Tags
Defenceless, Fear, Happiness, House of mirrors, Post-traumatic stress, PTSD, Pustule, Strong, Vulnerable
It’s time for the invasion.
Though… seems it’s me, willingly opening the gates.
One by one barriers and boundaries have dropped away. The deeper I dig, the less I have by way of protection.
That’s a good thing, I say, to no one but me.
Dangerous… fighting for my sanity half-naked. Perhaps…
Yet, how else to reclaim what’s mine? How else to eject a festering seeping pustule?
I see now how you’ve held me. With your naturally repugnant scent inducing fear at twenty paces. Hackle-raising, gut wrenching, agonising.
But it’s a trap.
A scary house of mirrors playing mind games so real… so real I can’t remember what it’s like ‘outside’.
Wisdom arrives and says: The constructs that protect me also keep me within the grasp of those I’m defending against.
One begets another, each making the other more real, more concrete, self-perpetuating…
And then I know the only answer there is: There’s no going back to how things were…
If it’s my happiness I want, the way isn’t back to a place where that pain never was.
That place, it doesn’t exist any more. If it ever did… there is only now.
And neither is it the way, just sitting where I am. Waiting. Hoping. Ignoring won’t work any longer. Can’t truly forget… and distractions never last.
I must walk through the center. Spot-lit and unlovely, not even ready for a fight. No defences.
Here I am, so I say. Come on, then…
I’m learning your ways. Just a spectre here, not real. Your entry is via my waking nightmares… where you live again. Solidifying in my projections, gaining strength.
I’ve just remembered something though, standing here bereft of armour.
A lesson learned once, and now returned.
You can hurt me all you like but I won’t be giving in. There’s a point (perhaps I’m not there quite yet) at which vengeance loses impact.
So while I may look weaker, I’m prepared.
And I grow tired of this game…
~Svasti
And therein may be your key to freedom: you grow tired of the game.
Your words speak for many of us. You say it so perfectly.
The game & the fight is tiring, but I do have to believe that you wouldn’t be given anything you couldn’t handle.
Although I do have to remember to practice this daily, the yoga principle of “santosha” and the zen principle of living in the present, not the past are key elements. Again, something I need to work on!
I, myself, just prepare for the on coming “storm” and just wait through it – because I know that eventually this storm will end & I will have a clear moment before another “storm” comes along.
Bright Blessings & Namaste, my yoga sister!
I think of “growing tired of this game” as a very important step…beyond being angry or defiant, hardening yourself against the foe in a way that somehow only seems to harden the foe as well…as does using terms like “foe”…to simply shrugging and saying “this is bullshit”….
And I love “the way isn’t back to a place where that pain never was.” That sense of wanting to go back is something I get snagged on a lot…wanting to redo or avoid things that happened in the past, to get back to where I was before I was hurt…but, not only isn’t that productive or possible, it denies the ways that I’ve grown because of even the most unpleasant experiences….
Anyway, this is a beautiful, thought-provoking post (the kinda thing you’re known for, of course…).
Like any journey beyond pain, we have to eventually surrender. We cannot fight that which is beyond our control, yet controls us. If we can understand that we are not the ones in charge, we can flow like water around the boulders of our life.
@tricia – I do truly believe the human experience is shared – and so its not surprising that when one person writes, others can relate. This was another post I wasn’t entirely in charge of writing…
When are we seeing a new post on TGWWMS?
@Mittsie – we all need to work on living in the present, and its not easy. There’s so many ways in which we allow the past to gain a grip, and in which we speculate on the future. Just here and now? Can be pretty boring really… to most people anyways.
Namaste to you, new blog friend!
@Jay – yeah, pretty much any form of defense or reaction forms the other side of the coin, so to speak… of the onslaught of our suffering.
I know we were talking about some of this very recently, actually and you’re right – you wouldn’t be who you are if it wasn’t for your life experiences – good, bad and otherwise.
So – have you given up on your monthly compliment quota or what?
@Dano – Surrender – sounds simple. Isn’t tho. We have to see it all the way through, don’t we? That we’re not getting anywhere by holding up our defences…
There is so much wisdom, strength and courage in you and it shines through in the words of this article. I see no weakness in you at all. You are right that those defenses that we use to protect us also tend to cage us in. Being able to acknowledge that I am a better person because I survived the childhood abuse of incest is so much better of a place to be today than where I was when I first started dealing with the pain of betrayal in 1989. Today I can have a glorious day if I so choose. So can you.
@Patricia – I’m very fortunate, in that I’ve had access to some fantastic teachings and teachers over the years – and any wisdom I’ve gained is directly proportional to what I’ve learned from these wonderful people.
Though, wisdom is one thing – being able to embody that is another.
I really appreciate hearing the stories of those who’ve survived, come out the other side and are doing okay.
Thanks so much for commenting.
Hi! I’m a couple months late, but I felt the need to acknowledge that I just recently noticed that you gave me five stars and said nice things about my blog at blogcatalog… I visit the site fairly frequently… I was just not clicking on everything in my profile… anyway, (belated) THANK YOU!
… and I totally feel the same way about your blog!
hmm… I think I’m leaving a comment on the wrong post here… but anyway… reading about all the things you began your journey inward with made me think back to the beginning of my own. Began with reading Dianetics… I actually walked by their “Church” in Toronto after reading it. I was quite young and impressionable, and I still wonder what my life would have been like if I had actually went in. After that phase (thankfully faded) it was Deepak Chopra for awhile. Then The Satanic Bible… then I hung a crucifix on my bedroom wall and read The Holy Bible from cover to cover in one year… after that it became kind of a mixed thing… like solitary Wicca practice and Bhagavad Gita and Tao Ti Ching and really, anything else I could get my hands on about religion or spirituality… somewhere in there a very (too) expensive Transcendental Meditation course…
Now I kind of feel like I’ve written a tiny fragment of a huge story! But I’m sure you get the picture!
take care
and thanks for stopping by my site !
@Victor – you’re welcome, of course.
Just wait til I post about some of the more bizzare things I’ve come across along the way. Thank goodness that yoga and my Guru eventually found me… or I found them… or…. well, I don’t know what happened exactly!