It's always been easy to write. Lately, the inspiration has seemed to be pulled from my lungs and fall out of my eyes as I grieve the life I was once living. The layers of how I identify with love are peeling away and leaving me open and raw. I want to be seen and heard while being held in tenderness. As I begin to settle in a new way of life, I have been making some of the hardest choices I've ever had to face, while knowing in my bones that if I take it day by day, I will have the peace I've been searching for.
For me, there is so much peace that comes with being honest. I share the beautiful parts of my life and can sell the shitty parts as personal character development. The people that are closest to me know that my life has never been all peaches and gravy. With all that I have been experiencing, I am feeling like it is time to share my story, my truth. The desire to share my feelings and all that has happened/is going runs deep. There are hills I have to climb on the journey to share my story in a way that still holds others in unconditional love. Once over the hills, I find myself stuck in a maze of trying to figure out why I should care so much about censoring my truth, whether it's damning to others or not, because the people in my tales weren't worried about protecting me. Where I have landed is to tell my truth when necessary. Necessity is key.
The desire to share all of me, reflects my desire to be loved fully by others. I want to share all the dark parts of my story for the outside validation that I am still loveable. Realizing I was following that path, it helped lead me and settle into the idea that sharing truth is only powerful when necessary. I don't have to splay my past out to everyone that I meet, everyone that I know, to prove anything. I've always thought of myself as a person that loves themselves. The experiences I'm working through are a humbling reminder that I can always love my Self a little deeper. When I feel the urge to scream out the painful memories to anyone that will listen, I ask myself why. What could be the reason I want to share a part of my story with this person, and why right now? The work is in slowing down my thoughts so I can understand why I want to bleed all over people. I have spent all of my life feeling like my truth needed to be hidden, that what has happened to me was shameful.
As I continue to look deeper at what I'm unraveling from my childhood and what I allowed to continue into adulthood, the shame has shifted. I am no longer feeling like what happened to me as a child at the hands of adults is mine to carry. I have worked through the shame and guilt of being a person-- a child, that experienced sexual, physical, and mental abuse. I feel empowered to tell my story because unlike so many others, I can say it is a chapter of my life that is closed. Whatever lessons I learned throughout some of my darkest times have led me to a life full of love. I feel full of gratitude that I am able to look back on those parts of my life with compassion for who I was, even how I chose to survive.
When I say the shame has shifted, it is no longer the way I was taught how to feel shame. When I share my stories, shame bubbles begin to pop up in ways of realization. It took me 31 years to step into a decision that it feels should have been made years ago. That I allowed the abuse to continue. I am someone that values accountability. I am able to see in hindsight that being brought up with the idea that 'family forgives family' and 'family keeps each other safe' has continually put me in situations where I am unsafe. I have also recently began to see how I took the roll of a protector because of my misunderstanding of those phrases.
I don't think I will ever stop doing what I can to protect the people I love. If I choose to share parts of my reality, I want the intentions to remain in love. Even now, there is a loud voice in my head that yells at me to be quiet. The internal screams to stop talking so I don't make the ones I have been trained to protect, become vulnerable to judgement. It's this particular train of thought that has led me to the gentle understanding of sharing truth when necessary. It will be my greatest act of unconditional love.
As I sit on writings and stories, trying to find ways and places to share, I'm breaking them down to the lessons found within. I'm not sure if this is the answer to all my problems, while for right now, it allows me some semblance of control. With putting sharing the truth when necessary into practice, it gives me the space to reason with why I am wanting to share in the first place.
I desire to love unconditionally and be loved. My past is only a part of me. I am doing all the work I can to ensure that my past remains lessons for me to grow through and not something I have to carry the weight of. The more I stay within the magic of the present moment, the more opportunities I have to lean into all that I desire to be.