May we all have the courage to be so much More

Bear with me while I try to get my ambiguous thoughts into cohesive words/ideas. So, this morning...no let me go back a little further.

So...I've been in therapy for years...over half my life pretty much...trying to "overcome." Trying to become normal...in spite of...many things. For a few years I felt like I had accomplished that. I didn't feel like I was constantly fighting to be more than my traumatic past. I was engaged in life, engaged in the present...in my heart I felt the lesson I had been presented (that I didn't have to settle...that I could have good things in my life, and my life didn't have to be about me not having needs). I just was...me.

Things happened...I found myself in old external patterns, and I reverted to old patterns of coping. The coping patterns that are relevant to this conversation, are those of assuming in dysfunctional situations that I must be the wrong one since it kept happening in my world, and feeling like I needed to be the one to fix (the un-fixable) the dysfunction.

Jumping back on this train spiraled down to the point of me completely losing my equilibrium, and getting swallowed up by that old trauma crap again. So, I got back into therapy...and I've been through several therapists...and because I'm busy repeating patterns, I stayed with therapists who weren't helping because it must be me who wasn't making it work. Recently though, I've started with a new therapist, one who Sees. Who Sees me.

In addition to being seen, I've been doing a lot of shamanic and meditation work. The seed was planted a while back that I wanted to be released from my past/my traumas. But, what does that mean to be released? It is a piece of me, right? It is what has shaped me, right? To say I want to be released is to say that I want to let go of a piece of myself...right? Or does it? If I think of it as a growth...yes something that is part of me, but something I DON'T want to be a part of me, then hell yeah, cut that shit off!

So...back to today...as I meditated on healing, being whole; I saw in a shadow corner an attachment: If I identify as the victim, or even the survivor as trauma I can easily use it (and do use it) as an excuse...for laziness, for not being "good enough", for being negative, for falling into old patterns, for mistakes, for not trying, for being stuck.

I'm kinda done with that. I want to live my life as just a person...not a trauma survivor...because for me, if I use that language, I'm kinda giving credit for the awesome shit that I have done to my victimizers. Screw that. They didn't make me. I made me. I don't need to put all of my energy into that crap anymore. I don't need to be the wounded healer, or the wounded warrior...I can just be the healer/warrior. I dig that.

It starts with focusing on the good things in my life today. With being grateful. Instead of trying not to think about the crap in my past, I instead exert my will on doing, saying, and thinking about the good in me, the good in my life, and the good I can do. And I remind myself that I am so much more than that shit. We all are.

May we all have the courage to step out of the shadows of fear, and hate. May we all have the courage to honor our True selves...and honor the True selves of others. May we all have the courage to be so much more than our past.