Alchemizing the pain into your own power
Shattering endings, big losses, betrayals, heartbreaks, and grief—to name a few. Awakenings have many names. In our lives, we get to pick and choose what we name them, what we call them, and how we move forward after that perceived end. This isn’t my first rodeo, and most likely not yours either if you’re reading this. Yet here we still are, existing. If you have ever truly lived, you’ll understand what I speak of. Sometimes the pain doesn’t come merely from one incident; often, it comes from how frequently such incidents occur, or how many times we have experienced them. Sometimes the loss hurts much more because it seems to happen back to back, and we’re just looking for a moment to recollect ourselves, a peaceful space to lick our wounds without having to watch our backs one last time. We search for solace, a safe haven where we can heal and ponder what is next for us, and how we want to experience our lives moving forward.
So, how do we heal after loss, betrayal, or heartbreak? One thing you must know: we don’t really heal in the arms of another, by avoiding it, through distraction, by pretending it does not exist, or by putting something else in front of our views. That distraction will be the farthest thing from healing. It can come in many forms: another person, substances, overworking, partying, gambling, gaming, sex, and drugs, to name a few. These same distractions will pull you farther and farther from yourself, from your spirit, from God himself, until one day you look in the mirror and can’t even see yourself in the reflection. In our society today, that is how most people cope with their struggles and losses, and this has become our continued blueprint from what we have seen modeled for us. It was never embedded in us to learn how to deal with our emotions within our human experience as spiritual beings first and foremost. I know it’s hard to believe that most people still operate with the belief that “showing emotions is weak.” This is such outdated thinking that we must stray away from. Emotions are a part of the human experience, and it’s no secret we all have them, whether we show them or not. If we as humans continue to reject that part of ourselves, we are completely rejecting ourselves as human beings, rejecting our own human experience, and rejecting our own healing. In order for the soul to evolve, we must accept everything fully; otherwise, we shortchange ourselves, and we are more likely to continue living through the same experiences time after time without learning from them. When these emotions come to the surface, it’s a call to heal. Ignoring the storm within us only makes it grow stronger.
There isn’t a due date on healing; it’s an ongoing process. It takes time. When you’re stranded and lost at sea in the eye of the storm, you can’t control or determine when the storm will be over. You wait it out. Sometimes, in the eye of the storm, our only choice is to allow the storm to devour us whole. You push through it. You do what you can with what you have to survive the storm, with the hope that you’ll see the sun rise again, and trust that it will. It just takes time. Mute the voices that tell you, “you should be over this by now.” That is not true, because this was your experience, and this is your time to heal. Nobody can tell you when you should be ready; nobody should tell you otherwise, simply because they weren’t you in that experience. Forget about how much time it’s taking; you’re still on track. Believe that. Perhaps you just chose the deeper path, the path less traveled. You decided to dive deeper within yourself to ensure you fully understand yourself in this process, not necessarily what happened to you, but who you were when it happened, who you are now, and who you want to be moving forward.
Once you’ve reached this point, you’ll see how this loss aided you in becoming more clearly yourself. The only way to get to this point in the journey is by going through it. Be upset, be angry, be sad, be mad, cry it out. You’ll have good days and bad days. It’s all part of the process, and all parts are necessary in the grand scheme of things. You’ll feel a war raging inside of you at times. You’ll feel the need to cry in the most inconvenient places. Excuse yourself for a moment and let it out. When you don’t allow yourself to feel, you hinder and suppress the emotions, and they may not resurface until later. If they resurface later rather than sooner, it may become difficult to understand where the emotion is coming from. So when you have the chance to feel it, allow yourself to feel it. After you feel it, the storm will carry you back to the shore—trust. If you haven’t yet allowed yourself to go through it, it will be very hard for you to find the silver lining, the meaning, the lesson in all of this.
How will you know when you have yet to find the lesson in the loss? Your mind will continue to loop with thoughts of “why?” Your mind will keep you bound to a victim mentality. And when I say this, trust me, you being the victim in the situation can be 100% valid and accurate. But staying as a victim will not aid the process of transmuting and ascending from your loss. If you were truly the victim of your persecutor, then the victim mindset should only be a phase within the healing process. That phase may last a long time, and sometimes it will be easier to let go. Being a victim gives your personal power away and makes you feel helpless. Being the victor helps you regain your personal power, and to regain your personal power is to realize the lesson from this loss. Sometimes the lesson comes with an epiphany, a learning you find about such losses. Sometimes it’s a learning about oneself and our behaviors and patterns. Other times it’s just in the form of a feeling. Because sometimes, after all is said and done, you just feel lighter, freer, brighter, more yourself in the end. It’s all different for everyone. All paths are valid and righteous.
Success is found in the lesson, and we get to use that and keep it with us moving forward. It’s up to you what you do with your newfound knowledge about yourself, about people, and about life. Move forward with gratitude, knowing God never abandoned you in this process, but guided you through with the promise of new life.
MAXIMA VEGA 