The Cost of Holding onto Our Pain
We can hold the pain of our past. Leave the swords in our heart. Let them become daggers of constraint and masochistic comfort. It might be easier than facing the grief of letting go of hurt that has become so normalized it’s oddly satisfying to feel its weight in our chest, its stab to our gut, its cement in our steps.
The problem is when the sun comes out, when our higher selves call, when the spirit comes along singing — we are stuck. We are trapped by the weight of our pain, trapped beneath the gray, unable to move into the warmth and light, unable to answer our own call to joy. Our ego may still try to convince us it is too scary, too painful to do the work of removing our daggers. That our dreams aren’t worth it. That we don’t deserve them. That we don’t even really want them.
Thankfully, our spirit doesn’t give up that easily. We will continually be called, consistently pestered, both within and outside of ourselves to open up to the light. To revel in our true purpose. To remember our connection to the whole. To find our way back to our spiritual homes. As Jessica Macbeth says in the Faeries’ Oracle book, we must “surrender the small everyday self to the larger spiritual self.”
I encourage you all to do the necessary shadow work of facing and letting go of your pain. I encourage you to seek guidance to help you through. We must learn how to recognize the difference between the everyday self and our spiritual self, in order to learn how to surrender to our higher selves. Healers of all kinds can help. I think it is a life-long learning process, one that I am very much still in, but have moved far enough through that I too can lend a hand to others. I wish the same for you, in the name of the highest good.
Blessed be.
PS: My wonderful partner got me my first Rider-Waite deck: it is a vintage print from 1971 that is unlamented, without copyrights, and no longer in print. I’m in love!