I cried today.
Big, hot, juicy tears.
Tears for the memories and emotions I unlocked.
Memories of the woman I had to be; the woman who took her babies and ran.
Running, babies clutched tight to me. I ran far, far away from the world I had known.
The world I had known, the world I had grown up in. The world that was once mine.
The world that housed my rites of passage, my friends, my places of safety and joy. Places and people which had become tainted by fear, violence and uncertainty calling out and begging for me to flee.
I breathed into something inside me that immediately took me back there, like I had never left. As though I had been transported on an inhale back into time. It was close and felt so very real. As though I was within the memoires and on this timeline all at once.
The fear and desperation, the turmoil and confusion. The relief and hope all mixed in with total exhaustion.
It was a heightened journey, it was my journey of completion. A journey taken, on the abundant waves of my breath. I finished a part of this pain that had been harbouring within, undetected by my mind, but secretly evident in all that I thought, believed and acted upon.
Today, I set it free.
Just a few weeks ago I came across a journal I had kept at this time. I was taken with the clarity and determination of the version of me that wrote those pages. The part of me characterised by courage and will to make a different life for herself and her darling baby girls.
She inspired me deeply as I had forgotten what a warrior she (I) was. I also know that as fortified as she was by her new freedom and the unbridled potential she was tapping into, there was a story of pain. A story of the consequences of that comes from survival and escape.
There was a story of healing that awaited.
This has been my work. It has been my devotion and dedication to myself to unravel the things that lay beneath the surface of being able to show up and function for my children and the responsibilities that I have in this life.
My choice to not only do the things that need to be done, but to do so in a way that I feel proud of and connected to.
The type of pride that I have come to know the more I am able to be truly present in the things that I choose to give my attention to. A pride that comes from having the space and freedom to see and feel into what I am most connected to over being activated by unconscious memories or beliefs about what I can, should and could be doing. A pride that makes anything I want to do a possibility for me to explore.
This type of pride is not something that we are shown how to work with, in fact in many ways pride is discouraged as an undesirable trait in humans. I however reject the idea that taking our contribution to the things we do in this life seriously enough to want to be, and to do our best is wrong.
I stand for being an active participant of the world who follows their desires into creation with the high levels of presence, intention, grace and performance as a beautiful way to celebrate the best of being human. We get to live lives at our best performance physically, mentally and emotionally. We get to be the best we choose to be at work, in our relationships, in the way our presence contributes to the world.
I am also aware of how trying to be that person in a world where we are not taught how to address the challenging and traumatic events of our past until they reach critical proportions is extremely difficult.
Without this education we perpetuate prolonged suffering, suffering that is not necessary if we understand that being open to looking at the pain that causes our suffering is the fastest path to freedom from it. And as daunting as that may sound, once we have the courage to be with our experiences from a place of openness, everything in life becomes easier to navigate.
I am grateful for all of my past. The beautiful memories, the traumatic experiences and everything in between. All of it helps me to learn more about myself as well as helping me to decide who I want to be as time goes on.
I will always be grateful for the days I cry whether they are tears of pain and sorrow, or tears of joy and elation.
I will always be grateful that I know about a path into growth and developing day by day, piece by piece into the best and better versions of me that I can be because I am able to live my life more like me, and then everyone I know gets to know me as I get better at this life.
There is a freedom, and a beautiful pride in this being the life I have lived and the path to growth through my challenges that I have chosen and will continue to choose.
I will always stand for a world where we have the chance to make meaningful contributions not only to how we live day to day, but the ways that those decisions continue to enhance the legacies we leave behind and the futures we are creating.
My wish for you is that if you want to know yourself better, and shape the way your life evolves now and in the future that you can say yes to you, and yes to the support that helps you get there - it’s a magical way to live.