How it's Going...

learning to love the unlovable

As my mentor Tim says, “It's coming up because it wants to be released.”

My husband and I sat at the breakfast table together last week as we prepared to send the child off for her first ever week of sleep-away summer camp. For reasons I can no longer remember, the conversation turned to my first sexual experience. It was not one of the better sexual experiences I’ve ever had, let’s say. As I shared the memory, I could tell that my thoughts about what had happened were out of step with my husband’s reaction, and that I had potentially been shielding myself from a harsher reality.

I was finally at a point in life where I felt safe and supported enough to let it all in, I guess.

The integration of this new, more accurate language around what had occurred that night so long ago had me exploring the ways that that moment had impacted my life. How had my perception of what had occurred also altered how I perceived myself, and interacted with others? How had that moment impacted what I thought I was worth, what I deserved in this life? How was that moment still impacting my life and my relationships, my marriage?

So much grief started to ooze, so much regret. So much wishing it wasn’t so, and wanting to have responded differently.

But then, something shifted.

I was sharing all this with a friend and our conversation wound round to Life’s Journey. We all have one. I believe we are on a spiritual journey and are here to collect experiences. As a human on planet earth for this lifetime, part of the experience is one of both pleasure and pain. We get it all! And, none of us get out of here unscathed.

For me, as long as I am alive, all of this is fodder for learning and growth. If it wasn’t one thing poking at us, it would be another. If it wasn’t this shitty experience, it would have been another—and that would have been my beloved pain point for my psyche to rest upon.

Pain, unfortunately, is part of how we learn.

This will be a pain that is with me forever. This is one of Chiron's wounds that will live with me until I die, and I think I'm finally getting to a place in life where I realize that every human experiences moments of great pain on their Earth Walk.

I feel like, at least in my own life, so much of the seeking and the healing and all of that, has been in this hope that somehow I would be able to erase the stain from my life—like Lady MacBeth, “Out damned spot.” Now I'm realizing more and more that it's a scar. It will never go away. It's a part of me, and it's a part of what has made me who I am.

And, I'm still alive! I'm actually living a life that is thriving.

The goal, perhaps then, of this healing that we do, this work that we offer is not to erase that stain or to suture the wound in such a way that it doesn't even scar, that it's eradicated the ugly part of our lives. Part of the healing is the acceptance that this is part of our life’s story. It changed the trajectory of our lives. This is just a part of us to be loved along with everything else, and maybe the loving of that pain and of that hard moment, of those sometimes shameful moments, or just horrible moments— loving that is maybe one of the final pieces of our healing.

I say final, but I don't know that I mean final. I think that this is something that we, in every new phase of our lives, will work and re-work. It's the fulcrum that this Work of the Soul rests upon—that it blossoms from—and it's heavy and it's light and it's painful and it’s joyful, but that pain is just the filter through which we get to experience our soul’s expansion.

So, maybe learning to love the unlovable is where we finally find peace. Wouldn’t that be nice?

A reminder as well, for this month of June I am gifting 22 micro sessions to celebrate the Solstice. We will journey using the power of the drum to discover who wants to be of service to you on your journey at this moment. Sign up HERE to secure your spot. You must sign up before July, but you can use this offer through August.