Resilience

It’s Sunday, I woke up this morning feeling ready for the day, knowing it was going to be beautiful and as life always seems to throw our way, there was a curveball. So now I am figuring out how to embrace the beauty of the day and nourish my body with nature. Not sure what that actually will entail today and working very hard to bring myself out in full presence rather than where I want to be right now which is in my head. You don’t realize how dysregulating something can be until it happens and then you have to quickly decide how to respond and then how to work through it so it doesn’t become all consuming. It’s like a well-coordinated dance. Essentially, the fine art of life. For now, I will work through the thoughts in my head.

I have been thinking a lot about resiliency. Being resilient is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties. Resiliency is often a protective measure we develop when our caregivers are not providing it to us or something has happened to us. As someone who experienced years of physical and emotional abuse, I had to learn very quickly how to become resilient in order to protect myself from the harm being inflicted on me. In reality, I developed maladaptive behaviors. I can call that resiliency or a way to navigate through life without feeling things as deeply as I could have. We often praise resiliency. We comment that during difficult experiences such as divorce, separation, death, and any other traumatic event, that children are resilient, they will overcome it and be stronger for it. In fact, I was once one of those people. Today, I am struggling to accept this concept. Isn’t resiliency just a means to invalidate that something bad happened and we were encouraged to get over it. It sure the fuck is. Let people feel their feels in whatever timeframe THEY feel is appropriate to their healing.

I wonder, do the dark shadows ever go away? I have been asking myself this a lot lately. Trauma carries with it a cloud of darkness and while life has so much beauty, I can’t help but think of how different my experience of the world could have been if my family had shown up for me differently than they did. I say could because what if this was just my path regardless of my trauma. I have come to accept that my journey through life would not have led me here if I hadn’t had my early childhood experiences but I can’t help but wonder.

A lot of my adult life has been with the notion that I am who I am and that if you don’t accept me that is your problem not mine. Over the last couple years, that commentary has been at the forefront of my mind. I AM who I AM but it is not ok to ask someone to accept poor behavior due to my unwillingness to acknowledge that bad behavior even existed. That was the part of this that I was missing all along. Asking someone to accept me at the cost of their own mental health and well-being was never my right to demand from anyone. Once you acknowledge your toxic behaviors it is your duty as a human interacting with other humans to show up ready and able to make changes that don’t require someone else’s self-sacrifice. Until you are ready for that step it is best to excuse yourself from the situation and leave the person alone. No one should betray themselves on account of your comfort and your comfort alone.

Relationships are truly a fine art of dance. Two people coming together, moving together hoping to not step on each other’s toes. Reality is that we will often step on our partners toes. We will bump each other, and even fall all over the other. How we get back up, how we adjust is what makes relationships work or not and that is something that no matter how good you think things are, there are always ways to show up that show one another that working towards the health of the relationship is always top priority. I have to say that I truly had no idea of the intricacy of the dance relationships required to sustain it. My whole life I measured my role in relationship by how much “sacrifice” there was and how much I provided. Essentially, I martyred myself and complained when I felt unrecognized. That was not about my partnerships that was for me. My drive to “provide” was not really for them but a way to make myself feel better about myself. Thankfully, over time I have realized how much I was missing and how very little I was attending to the needs of the people I love.

I chose a different journey for myself once I was able to tolerate how difficult I could be, how toxic I was, and how far out of my integrity I had come. I chose a disciplined path. One that ensured I am accurately portraying myself. One that found a balance between my learned operators and those that were inherently a part of me. What is learned can be unlearned. What is inherently part of me allows me visibility to my potential for unfavorable behavior and therefore the knowledge to work on showing up healthier. It is all a choice. It was always a choice. One that I spent so much time being resistant too. I focus my attention daily to growing, learning and taking care of myself. My needs are being met and so are those of the people I love. I hadn’t realized that my lack of boundaries, my lack of a true understanding of my unmet needs directly impacted the way that I could be in relationships with others. That lack of awareness made me selfish. The more attuned I have become with myself, listening to my inner knowing, has helped me to understand that I can meet my needs, I always could. I just needed to know what they were. I can never go back to what I was, so I will forever continue to be disciplined towards my growth, my self-forgiveness, rebuilding my integrity and being healthy for those closest to me. No one will ever again have to accept me as I am if I am asking them to abandon themselves to keep me comfortable.