I love the ritual of New Year's- reviewing the events of the last year and setting my intentions for the coming year.
Once again, I've neglected my blog. I could say that I've been busy or distracted, but the truth is that I've been unwilling to risk myself and to share openly. If 2013 taught me anything, it was to embrace my power through vulnerability.
Last January, I moved into a dark time. I experienced a very painful break with 2 friends- one of whom hurt me and one of whom I hurt. I injured a client. And the state investigated my professional licence based on an anonymous complaint, which triggered the memories and emotions long buried from when the state investigated my family for sexual abuse when I was 4.
I came apart in the most profound way. I gave up any pretense I had that I was a good person, and then I gave up the need to look like I was a good person. I gave up escaping into positive thinking and I moved deep into the shadowlands of my own epic. There are parts of me that died and there are parts of me that were reborn. I re-examined my whole life, and I found that my entire life was about surviving what happened when I was 4- the way I did relationships, money, business, friendships... I wasn't showing up authentically for any of it. Everything I did was to secure my own survival/ affirmation/ agenda.
I related to people and situations from the perspective of how they served me. And it was so empty. Nothing was ever enough. I let go, and then I let go some more. And then I let go again. I let go of how I thought things should be, and I questioned everything I thought I believed about anything. I let go of the paradigm of being deserving/ undeserving. I let go of being a victim. I let go of the entitlement I felt to to a soul-mate, a happy ending, and I embraced the idea that I might just be it. In the midst of all the angst, pain, shame, and healing- I really discovered what it was to be vulnerable.
I stopped trying to look good, and just shared what was happening. I stopped exercising my agenda, and just started being with people. I stopped using them to save me, and just asked for what I needed without any expectations. I stopped taking things personally, and considered other people's perspectives. When I did that I discovered one of life's most profound ironies. All that time, I thought that Prince Charming was going to ride in and rescue me, that my life began when he showed up. I thought that if I were more popular or successful then I'd be ok. But in the end, I was the one that I was waiting for. I was the one I wanted. I began listening to my own truth. I began holding my own hand. I began witnessing my own pain, and accessing my own faith to pull myself through. And I let it be enough. I experienced a deep appreciation for the people in my life. I'm not entitled to their love and attention- they give it freely, and everything that they give is a gift, even when it pisses me off.
I became curious about people. I was able to simply and openly express myself because I wasn't hiding anything. To my surprise, I experienced what my friends had been telling me all along: That I am valued exactly the way that I am and exactly the way that I'm not. Before this, I could have told you that from an intellectual place, but it was in this state of naked-inglorious-raw-vulnerability that I actually experienced it. And it was all around me all the time, but I had to open myself to it by embracing my darkness, surrendering to my destruction and empowering it as a creative process... I opened by owning every inch of myself, and telling the truth about my life. Only in that state could I really receive the totally necessary support my community had been offering, and come back together into my own semblance of wholeness.
They say that you find love when you least expect it, and I can attest to that. I had gained 20 lbs and had given up on the idea that there was someone for me, and then there he was. The beauty of it is that I was simply curious about him. I wasn't weighing him against a check list, I wasn't watching for red flags, I wasn't summing up his fulfillment of a role. I was just curious. And he was beautiful, talented, profound, amazing, and so loving. I'd been single for 4 years, trying so hard to find the one and feeling desperately like something was missing. Now I can see that what was missing was the freedom for him to show up in all his glory and all his humanity. Rilke said "For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks... the work for which all other work is but preparation." I know for a fact that if I hadn't gone through the first part of this year, I would have missed him. I wouldn't have recognized him because I would have been looking through the filter of my own fear and lack. I would have been looking for someone to fulfill an impossible task, and he would've been doomed to disappoint. And I wouldn't have been prepared for what it meant to love him and receive him.
I'm ringing in this new year by letting go of the suffering of this last, and taking forward the power of vulnerability. This year I intend to seek the edges and to let them open me, to render me raw. But instead of relying on loss and hardship, I invite this growth gently through sensuality, play, innocence, and love.
As for the state investigation into my license, I was let go with a warning, as it was a minor complaint and the only one in 16 years of practice. And the client I thought I'd injured, it turns out that I'd only aggravated an already-existing condition, one that (hopefully) was easily repaired with a minor surgery.
