Safe Enough #209

Words have the power to create the home that we live in on the inside and when we have different experiences with various terms, our ability to understand ourselves is effected by the comparisons and the valuing of those encounters with as well as by others. Our connections to those things through our emotional definitions provides us the ability to perceive of excusing ourselves and various people in some ways while also preventing forgiveness for others or ourselves in different moments even though to forgive is also to excuse. That difference produces uncertainty, pain and fear which helps to facilitate keeping someone in the weeds for far longer than that person should be. There are all kinds of ways to enable the messes and if we wish to be understood and accepted for who we are then we must also recognize that our field of view is limited when we fail to lean in to hear others and how their homes have come to be. In other words, hell isn’t a place to go to but rather one we carry with us on inside from our experiences whose loud voices will be shared to the outside most often in detrimental ways. Each of us has the choice to change the strength of that by encouraging the certainty of being recognized and valued or we can choose to continue the feeding of the hell by only understanding and justifying some. It is easy enough to see that an addict can use any reason in order to relapse but what’s not there is the recognition of a moment, a feeling or a thought that once again confirms to that individual, a cycle, that he or she will always belong in the weeds as a failure even if that individual also has lots of flowers. Every time Ryan reverted so did I, as did others, as a part of the series of movements because it really is that simple for any of us to go back to what is comfortable rather than to hold onto change particularly when given an excuse to do so. Recently an addict “flipped out” in his kind of life and the rationalization was that his friends were failing to spend enough time with him. If we stay in the fearful and justified position that that it is just an excuse, or in the one where we blame others for not showing up, then we never look closer at what those words are really saying about his chaos on the inside. After all, a moment has the power to alter us but more often it’s that an experience has occurred many times in lots of different ways and the resulting feelings are living and breathing in those funny memories that are then implying who that person is even though it’s a green truth. If you can imagine, it’s just like when we place values on others based on what we think we see or by judging them for their weeds without understanding what’s really there. Have you ever felt that someone has failed to be there for you? What did that feel like in your heart and what did you think about yourself afterwards because of that encounter? Did it happen once or multiple times? Was it one person or more than one? Have you ever felt lonely in a room full of people? Ryan definitely felt that way in his life even if his details were different from that young man and because of that they have a connection and an understanding of each other. The unity that they share, then, provides a comfortable home for the hurt and the fear to get stronger in which is exactly what we don’t want. When I walk this way again I can see how our failure to do this better ourselves enabled Ryan feeling safer in the place where substances helped to ease his pain and loneliness instead of experiencing those things in a vulnerable position like being in a room full of people who didn’t help him to feel safe enough to be there. That is not to say that we are not entitled to have our gray lines, because we absolutely are, but it’s whether we hold the line with safety and forgiveness that opens the door so that the hoped for change can eventually take a step or we remain the same with the justifications that help to ensure the continuation of uncertainty and pain. So how do we help others feel safe enough to sit down with their hell rather than to continue to lose parts of themselves? How do we do that when some of what they have to say means we have to hear how we have been a part of the hurt and the feeding of what we didn’t want? What if it will require us to change too and that we will find ourselves seeking understanding from others as we fall again and again as a part of the process? How impossible will that expectation feel and will uncomfortableness and or fear keep us from being able to? The ride is a painful process but the change we seek is a series of movements while in the midst of it that starts with being safe enough to acknowledge our own weeds; including the ones we have had a limited view of as well as the ones we have been unaware of. It’s leaning in to hear the things that we don’t want to in order to help others be safe enough to learn to show up for themselves especially if they or we go back because in this so very heavell life there are always plenty of reasons to do so. This is me and I am a dreaded “f” moment maker who has been a part of the problems in my life as well as the beholder of the beauty that can be found there too. Step by step and fall by fall, while carrying the weight of my world, I am learning to understand my story and how my emotional definitions of terms have come home to live within me. When thinking of you, are you safe enough in your place to pick your own weeds or are you afraid of being seen in your darkness and feeling what’s there? Or perhaps, just like everyone else, it’s the judgement of not being seen and understood for all that you are that scares you? Have the best day possible for you because what could have been a flower still can be by being safe enough with fondness, trust and forgiveness for yourself as a part of the transformation that is always enfolding you. It’s good to be home in the place that needs us most even when hell lives there too. Love Always, Heavell