“If I were not healed enough to face myself with love and compassion at every turn and seeming misstep–giving myself wide berth for my heaving, healing journey–the process would be unbearable and maybe even impossible.”

“Thank you ‘Self-Love’ for opening up a wide pathway and shining light upon it.”

~Journal excerpt 9-15-24

Our journeys of self-discovery and healing are not linear.    I have a piece of art that hangs above my bed to remind me of what I call The Sacred Circles–the countless loops we double back upon ourselves as we process through the intersecting patterns of our lives.  It is a design of intersecting metal circles.  I’ve come to accept that I oscillate towards my desination rather than marching in a straight line up to a predefined destiny.

I find myself in a season of deep healing where numerous disowned parts of myself are surfacing like a demanding pod of wales, asking for air and light and acknowledgment.   These emerging aspects had remained hidden from view and buried deep within until recently, opened up raw and fresh at the rapid illness and death of my step-father.

I truly believe I’d not be able to embark on the painful journey of facing and healing generational trauma if I also had to face my own inner critic at every turn.

Giving myself permission to abandon a train wreck of a marriage was my first step towards radical self-compassion.  In those first years after the divorce, I sought to redefine myself by my standards and no longer by the standards of someone whom I could never please.  The next step was making sure that I wasn’t carrying that same undertone of shame and dismissal that I’d grown so familiar with.

We make things hard on ourselves when we are so darn hard on ourselves.

It felt strange, but the primary focus in those post divorce years was on loving myself tenderly and seeking pleasure –traveling, laughing with friends, wacky hair styles, time in nature, ecstatic dance, art…   Though it felt more like avoidance than healing and growth, it was a sacred circle in which I was coming home to myself.   That homecoming was completely necessary.

Now that I have a better, stronger, deeper, more loving connection to myself, I am in a place to turn inward and face those ‘Parts’ that have simply been too afraid to reveal themselves to me for fear of my censure or displeasure.   Now they can emerge, abashedly seeking love and integration, and I can welcome them home with acceptance and grace.