2013 called me forth in every way imaginable. Basically, it kicked the crap out of me. It started earlier. With a spinal surgery at the end of 2012. So subsequently, I had the great fortune of beginning 2013 recovering. And I was recovering on many levels.
Yet, I was on a quest to heal. But this quest was not a year old or 9 years old, it was ancient. And in 2013 I entered the “dark night of the soul” in order to heal it. I laid the gauntlet down and faced my greatest demons, my deepest wounds and subsequently hurt even deeper in order to begin the process of healing them. That is the function of entering the dark night. It is the beginning of suffering and hanging on through the pain because you have deep faith that there will be redemption from the pain at the end of it.
2013 called me to task in every way possible.
I began to heal relationships which I have longed to heal for a very long time. And I remember someone asking me how it felt to be “healing?” I said it was painful. It was and it is. Healing sometimes, is in fact, PAINFUL. I have learned this the hard way. Each of us arrive where we do at our own pace and we are willing to be honest or vulnerable or fully human when we allow ourselves to be. Part of healing a relationship is tolerating and “allowing” and forgiving each other our own humanity.
However, sometimes, a person need only show up and another is triggered and in pain. I see this happen in families very often because the pain of the past hasn’t been healed or even spoken. In families, we are often hemorrhaging into our past because we don’t get the opportunity to utilize one another to heal what remains unhealed. Either because we have lost each other through death, alienation, fear, or worst of all, indifference.
I have spoken a lot here about acceptance. I have spoken a lot about the practice of forgiveness. These are practices which we practice on our own. Practices which we do for our own selves and for our own salvation.
Recently, I heard someone say that the best thing to do is to have no expectations and to exist from “that place.” That sounds smart and great in theory.
Just expect nothing and be grateful.
But as I enter this next trip around the sun I wish to express the hard truth about who I am and how I aim to live in 2014 and beyond.
Here goes:
I am going to live and express myself from my full power.
And rather than expecting NOTHING, I am going to continually expect to be MET. Otherwise, whomever I encounter will only get what they offer. No more no less.
I am going to stay truthful and fiercely loyal to my boundaries and I won’t allow my boundaries to be breached.
And I am going to continue to live every day with an open heart even in this world which can be cruel and crushing and which has hurt me in ways I wish to never encounter again.
I am going to stay fiercely loyal to my heart which came here to love. Every single day.
And I will be wise with its compass but I will be determined to continue with its quest to love and to stay open to loving.
To healing.
And to forgiving.
It all begins now.
May you be held in love.
January 1, 2014
Jill Bacharach
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