Radical Responsibility

Blog 02.

We are responsible for our pain. Just as much are we our pleasure. Regardless of what we have lived through, what life has thrown at us, we, and only we choose to keep that feeling alive. That is, regardless of whether someone or something has inflicted pain upon us, it is not them now, but us who holds that pain.

It is a dreadful dawning owning up to the fact that we ourselves CHOOSE pain over joy. We come to know it as a kind of morbid pleasure.

Lost in the woods we see not how life could possibly be any different, because we are so attached to our identification with that pain.

I say this because my first love, my brother, treated me much of the memorable time like a cockroach under his boot. I had a mother who chose anger over joy, and a father who playfully had a dig at my submissiveness, which made me feel smaller and more powerless still.

I chose a lover who chose me like his possession, and I thought loving him was letting him do what he wanted to me, because it pleased him. I entered his world of drug addiction to find a way to his heart and mine but stayed small and voiceless and belittled nonetheless.

I chose friends who chose me because it was a blessing to be liked and in that I allowed them to soak up my light and still again I had no say, and allowed myself to feel small.

I chose a lover again who I called for in my dreams and it turned out he came to me as my greatest blessing. He led me and my kids to places we would call domestically violent, and still I followed him and allowed myself to feel small. No matter how much I shouted, I couldn’t be heard.

By that point I sat in anger, pain, resentment and fear most days. I was fragmented, that is, as if my self was shattered in 1000 pieces floating outside my body. I was exhausted. And still I chose service to others as my identification with self.

I still morbidly chose my pain and leaned on blame, that is, thought that the responsibility for happiness lay outside of me.

I was tempted by someone who was far more dangerous than my husband. I was a hair’s breath from being whisked away and God knows what would have happened.

The road to understanding this responsibility has been long and arduous. But my determination for the peace I discovered I ought to feel has fuelled my striving.

And still I am responsible for my pain. This knowledge that me, and only me, could transform my smallness. Transform my subservient nature. Penetrate my truth. Own it. Be it, follow it and become it.

My husband is my blessing because he showed me the depth and breadth of feeling that is real, pure life. Life WITH pain, and life with joy. For light just isn’t it all. Half the day is dark. Life is a dance between dark and light, good and evil. All of it. It just fucking is.

And we choose it.

Our lives are the making of us but do not have to be trapped today by what happened to us yesterday. If we knew better yesterday we would have done so, just as everyone else in our lives. Regardless of what has happened, again we are responsible for our pain and our joy.

Discovering the truth inside meant doing something terrifying. Admitting the truth and asking for help. And being open to being seen in my deepest pain.

A doorway appeared. A crack in the wall, and I began to see a light. I followed all I had to follow, that is, seeing a doctor, psychologist, separating from my husband for some time, homeopathy, deep, honest conversations with friends and family, massage, ancestral healing, time alone, nights away, writing, being, listening, following. Much of this time has also been alone, in nature. Because remember, it was all in me, and I had to feel it, allow it to be expressed, so that it no longer controlled my days.

I led myself through healing ceremony, changed my name, opening my heart to a new offering and started a business in sacred space holding for women and children.

When I went right back to what my brother had done, my mother had impressed upon me, my father unknowingly influenced, my friends, partner and husband, my teaching, it all lined up. That means, it was not all my husband’s fault. He is my gift because he pushed me to a point of no return. He is my gift because I HAD to discover my power in order to survive.

When I began taking responsibility, magic began to happen. I transformed me, and piece by piece the charge between my relationships and the blame and resentment I felt began to melt away. Without me forcing apologies or fighting or blaming others. They started healing in their own ways. And I started to understand WHY they did what they did. Compassion arose for them and my anger receded. The emotional hole and pain in my solar plexus went away. Fear receded. Anger abated. And light started flowing in. I learned about boundaries where I had none. And I am learning still. I began to feel fearless, free and empowered.

I learned that by ALLOWING my emotions and feelings to be expressed they could be released, they could move through me and they began to have less power over me. The walls I built up started to make me curious, because they no longer felt so big. In this process greater compassion arose for others. And through that greater peace. Appreciation for LIFE!

Discovering that life is a solo journey, and life is all we feel. Our hearts and our minds are a gift because we get to change the muck we get ourselves into, by learning to listen. We have the capability to learn awareness. To rise into our highest good. To unfetter ourselves from the bonds we place about our days.

Much of this is internal. But we are the world and the world is in us. And the very reason we are here is because of love. Our truth is our own. No one else’s. And we are given the gift to follow or deny it. All of our answers lie within. Everything has purpose. Everything. And we are life. Life changes. If we deny our drive to live and die and be born again we deny creation itself, of which we are in every millisecond of our existence.

I am no larger, no greater than anyone else. Nor do I desire to be so. I follow the peace I sought to feel because I feel much more vibrant and full of potential than I did living small and in pain.

I am forever learning. Never at the destination. Because there is none. I am creation. And creation cycles.

I get to have my husband by my side. In marriage. I get to feel empowered and loved by him because I transformed my smallness. And he transformed his fierce, and is transforming still. We walk the edge of learning how to be IN life and relationship, with all that we were, striving for a space where the charge we felt in our triggers becomes chargeless.

And in the journey of discovering my responsibility and my action needed I am so grateful he is still here. That we get to learn what marriage means, what life means, what love means. What being human entails.

To this point of sharing. Where it has taken so much to come to this point of piecing it together. There is so much more, all in its time. All in its purpose.

That is what I hold. And who I am. And each interaction, each day, each moment is an opportunity to learn anew what I held as truth yesterday.

For I am the embodiment of life, creating itself, combined with the mystery, the soul, and individuality I hold as being human.

Thank you for the gift of expression.

That shall be all now.

Lauren Grace xx

Written April 18-19, 2023, The Gap.

Photo credit to dear Emma. I am pictured with my sister Odelle, who, together with Emma, guided me through pain to joy, pain to freedom, pain to release, and who held space for my transformation in ceremony. I am eternally grateful for this unfolding, and this sacred witnessing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

PLEASE NOTE: this writing is a personal reflection of my soul’s journey, and I trust that it will be received with understanding and grace. It must be also said that my reflections of the people in my life are my own, and it is not intended to be carried by anyone else against them. They are also their own people, with their own healing and life journeys, and I trust that my reflections be respected in this sharing. Thank you.

ALSO Please do not copy or paste this without acknowledging me as the writer. Thank you.