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When Love Wins
Last year, I decided to stop fixing myself. To stop working on myself. Stop the need to make it all right. All better. I ended the search for some internal perfection. I didn’t realize I was doing that at the time. I just knew that something needed to shift in my relationship with my self. My Self.
I declared an end to working on myself like I was a fixer upper endlessly close to being done. I worried what that meant... as it had been the way for so long. Digging deep, excavating the light...the soul. Reconfiguring. Changing. Shifting. Letting go of what no longer served me. This is what I did. And it worked, some. It worked enough. I did it well. I would go into the pain, courageously. I could be ruthless. No compassion needed, as I was talking about myself. I knew what was best, right?
But something didn’t feel right. Somethings weren’t changing. They were diving deeper into the shadowlands. The parts could feel me coming. Feel my intention to make them into something that they are not. Feel my lack of acceptance. They would run. Not away, but in. The patterns becoming more subtle. More ingrained. I would process the shit out of issues, over and over again. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. I knew every facet. Every nook and cranny. But things weren’t changing.
All those parts of myself... the parts that hurt, that yelled, that spoke loudly in a bitchy voice, they were not going to surrender easily. They had no intention of being changed. That is all they had ever known... someone wanting them to be different than they were. They were well versed in the tactics of war. If there was a battle, they were going to fight to stay. They were going to win. They knew how to wage war. What they didn’t know, however, was love.
A corner stone of my education in Spiritual Psychology at The University of Santa Monica was that "healing is the application of loving to the parts inside that hurt." I never quite understood what that meant, before this last year. I thought love was processing. I thought love was trying to make myself into a better person. I thought love meant that I had to do something... to fix the problem so that I could be more lovable.
Now, when some part screams out... yells a nasty tune, I love it. Just as it is. With no requirements on it. When I dive deep, it’s so I can love myself more. Not change myself...as if there is something inherently wrong with me. But change does happen. Those parts get what they are seeking. They are not simply pacified, they enter into an experience of healing. They are loved. There is nothing more to push against... and they quiet down. For real. Sometimes, they even ingratiate themselves back into the whole.
It’s not that I no longer work my process. I do... often. But it comes with a different intention... an intention that the work bring me to a deeper place of loving inside of myself. As I work, I love. The whole part. Truthfully, sometimes I forget. I get into the fix-it mode again. But then I remember. I love the part that felt that it needed to fix something. Everything comes back to love.
This is not a path to the mental perfection I once imagined. It is a path to greater living... to a more dynamic and wonderful human experience. Issues come up. Uncomfortable feelings and thoughts rear their heads. But now, if I feel sad I love myself for feeling sad. I love the parts of me that feel sad. And I let myself be... feel whatever it is. Easy. Challenging. Whatever. I let myself be. And I love.
Last year, I decided to stop fixing myself. To stop working on myself. Stop the need to make it all right. All better. I ended the search for some internal perfection. I didn’t realize I was doing that at the time. I just knew that something needed to shift in my relationship with my self. My Self.
I declared an end to working on myself like I was a fixer upper endlessly close to being done. I worried what that meant... as it had been the way for so long. Digging deep, excavating the light...the soul. Reconfiguring. Changing. Shifting. Letting go of what no longer served me. This is what I did. And it worked, some. It worked enough. I did it well. I would go into the pain, courageously. I could be ruthless. No compassion needed, as I was talking about myself. I knew what was best, right?
But something didn’t feel right. Somethings weren’t changing. They were diving deeper into the shadowlands. The parts could feel me coming. Feel my intention to make them into something that they are not. Feel my lack of acceptance. They would run. Not away, but in. The patterns becoming more subtle. More ingrained. I would process the shit out of issues, over and over again. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. I knew every facet. Every nook and cranny. But things weren’t changing.
All those parts of myself... the parts that hurt, that yelled, that spoke loudly in a bitchy voice, they were not going to surrender easily. They had no intention of being changed. That is all they had ever known... someone wanting them to be different than they were. They were well versed in the tactics of war. If there was a battle, they were going to fight to stay. They were going to win. They knew how to wage war. What they didn’t know, however, was love.
A corner stone of my education in Spiritual Psychology at The University of Santa Monica was that "healing is the application of loving to the parts inside that hurt." I never quite understood what that meant, before this last year. I thought love was processing. I thought love was trying to make myself into a better person. I thought love meant that I had to do something... to fix the problem so that I could be more lovable.
Now, when some part screams out... yells a nasty tune, I love it. Just as it is. With no requirements on it. When I dive deep, it’s so I can love myself more. Not change myself...as if there is something inherently wrong with me. But change does happen. Those parts get what they are seeking. They are not simply pacified, they enter into an experience of healing. They are loved. There is nothing more to push against... and they quiet down. For real. Sometimes, they even ingratiate themselves back into the whole.
It’s not that I no longer work my process. I do... often. But it comes with a different intention... an intention that the work bring me to a deeper place of loving inside of myself. As I work, I love. The whole part. Truthfully, sometimes I forget. I get into the fix-it mode again. But then I remember. I love the part that felt that it needed to fix something. Everything comes back to love.
This is not a path to the mental perfection I once imagined. It is a path to greater living... to a more dynamic and wonderful human experience. Issues come up. Uncomfortable feelings and thoughts rear their heads. But now, if I feel sad I love myself for feeling sad. I love the parts of me that feel sad. And I let myself be... feel whatever it is. Easy. Challenging. Whatever. I let myself be. And I love.
 | Jo Anna Rothman, MA is an intuitive coach and facilitator of The Receiving Project. She revels in assisting people in falling in love with their lives. She is committed to living a life full of pleasure, purpose and enthusiasm. And perhaps most important, she knows the secret to the perfect s’more. |
To read more of Jo Anna's guest posts on Kind Over Matter click here!
5 comments:
This post struck such a nerve with me. I have been reading KOM for so long and am often moved, but this one walked up to me, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me.
I have been excavating for so long and still there are "those" parts. I have been CONVINCED that, yet again, I must be doing something wrong. Why can't I fix "those" parts? Why won't they go away? Which then started the vicious circle of "I can't even do this right!"
Thank you for this post. And thank you for lightening my load.
Wow Jo Anna, you just described the last year of my life, too ... digging through all my "stuff" and trying to fix myself instead of showing myself the same love and compassion I show others. Of course, finally I just exhausted myself and stopped trying. ;-) Glad you're doing so well on your new path! And thanks for the encouragement to keep going.
I love this post. It is so important to stop searching for this endless perfection...http://introvertedart.blogspot.com
I love this, thank you, it really resonates with me, and speaks to my recent dissonance between my professional work and understanding of healing from trauma, and my spiritual understanding of loving and focussing on the positive. I particularly love the sentence "healing is ......." Xxxx
It took 40 years of re-reading journals kept since I was 17 to stop weeping with agony when realizing so many 'issues'about me remained on the 'need to improve' list. Thank goodness, I am free at last.
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