Journaling prompt:
What sudden revelation have I recently had? What attitudes need to be banished in order for me to move on? After a crisis, what new possibilities were revealed to me?
Your Lightning Spark:
Carry this question with you, and consider it deeply:
When I’ve lost everything, what remains?
You could turn up a tarot card to suggest a possible answer.
Take ten minutes today to dance! Nothing shakes things up and gets you out of a mental or emotional rut like dancing. So load up your music player with tunes that get your feet tapping and your blood pumping. Close the door, cut loose, and . . . dance!
Two of my best friends recently suffered miscarriages. Their tragedies unlocked a door in the back of my brain that I had shut a long time ago. Behind that door was a memory that I had shoved away and never dealt with: when my body spontaneously aborted a pregnancy I hadn’t planned. I was about ten weeks along, my boyfriend had just dumped me and I had no one. My brain shut down and my body went into auto-pilot. I’m not saying it was a healthy coping mechanism, but it got me through what normally is an incredibly traumatizing experience. The problem is, I never went back and sifted through the rubble of that crisis. And it wasn’t until, years later, my friends went through similar crises, that I got punched in the face with the emotion of it all. The guilt, the shame…
I bury things. I know everyone says that: “Oh I bury my emotions…no one knows the real me…I just bottle up my feelings and don’t deal with them…” Yet, it seems to me, these people wear their hearts on their sleeve. Some of them have no problem airing their dirty laundry. So how can they turn around and say that they keep their feelings to themselves? I actually bury things. I have had to WORK at opening up to people and letting them in. I was raised to be tough and not lean on anyone. “If they all fell off the earth tomorrow, you need to know that you’d be fine.” I was 14 the first time my mom said that to me. At least, the first time she’d said it out loud. Growing up, it was subtly ingrained in me that your problems are your own, and you should try to figure them out before you go running to someone else for help. Which is a good policy to follow! Except I’ve always taken it too far.
Over this past year, I’ve been working on opening up, at least to my coven. There are still things Jackson doesn’t know. Things my parents don’t know.
One step at a time.
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