I always knew I was on a big journey
but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined this. I
was always trying to 'get' somewhere, always seeking answers,
resolution and an end to all the pain.
And there is so much pain and struggle in the world, I honestly don't
know how anyone survives it. Yet here I am in June 2012, aged 41
without a single thing I thought I needed to feel OK about
myself or my life. No relationship, (well not in any conventional
sense – but that's another story!), no glitzy career, no soaring
success, no children, and no, not even a big lottery win...
The 40 year struggle to secure something or someone 'out there' has
me completely and utterly defeated. Yet, suddenly and incomprehensibly
everything makes perfect sense. Despite every effort to
'get my life back on track', every attempt has been categorically blocked. In the space that
has been 'forcibly' created, I have set about
consciously engaging in a process of letting go, releasing and purifying on a scale that would
make anyone's eyes water.
Since the full moon eclipse at the beginning of June, my
life has begun unfolding in the most surprising and awesome
way. Over the past few weeks I have
arrived in a reality that is somehow simultaneously both infinitely simpler and
infinitely more complex. I am 'joining dots' and having 'aha' moments
all the time, so much so that they are no longer mere 'moments' they
have become a continuous State of Being. It's not just one light that has been
switched on, it's a whole city! I feel like my mind has been broken
open, releasing all the dross and expanding into a whole new way of
perceiving reality.
(I began this piece of writing in my
journal and then thought this is exactly the kind of writing I need
to share on this blog, so I have copied it out for you and will continue with it here on line...)
It turns out my
journal writing has been massively instrumental in this recent
'awakening' process. A few weeks ago I was guided to begin the
process of going through all my old letters and journals to begin
releasing the past and this is some 'guided writing' I found:
22nd April 2012
'We want you to let go of the past
Freja. We want you to let go of all that has happened to you. All the
people you have released, all the pain and struggle, all the fear and
anger, all that no longer serves you and the identity you have
created out of your survival patterns. You need to release them
all....
You are split between your old identity
and the new one which has yet to fully emerge. Your ego is finding
the changes terrifying and keeps trying to throw you back into the
familiar old ways....
You need to release all the negative
writing Freja – all of it. It is doing nothing but holding you back
and keeping you in the past. It is time to say good bye, to 'burn the
bridges'. You do not need the pain or to identify with what happened
to you. You cannot be free while you carry this around with you. You
are not letting it go in anger or fear, but with forgiveness,
compassion and release. You need to begin this process now. Remember
this is about a DEEP let go, not a rehashing of old resentments. If
'stuff' comes up, you need to release it with the rest.
The past must be burned and released.
You need to let go of your identity as an 'abuse survivor'
and a 'wounded child' or a 'co-dependent' or a 'love addict' – you
are evolving and need to release these 'tags' which have enabled you
to find your spiritual path and connect with your soul. These 'tags'
were a tool; they helped you identify the problem and find a
solution, but they are not who you are in essence. It is time to
evolve past these issues and become your liberated self...'
And so, very slowly I set about going
through all my letters and journals and other boxes of paper
work I have been carting around for years because I felt I
needed to hold on to it for evidence. This paper work included my
teaching 'portfolio of evidence', my coaching course notes and all my 12
Step work/writing. I have literally gone through my whole adult life –
the twenty odd years I have been trying to get over my childhood –
and symbolically burned or recycled the lot. I also went through all my books and passed on any I was no
longer using. Any books to do with my journey up to this point that
were no longer relevant for the path ahead were given to people I
thought may benefit or to charity.
This massive 'clear out'
brought me to finally address my many boxes of journals. The question was, should I
simply burn the lot of them? This idea filled me with dread
and also seemed to defeat the whole object of keeping records of my life. I have kept a diary from the age of 9 and I felt my
writing had at times literally saved my life – so I felt I owed it to myself and my
journals to at least have a read through to see if there was anything
worth keeping.
I decided to keep the childhood
ones as I had read them many times before and there weren;t piles of them taking up too much room. I also decided to keep all my old letters because they
inspired positive feelings. I also no longer felt a nostalgic
longing or regret for old relationships that had simply passed away. And so began the
incredible process of reading through the
record I had kept during my 20 year healing process. I began the
'excavation process' with my journal dated April 1992 for it was then that I had made a conscious decision to find a way to deal
with the terrible mess I was in, the mess that unfortunately was 'my life'.
In all the years I have kept a journal,
I have never tried reading all the way through, I had only ever gone back to read specific bits. This was a full 20
years worth of writing and I decided to go through it all. I didn't read it
word for word, for there were large amounts of ranting and processing, especially in the early years
– but I did flick through every single page and decide if it was a
page I would like to keep or to release. When I started this project
I had absolutely no idea where it would lead me – I just felt great
chucking out / burning vast swathes of paper with words I no longer
needed to read or carry around with me. It was hugely cathartic.
I was surprised to discover
that I was 'over' it all. While a few feelings did come up here and
there, as I read stuff that I had felt deeply pained by (even when
going back to read it many years later,) I didn't feel triggered, I felt for the first time like
an observer. There wasn't numbness or torment; it was simply 'time to
let this go' and so that's exactly what I did!
I was also surprised to discover lots
of really interesting little gems of insight, hope and sometimes even
premonition – and I loved excavating these treasures out of the
rubble of my early adult life. I also decided to keep writing about key events so I
would have a basic record of my journey. The first five years was
whittled down from about 6 arch folders down to 1 and the same again
for the next five years. This brought me up to 2002. With only two
arch files of writing covering 10 years of my life, I was feeling so
much lighter!
The best thing about the first part of
the process was seeing how far I had come and realising that I was
over the soul destroying pain of it. I really never thought
I'd see the day. My childhood was pure hell and I spent my twenties
flailing about like a piece of flotsam and jetsam in a raging ocean
storm. Even between storms – I still felt cast aside, alone and
adrift in a vast terrifying ocean. While I already knew I had come out of
that place, it was really wonderful to realise that I no longer even felt the memory of it affected me. It was a huge blessing and
relief to get the chance to let it all go...
I didn't know what to expect in terms
of reading about the next ten years (2002 – 2012) I had imagined
that most of the recovery/healing had taken place in the first 10
years, it was, after all the period in which I had painstakingly
'uncovered' all the abuse of my childhood and by peeling away layers and layers of
denial both in myself and in my family. (It really was grueling work and it
seemed to go on for ever, but then I did have an awful lot to uncover
and process...)
What I hadn't seen was that actually
most of the healing took place after the uncovering and that
actually my process snowballed after
that. There was of course some cross over, but once I had completed
cracking myself open and all the pieces of the jigsaw of my life
had been revealed, a deeper somehow more subtle healing process began. The next task was to find
a way to put myself back together, minus all the 'crap' I had
inherited/ experienced and to let go of the layers upon layers of
defenses and survival mechanisms I had built up during years of dealing with deep suffering.
I was therefore surprised to discover that the closer I got to 2012, the harder I
found it to condense my writing. During the last 12 months I had written 2 arch files and have only been able
to condense it down to 1! There is much less ranting in my writing and while there
has been 'processing', it has happened increasingly fast – to
the point where I have addressed more than 10 major issues
in the last 12 months, all at lightening speed and with almost none of the usual 'fall out'.
I also became
aware that a clear 'acceleration' began in 2005 and that by 2011, my
journals took on a whole new dimension. What amazes me is that I was
completely unaware of this until I read through it all! Up
until I decided to read through it all, I had only been aware of being 'in a (strange)
process' I could neither understand nor control. I have discovered that
somehow, while I was busy trying to keep putting one front of the
other, I was also unwittingly receiving and recording some incredibly deep insights
into my soul, my life path and also into the 2012 process.
Ultimately, 'it' all happened when I
wasn't looking (or trying or striving...) I just continued to do what I naturally felt drawn to do or in some cases was pushed to do by the Universe. It has all unfolded so perfectly that I will never again doubt my
journey or that I am being guided to exactly the right
experiences I need in order to evolve as a human being. And I have
also discovered that although I have received much valuable guidance
along the way, both from other people and from spirit – the only accurate
'compass' I have on this journey is my soul.
I have discovered that my entire process thus far has
been about excavating my soul and learning how to 'read', understand and follow her guidance. Now that I have found her and have learned how to communicate with her, I
am finally free to walk in alignment with my soul's purpose here on planet Earth. And, seeing as I have kept such an in depth record of it all, I am sure part of my purpose is to help others excavate their own souls from the rubble of this thing we call 'life'.
Writing has been a major part of this process on so many different levels and now I am enjoying the process of sharing it with you. I have come 'full circle' in so far as I have finally 'caught up' with the journey I have been living and come to a place of acceptance and understanding that I never knew was even possible. And I am really not sure what comes next, but for the first time in my life I find this deeply and inexplicably exciting!
Freja ♥
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