I'm in an interesting space today. I have a wonderful opportunity to be grateful for the friends and family, and even strangers who love and support who I am. And I am feeling deeply loved and grateful for those beings and more who have been strewn about on my path to give me validation, love, support, and any sort of kind gesture to keep me going when I might have given up.
It is with this gratitude and a realization within myself that I no longer really need outside re-enforcement to keep me going (definitely loved and appreciated but not NEEDed...there's a difference), with these..my attention is turned to those who DON'T validate what I am or what I do.
It started with an intention, i've been doing a butt ton of personal work, cried myself silly, healed some very vulnerable and deep wounds that I had been carrying. My intention has now been to turn outwards. I have the inner work down, it's still challenging for sure, but its familiar territory, my recent exploration has been in outward expression. To bring all that I am on the inside and bring it into being expressed outwardly. In other words....being seen. Something that i've been yearning to do and yet have been scared as hell to do it.....but i've been inching, walking, with the occasional run and leap towards my goal.
I don't think I realized until this moment HOW much I was hiding. I've rarely experienced a naysayer because I haven't put myself out there. I've kept myself small, energetically and physically....ironically enough the smaller I tried to make myself the bigger my actual body became. As I've been on this personal exploration of healing myself and allowing myself to express the fullness of who I am...I've almost effortlessly lost the weight my body has been carrying. All of that weight was padding. It was a defense mechanism, as well as making my energy small and making myself invisible, by the tone of my voice, by my posture, by the way I interact around people, by the injustices put upon me that I've let go without a challenge. Because I didn't want attention, I didn't want to be seen. An invalidation, a cruel comment would cut me to the bone...or more appropriately the heart, and I sealed it and closed it ever so tightly to keep it from happening. But all that did was make the hit so much more direct and painful.
As I've been opening up, loving myself first, expressing gratitude and appreciating the world around me, the people around me....as i've been loving MORE....those hits.....don't hurt so much. Until I get to the point where it just makes me wonder, I can see the person who is spewing that hate and just love them, for they are surely in pain. I've made many judgemental stinging comments when I felt like I was smaller, when I felt like I was less then. I wanted that other person to feel my pain! I wanted them down in the dirt and mud just like me...and it INFURIATED me when they would brush it off, laugh it off like it was nothing.....like 'I' was nothing.
Now here I am on the other side of this, I'm done with the negativity and the judgement...sure it still surfaces from time to time, but it is no longer my story of who I am. It is the story of who I was, and where I came from....and specifically BECAUSE I came from there I can have compassion to those who would speak poorly of myself and others.
Now saying all this definitely does not make me perfect, but it does make me aware, and it brings me to what spurred these thoughts and my need to get them out now. I find myself angry, the slow coals of anger in the pit of my stomach have been lit and if I don't allow them someplace to go they will eat me alive, because that is not my way of expressing anger....that is a learned way of expressing anger that I am learning to overcome and let go of. Anger is beautiful if allowed to run, and then dissipate, it clears the way for new creations and spurs on all sorts of change. Anger gets noticed......which is why i'm noticing it. My learned response is to shove it all down and ignore it.
My anger was sparked this morning as I watched a video of Keira Knightly, where she comes home from work and gets beat by her husband...it's a public service announcement, but what pissed me off about it, is there's a point where she gets slapped pretty hard, she turns to the camera and says "this isn't what we agreed to" she's talking to the camera, to the director. She then gets shoved to the floor and kicked repeatedly.............Now I'm sure that all of that was acting...but it infuriated me at the idea that a director would have the gall to spring that on his/her actress and tape the beating....all to get the point across. Well played director, well played, i'm sure the response is what you're looking for. But that anger and feeling of injustice subsided even if I felt a little unsettled.
Then this afternoon, I looked at one of my posts, I've been posting images of a painting in process, a painting might I add...of ME. It's a self portrait, and it means a lot to me in multiple ways. For one, I haven't painted much realistically for a while, sticking to the abstract for many years. Part of me doubts my skill and my ability to do so...even though I KNOW that voice is a lie, I still feel uncomfortable. Second reason..it's what the painting represents, i've started a series with the intention of 'coming out' so to speak, of being seen for who I am, naked and vulnerable, you can't see in the painting but imbued in the background are words, of who I am and who I deign to be. Words like I am worthy and intelligent and creative, I am deserving of love and respect....etc...you get the idea (i actually forgot all that I wrote on there, it was a free write). So for all means it is a physical representation of what my intention is spiritually 'to outwardly express who I am'. And three being a perfectionist...i'm really challenging myself to show the progress and accept responses....it's not done yet, it's not perfect, there are parts of it I don't like/am not happy with...which is good....it's in progress, close to finished...but still that's art.
So I checked the post, and a complete stranger felt the need to post 'so ugly' in the comments. Two simple words, which at first just had me taken aback. I was shocked....still am a little, (last week two guys in a convertable decided to call me a stupid bitch who didn't know how to drive when I was merging, this also shocked me)......and my first response flared up...which is to be silent and just take it. I was thinking about how this made me feel...and the cut to the center of my being that it might have produced months ago.....wasn't there....it was outside of me. The awareness that these other people couldn't affect my inner space. There was wonder at the power I have given myself by caring for me. And then today as I was thinking about how this comment didn't cut in to affect my sense of self worth.....I remembered the video this morning and I became angry.
I felt angry for a couple of reasons....of all the meaning this painting has for me, I am feeling exposed and vulnerable to put it out there to be seen ESPECIALLY because it isn't complete yet. And this stranger is calling my ability, my visage, and me....'so ugly'. And my first response to be quiet about it, which is backed up by years of spiritual wisdom....so instead of being quiet because I didn't want to be seen, I was going to be quiet because 'what good would it do? this man is so in his ways that no matter what I say will elicit a response of him defending his position and probably more 'damaging' words. And he will never see....so what good would it do, these people will have their opinion, they will never change, so I might as well do nothing and ignore it. But this is where my anger spurred me on, and had me question this response....which is a learned response from being a female in our society.
I realized what this all means on my spiritual path and that none of it is a coincidence. I show a painting that outwardly expresses who I am, and am instantly put down. I can accept that, or I can defend my boundaries. Well...how can I do this and stay in my center and stay in my truth? I do not care for a fight for I realize its a matter of what he just can't see. But I can't just stay silent.
Being silent and unseen is just what as a female i've been unintentionally taught, every time i get too big, there's someone around to say 'get a little smaller'. Of course i have been blessed with many strong role models in my life, my dad including who taught me to not care what other people think and to always always always question authority. I was taught to think for myself, and because of this I can react....or I can respond. I can be affected by what was said or I can stay in my center.
And the question that keeps popping up in my head is this....what gives us the right? any of us, we have opinions and beliefs. Family, friends, loved ones, strangers.......what gives any of us the right to impress upon others OUR beliefs, thoughts, opinions? ESPECIALLY when they are only going to be negative. And that's the question I want to bring to you, an awareness i've come upon and want bring to your attention....we have no 'right' to force/impress OUR opinions on anyone else....no matter how well or ill intentioned. Where do I? where do you? do this....and how do our opinions define us?
