. Yes, focus for a little bit on the negative. When we are idealizing someone or something, then we are avoiding the negatives.
Gratitude – Each time you think on the ex lover or relationship, mentally thank your ex for showing you what you want in yournext relationship. In relationship, we experience examples of what we liked while learning through contrast what we do NOT want again.
Wish List – List out all the things that you want in your NEXT RELATIONSHIP. Feel into as many items as you can as you list them out.
Additional suggestions:
Make an A to Z list. Challenge yourself to find at least one thing for each letter.
Read and feel this list everyday.
Record the list in your own voice. Listen to it daily.
When you start to think about the ex-lover or that relationship, look at the list.
Share the list with a trusted friend who will NOT ridicule you.
Allow this list to live in your heart.
Radical Self-Care – What have you not been doing for yourself? Were there good self-care habits that fell to the wayside when you were in relationship/grieving?
Some ideas:
Love & forgive yourself more. The Ho’Oponopono Prayer* is amazing: “I Love You. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.”
Change your schedule.
Tidy your home, office or car.
Drive to work differently.
Exercise your body. This helps to get the emotions moving, too.
Fast (safely).
Eat foods that are right for your body.
Meditate.
Take a salt bath.
Go to the spa, get a massage, or have some energy healing done.
99% of the items above are things I have done in the last week. One night I wrote the burn letter, sh*t list and then after feeling the clearing I wrote out the A to Z wish list and as I wrote it, I felt many of the items on my own. The next morning, I recorded it and hearing myself read the list was amazingly powerful! Here, I saw (again) where my happiness is my own; it is already here, within me, within my heart.
Experiencing our happiness as independent of anyone else is incredibly freeing. So I hope you will give this a go, especially if you’re looking outside yourself to feel fulfilled!!!
May we each let go of the past while loving and forgiving ourselves more and more. May we live a new level of freedom within while feeling our own happiness, despite the outward circumstances.
The dark night was showing me where I did not love myself and where I was repeatedly choosing suffering over my own happiness and joy.
Prologue Just for a moment, I encourage you to reflect on the course of your life over the past few years. We can have such a strong tendency to jump from one life event to the next that we forget how far we’ve traveled. Right now, I am seeing how this has been such an amazing journey; yet there’s still so much to experience and explore.
Today (Tuesday) I’m also launching a series called “Tiffany’s Epiphanies,” a term that has been coined by several people who have worked closely with me over the years. My goal is to post these epiphanies on Tuesdays and Thursdays, at least once a week. We’ll see how well my creativity will flow with this goal!
Spiritually-Cleaning-House: The Dark Night of the Soul and The Breakdown Sunday night, I was deeply triggered by something I saw that lead to what I now consider to be one of my toughest “dark nights of the soul.” These dark nights feel like death as the emotions feel physically eviscerating. There can be grief like no other.
In fact, I believe it is a mourning process for there is a sort of death for the part of us that needs to be let go, much like the caterpillar must die for the butterfly to be born. Think, too, of how many life transformations have ceremonies… it is to recognize the movement of life from one form to another. So this dark night of the soul is the death of what no longer serves us and, if allowed, it is the movement out of the darkness and into a new light. Which again brings to mind the caterpillar and the butterfly.
Overnight, I was incredibly restless and easily awakened by visceral pangs as the energy shifted (and no, it wasn’t food poisoning). My solace? Self-love meditations (via Insight Timer app) and The Ho’Oponopono Prayer: “I Love You. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.” The person I was saying this to? Myself. The dark night was showing me where I did not love myself and where I was repeatedly choosing suffering over my own happiness and joy. I repeated this prayer overnight and into the next day whenever my emotions rose up. Also, as I typed notes at work, I listened to Heart Chakra Crystal Bowls on the Insight Timer App to support being more heart-centered and calm.
Physically-Cleaning-House: The breakdown leads to the breakthrough. Once back at home, I literally cleaned house with a new fervor. As I scrubbed the tub, and the baseboards (don’t ask how long it’s been for either), an epiphany hit me square in the face (well, not literally). “If another human had treated your children the way this person had treated you, you’d be mother-bear furious. You’d support your child in getting the eff away. So why are you still entertaining these thoughts about this person?!” BOOM! Done. Mission: Accomplished. Heart UNbroken. AND WHOA! All that self-love really paid off!
There is another tool that I used this day, after I listened to this TED Talk about getting over heartbreak. The speaker, Guy Winch, suggests writing out a list of all of the things that someone you’re heartbroken over did not do well, and referring to that list when we begin to pine over that person. This is important for breaking the cycle of idolizing the person and our relationship with them so that we may heal.
Epilogue This week marks 3 years since my divorce was final; always a little bittersweet, especially in the midst of the winter holidays. Yet it also marks for me the beginning of a new journey, through self-discovery, self-love and sharing my experiences to help others through blogging; that journey being well over 4 years long now.
How can you fully grasp the new dream if you’re still holding onto the old reality?
Surrender is the name of the game. Repeatedly giving over all which does not serve to our higher power. This opens our channels so that we can receive the new dream.
Remaining grounded and connected to ourselves keeps us in awareness. While focusing on others keeps us wallowing in our own suffering, for we cannot see the power we have to get out. We must ask for support to receive it. If we are distracted, then we stay in struggle as we must walk through or ask to have the old removed.
As we clear, it is important for us to remain curious and open “like a child.” It is here that we are more receptive. One step leads to the next. At times it may feel like the wrong step. Yet in remaining open and curious we are able to more clearly see. It is best to avoid certainty, as this closes the waves of possibility. In our openness, we allow for more to be created.
It’s about loving and forgiving the parts of ourselves and others who have lived in the belief that love is found through suffering. When these thoughts and stories surface, be willing to love and forgive the parts of you that believe it and anyone else who helped you create that. Again, this helps us to see and live the new dream.
The pains that we feel are cries for help, attention, and love. These pains are all messengers that something needs to change. While the form may change in that the pain can physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, each form is a lesson left unlocked. What is this pain trying to tell us?
Instead of pushing it away, fighting it, anesthetizing it, can we take a moment to lean into it? Feel it, walk into the fire; the contraction. Feeling into the middle of the source of our pain, we can begin to relax, almost as if we stood in the eye of the storm. Being fully present with this, we begin to feel the grip of the pain begin to loosen. We can then only be transformed. Sometimes the pain needs to be taken in smaller bites. Sometimes it can be taken in all at once.
Our pain has something to teach us. What are we not learning? Rarely does change occur when we are comfortable….
This past week I have been chipping away bit by bit at a humongous block of anger and resentment. The posts I have written during this time have been realizations I have had as I’ve worked at chipping away. Yet, a good bit of the anger, resentment and even sadness still remained. So today I’m going to do my best to dive into the depths of this pain, to give it a voice and validation; to set myself free.
Due to several events in my life, I have felt unappreciated, even depreciated. The resentment soon follows and builds fresh wounds that ooze instead of soothe. All this anger builds up inside and blocks my ability to sleep, to fully appreciate the flowers and the things that are going well. Now, it’s not all bad, as I do appreciate the good things more than I would have, say 2 months ago. However, in attempting to push away the anger and resentment, I also kept some (not all) more positive experiences and feelings away.
So today I step back and look at what I’ve created. A shield instead of a coat of armor. By blocking the seemingly bad, I’m also blocking the things I want more of in my life. It numbs me and robs me of my right to more fully be me.
Sinking into the layers of the pain, I allow the anger its voice; “just be,” I tell me. To get through, I remember to keep loving me; allowing the anger that is part (not all) of me to be. A physical wound doesn’t heal faster nor go away just because we want it to. It must be given its course, love and space emotional wounds will do what they need to do.
Once again I now emerge with a new sense of freedom and a new clarity of my voice. Just by allowing my feelings to be.
Many of us are hibernating our greatness inside the shells of our fears. It is time to wake up to our greatest potential. Open your heart and mind to yourself. Love the hurts. Love the many faces and facets of yourself that have hurt and that have been hurt. Allow the past to be the past. Be willing to forgive others and yourself for any trespasses. Look into your shadow and love each bit of you as much as you can. The more you can love you the more you can be compassionate with others.
Love the parts of you that get irritated when you see something amiss in another. Unconditional love is what we’re going for here.
Release the conditions of your own parole. Release the conditions of the bondage of your soul.
Be willing to wake up and be vulnerable. Guarding and hiding is no longer serving humanity. It’s time to wake up. Let slip off the shell of your fears.
When you begin to ask yourself “what is wrong with me?,” change perspective and instead ask “What is it that’s trying to break through in me? What is it that’s trying to emerge?” The former closes your heart and the latter helps to keep it open. This leads you to the next level of awareness and creativity instead of holding you back in the slumber of fears.
For the sake of humanity, wake the eff up and learn to love the person in the mirror. It starts with you! ❤️
In psychology, the ego refers to the persona or image of who we we wish to be and to be seen by others. This mask becomes our prison when it takes on a life of its own and becomes self-preserving. The ego thus becomes driven by the fear of being discovered as not true. When tested, the ego can drive us to regrettable behaviors.
On a daily basis, the ego clothes and shields the shadow, the less desirable aspects of ourselves that we hide from ourselves and others. This is the ego’s purpose and it was created during the innocence of our youth when we were taught right from wrong. Without the ego, societies could not exist. So don’t beat yourself up for this, just understand that you are not your image.
In its self-preservation, the ego prevents us from rising above Duality. We see life as black and white when we live from this aspect of ourself. We are living life based on an image, an idea of who we are. Yet this image is only a small part of the truth.
When the ego and shadow are at odds with one another, we are given the opportunity for growth and transcendence. However, it takes valor to transcend duality as one must be willing to sit through the paradox of the shadow and the ego. When the contradictory and uncomfortable emotions within rise, and one is able to ride the wave it will crest and peak. This is the moment when the two edges, when allowed, become synthesized thus creating a new understanding, a new vision and a new freedom. In this moment, we transcend duality and we grow, seeing a new option that we didn’t see previously.
Due to the ego’s stranglehold on reality discounting the other aspects of self, most of our egos do not allow us to sit through this transcending process until we have reached the proverbial “rock and hard place.” When we become frozen and the ego cannot find a solution, that is rhe very moment when we can most exact the greatest change. This is probably why so many of us must hit rock bottom before we rise up again. For if given the choice, the ego will choose self-preservation and the life of its own image.
Change rarely occurs when we are happy and riding high.
Namaste
This is part of the Owning Your Own Shadow Series, based on the book by the same name by Robert Johnson. This series is an investigation into seeing and integrating all aspects within to recover inner peace. Only with loving ourselves can we be the change we wish to see in this world.
As I have long considered the feminine to be weak, I have consistently drawn upon my inner Animus or masculine seed when in need of strength. It has become my habit to use a steely “take no prisoners” attitude of will and strength to exert myself in the world on a daily basis. His strength has been instrumental in getting through things like PT school and Divorce. Even a good deal of my writing has been with a steamroller approach, force feeding my readers snippets of my adventures and avoiding some of the deeper inner work.
Animus is not taking a beating, instead, I have asked Him to fall back to the FOB. He’s there in the command tent if I need a QRF, growing in his own masculinity while I surrender further into my own femininity. He very much still has His place.
With this change in command, I find myself having difficulty adjusting to this new level of surrender while I adjust to the liquid feel of my mercurial strength. I am further submitting to my understandings of the Divine Feminine mysteries through submission vs domination, through allowing vs steamrolling.
A series of books that have helped me in this endeavor: He & She by Robert A. Johnson, Understanding Masculine & Feminine Psychology, respectively. I highly recommend both of them for men and women alike. They are quick and powerful reads, both less than 85 pages each. I read He first and began to see where I use my animus excessively. In She I began to understand how to embrace my feminine essence more fully and plan to reveal what I’ve learned here and later in this series.
First a poem!
Pink!
How many ways can I hate the color Pink?
Stifling, suffocating, robbing of my
strength that evil-doer: pink!
Weakness to me: kryptonite
pink screams meek (even its name is weak)
Truly, this color is foul: it stinks! pink!
I did not learn the gender of
my children before they were born.
Their nursery painted green; no fucking pink!
Old fashioned, perhaps,
or was it that I didn’t want
to throw up pink?
Pepto bismol everything
seemed so dismal,
I couldn’t think! Pink!
In neutrals, browns and blues,
I dressed my daughter as a toddler,
now at 8, her favorite color: yep, pink!
Having begun to embrace my feminine.
Slowly, sometimes begrudgingly
embracing this color: pink!
Gaslighting the Past: 20/20 Hindsight
In having my Animus as the ruling King of my inner landscape for so long, I can now see why ex lovers have often resorted to gaslighting to control me. Gaslighting is an extreme form of passive-aggressive behavior that is used to diminish the target, to bring her under the control of the aggressor. It is incredibly undermining and I personally consider it a form of brainwashing.
My ex-husband did this to me for years without my awareness. Through poking at my hot buttons (and I had many in my wounded state), he lead me to feel like I was completely crazy. While I’ve readily admitted to some of my own inner crazy, I do not feel I was ever completely crazy, or at least not for long.
Several years ago I started to see the pattern. Then when he began to act like he was my father and treated me like I was 16, when I was 38, my eyes were suddenly wide open. Within days of seeing this I was asking for a Divorce: it took a few days for me to gather my strength and figure out how to approach him.
When I began to see the early emergence of this pattern with a younger guy I was dating back in December, I told him I was bothered by his behavior. When this continued, I broke things off just a few days before Christmas (he did ask when I stopped responding to his messages if we were fighting or broken up, I’m grateful he made it easy for me). He was use to dating women half my age who I guess would put up with this (after all that was the age I started dating my ex). Needless to say, I saw the signs early having lived that for so long I was not willing to take that path again. He later asked me out to lunch…
If you would like to read more about gaslighting, follow this link. Thank you to Violet for sharing this so that I could read about it and gain a better understanding and name it!
Earning Bling: Running and Racing
Following the demise of my marriage, I relied heavily on my Animus for launching me out onto my own two feet. To increase my Animus’ power, I began running to raise my masculine energy. I needed to feel strong again, protected.
It was when I learned to surrender into my internal emotional waters that the excess weight truly began to drop off. A hip injury kept me from running, so it was soon thereafter that I started blogging under “Tiffanyrunningfree.” Then in October running became being – an outward expression of my inner softening. Now I find myself surrendering further into a place that is even more mind altering.
The Mighty Oak Tree
The mighty oak tree has been a symbol of strength for me. Most of my adult life I have desired to be this tree. Solid. Strong. Unquestioning. Unwavering. Now, I am beginning to realize it is not my job to be the tree.
According to yin energy I am the water and I am the earth. I see now where it is my place to support the mighty oak tree as it would not exist without me. While I am not the structure of the Oak, I am the matrix, the hidden strength that allows the Oak to be its best. Without my essences, the tree dies of thirst or is unsupported by the earth; falling, failing without nourishment and nurturing support.
By allowing the strength of my inner feminine to rise up through the phloem and xylem, I give strength to the tree. Replete in my own feminine strength, I allow Him to be full in His. By submitting to my truth in trust of myself and of Him, I allow Him to rise up stronger as the mighty Oak.
I am beginning to see this forest through the trees. Just as I am finding strength in my perceived weakness, the true strength of divine femininity is found in nurturing.
Now I see myself as water spreading into the branches and the leaves. Evaporating, turning to steam, melding with the Air that is Him. Falling back down through His air as Rain, filtering myself through the soil, being wicked back up by His roots and the cycle begins again. My travels are the infinite path of lifting and falling, traveling inwards (involution) then outwards (evolution). This infinite path will be revisited in another part of this story of recovering the truth of the divine feminine.
The Feminine Role
The feminine locus of control is found in the emotional, internal realms through nurturing. Both as men and women, our internal feminine role is to manage the internal emotions to prevent emotional flooding and burning. As such, we must learn to swim through our emotions without allowing them to control us. Likewise, we must stoke the hearth fires to keep the fires lit without allowing it to rage uncontrolled and burn the household nor to scorch the earth.
To manage the internal waters, it is our job to go within to swim through the rivers of our emotions and to come out unscathed. This cleansing helps us to shed the dross of our past, so that we attract less and less of that old energy to us. When we allow life to pass through us, instead of trying to grasp it and hold onto the pain or the pleasure, it is then that we free ourselves to be present. By being more fully present, we collect less dross. Our pain, our dross, our grasping at the past and fearing our future, prevents us from experiencing life to its fullest potential: the present moment is truly a gift we give ourselves and the people in our lives.
The Feminine Supports The Masculine
As previously mentioned, feminine strength is found in managing the internal and emotional environments through nurturing. By giving ourselves permission to live in our strengths as women, we give men permission to live in their strength as men. Much like the support that the Mighty Oak tree derives from the earth and water, the feminine strength is nurturing from the inside, whether this is within the home or within the internal emotional environments.
Masculine strength is found in managing the external environment through physical protection. Men who are strong in their divine masculine energy on all levels seek to protect, and not harm, women. In Traditional Chinese Medicine Yang protects the yin energies and yin supports the Yang energies. This pattern is true with the expression of the balanced masculine and feminine: He protects her and she nurtures Him.
Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance
When humans feel we are lacking our own personal power we often feel the urge to control others outside of ourselves through force or manipulation such as with the aforementioned gaslighting. On the contrary, when we are strong in our power, we have less and less desire to control others. “The more at peace I am with me, the less I feel I need to control you to keep me comfortable” is the thought I have here.
When out of balance in our own masculinity and femininity, we create relationships that reflect this state of being. Feminine energy when out of balance has a tendency towards enabling behaviors that support the abuser (I am NOT blaming the victim). Masculine energy when out of balance has a tendency towards striking out through emotional, physical, sexual and/or mental abuse. This reflects my marriage where I was a co-dependent nurturing the gaslighting man who “protected” me from myself (no blaming).
Denying the Feminine
When Animus ruled my inner world, my Queen was weak and could not protect/nurture my emotions. Her absence meant my emotions were unprotected as I was not receiving her feminine energy of protection. So I was wide open emotionally; my internal immune system was even weak (and it’s still recovering).
Stealing from the masculine energy, I believed I was stronger, but this was not the truth. In fact, I was more vulnerable that way. While I recognize I will need to continue to borrow from the Animus from time-to-time, to live only through Him means that I am ignoring and starving my inner feminine. To be healthy and balanced as a woman, most of my power needs to be drawn from within my feminine ability to nurture and manage my internal emotional landscape.
Since changing command, I feel my work here has changed. No longer is this inner work about attracting a mate. Now my work is about a return to All of me being in balance, with my Queen in command and the King back at the FOB. Yes, I am woman! I no longer have a need to roar.
**
“The Turning Away” speaks to me of my own turning away from femininity as well as my conscious choice to re-align with my divine feminine. There are so many lines in this song that have always resonated with me, and in listening to it play as I re-read this piece, I see my muse is far more brilliant and genius than me! “No more turning away from the weak and the weary….On the wings of the night…using words you will find the strength…it’s not enough to just stand and stare….is it only a dream that there will be no more turning away?” No pun was intended with this song being by Pink Floyd, though I’m sure my muse intended it!
Namaste
Image: Google reflects how I felt when I read “She” for the first time.
