Once You Find Hope, Anything Is Possible

So, this will probably be my last post.  I don’t say that to garner attention, quite the contrary.  But for the few who still pop in to see how things are, I appreciate you and just thought I would let you know.

Anyhow…

Now that I have cleaned the cobwebs out of  the drafts folder, it is time to throw some positivity back out into the blogosphere.  Who knows—maybe my experience working through my litany of shitty issues will be of some help to someone who stumbles across this space, looking for some sort of life preserver while they float in their ocean of despair…doesn’t everyone look towards adult oriented blogs for just that reason?

No?

Well damn me—but that isn’t going to stop me either.

Not much does…just sayin’

I’ve touched on some of these things before, but I was nowhere near the level of ‘okay with the world’ as I find myself to be in these days.  Time really does have an amazing healing effect, if you let it.  (oooh—there’s your power peeking thru people…seize it!  Run with it!)

It’s not easy, nothing worthwhile (including your sanity) is, and I will try not to spend this post inundating you with trite platitudes and feel-good sayings—but I make no promises either.

First and foremost, and this is as difficult as it is obvious, you absolutely have to commit to making the decision to let it go. (cue the “Frozen” princess singing…if you haven’t seen it, the reference will simply fly on over…if you want to know—well, there’s YouTube…go watch—I’ll wait.)  As much as we hope they will, these deep hurts, the heartbreaks, they just don’t vanish on their own.  If you don’t make, and keep, this promise to yourself you will self-sabotage all the hard work you will be putting in to moving on from this hurt.

Understand this, if nothing else in this entire post…YOU (yes, you) HAVE THE CHOICE TO LET IT GO.  I’ll say it again for those in the back—the choice to let it go, to quit reliving the pain, to rehash the details, the conversations, just…everything…the choice is YOURS and yours alone.  Love yourself enough to empower yourself.  Let go of the pain to allow yourself a future without it.

To do that, you’re going to have to let it out.  Express it, either openly to the person that hurt you, or venting to a supportive friend, writing a letter to the person but never giving it to them—I found physically tearing up the letters to be quite cathartic—or post it on a blog.  Just get that shit out of your system and do it all at once.  I went the piece-meal route and it took me a LOT longer.  Don’t be Jane.  Do it all at once and find your understanding of what your pain is about, what it’s so desperately trying to make you see.

And since our world isn’t as cut-and-dried, or simply black and white, we have to also accept some of the responsibility of our pain.  While the responsibility may not be wholly your own, you do bear some accountability.  Will you let that pain identify you, or are you determined to be the complex & wonderfully made person you knew yourself to be before these circumstances knocked you down a peg or ten?  Don’t be a victim—be an active participant in your life.  Dive deep and bring him/her back up for a breath of fresh air.

You have to let go of blaming others, and with that, stop playing the victim.

Just. Stop. It.

Now!

I get it—being the victim feels good, justified even.  You’re the winner of Team You vs. the World.  But, big surprise here for ya, the world?? Yeah, the world doesn’t give a shit folks so get the fuck over yourself already.  Yes—you are exceptional and yes (so much yes here) your feelings DO MATTER.  Just stop confusing that with your feelings over-riding everything else to the point where nothing beyond them matters.  All these experiences, and pains, and joys—they are all a part of the finely woven pattern that is life.  It IS complicated.  And it IS messy.  But it’s also as simple as you let it be.

And just as beautiful.

Remember, if you put too much in your life, and in your head, revolving around this hurt, you don’t leave much room for anything positive to come back into your life.  It’s a choice that you are making, to continue to feel the hurt feelings.  In every minute you have the choice to either feel bad about someone’s actions and the consequences that hurt you, or you can choose to move forward and start feeling good again.  That, my friend, is solely your responsibility.  Do not put your happiness in someone else’s pocket.  Why would you let the person who hurt you so in the past have so much power over you in the here and now?

Rehashing an entire relationship never fixed it.  Never ever in the entire history of the world has this happened.  So no more choosing to (yes, be honest, it IS a choice you are making) take part in and allocating so much of your power to someone who has done you wrong.  Keep your power and positive energy for yourself and this new future you are going to make for yourself.  You absolutely can’t un-do what happened to you…all you can do is, from this moment forward, make this day the best day.  And do that every day.

Now here comes the REALLY hard part (as if getting here wasn't dreadful enough 😂)…I struggled with this for so very long—and, 100% honesty here—sometimes I still waver in this area.  The struggle is real, but I am 99.9999% there most of the time.

So here goes:

Forgive them — and yourself.

That doesn’t mean forget—that’s not a requirement.  Forgiveness isn’t agreeing with what they did that hurt you so.  It’s not agreeing with it at all, and forgiving them anyway.  It’s not weak to forgive.  Its acknowledging you are both good people.  They just did something that hurt you profoundly, but the only way to move forward in life and let happiness work its magical way back in to it, is to forgive and fully let go of it.  You can empathize with the person, you can try to see their point of view, but at the end of the day…you let go of the hurt, the betrayal, the pain…and in doing so, you will find your forgiveness.

And, if you are anything like me, you may have to do this several times—and it’s never easy…but the willingness to be compassionate with yourself and the other person, see them with fresh eyes, is not a one-time decision.  Don’t be stubborn and get stuck in your pain.

I know this stuff is hard and that it’s incredibly difficult to let go of the pain — I’ve been there.  Sometimes I still struggle with it, but never for very long…sometimes it feels like a comfortable old friend, that somehow I am justified and to let go of it would be a desecration of what we were, and lessen the relationship that Tripp and I had.

(And, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have chosen to maintain this relationship, as his friend.  This is what is right for me, and since he hasn’t offered any commentary to the contrary, I will presume it is right for him in the moment as well.  Only we can know what is right for us in this moment, and be plucky enough to remember what was.  If he decides otherwise, I am perfectly okay with that as well.)

So.

Make your choice.

Let go of the pain.

Do something different today.

Let the happiness back into your life.

P.S. – I am easy enough to contact, there is an email in my profile that I check—maybe not as regularly as I should, but if you need someone to talk to, vent to…who has been there…reach out.

You aren’t alone ♥