First, release the idea that there could ever be 12 simple steps to make a thing stop hurting. There isn’t.
Release the attachment to the idea of a straightforward healing process. Renounce the waiting game, sitting in impatient attendance for the arrival of a day in which you are no longer affected. You should not hope to be unaffected. Let your prayers be only that the ways in which you are affected may transform out of detriment and into nourishment. If something has touched you, it will always touch you.
You have experienced much, and you have been permanently altered by every experience. You are in a constant cycle of alteration, and there is no going back to who you were. Now, you will become someone new. That is okay. That is good.
Release the attachment to doing it perfectly. You are, more than likely, going to do some very stupid things while your mind is in the process of reorienting itself. In all honesty, you are likely going to do many stupid things for the rest of your life. This is not a bad thing. It is important to not be so angry. You are living under extraordinary circumstances, and your heart is trying to find ways to cope.
Allow yourself to surprise yourself. Be open to surprising yourself. This will be a path of trial and error. Find what works, and keep doing it. Realize what doesn’t work, and stop doing it. Don’t be angry if it takes you longer to stop what doesn’t work than you believe it should. That is also normal.
There is no ‘getting over’ someone, and so I do not recommend ‘getting under’ someone new in the way that you may think. Remember that romance will not save you, but love will. You’re going to have to find a way to love this world, and to do so, you must get under everything. You must dive within everything, you must crawl inside of everything.
This does not mean that you need to go out every night.
This means that, whatever you may do, you must do it fully. If you are sad, be sad. Be devastated. Listen to Big Sad Music and wear a blue dress. If you need to cancel plans, cancel plans, and don’t waste time in regretting your choice. Lay in your bed, roll around in it, make it a fortress. Embalm. Embody. Be feral. And then, if you decide to go dancing, really go dancing. Don’t check your story. Don’t try to see who’s watching. Find the roots of your performative nature and set them aflame. You were not brought to this earth to palatable, nor to be consumed.
If you’re crying, cry loudly. Cry as if you’ve never cried before, and you may never cry again. Do not dab your eyes. Do not try to make the tears stop before they are ready. You can move more than one feeling at once. Try to stay open to what aches, to what trembles. Feel the ebb and flow, heavy to weightless. Do this many times. Make a ritual from these turning tides.
Against all instinct, against every urge that attempts to tempt you otherwise— you must allow yourself to keep being touched by things. You must allow yourself to continue being touched by this world. Life, as well as love — if they are even different things— life is a process of collaboration.
If you wish to touch the world, you must allow yourself to be touched by it, too. Encourage yourself to continue to be touched, even when you are afraid that it may hurt.
This world is full bodied and bitter and beautiful. So are you. Do not turn away, not from any of it.
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