Everyday supervillans
Okay, here we go: Who are the people in your life who have hurt you the most? Maybe they’re alive, maybe they’re not — for this personal reflection that’s not the point. (The point isn’t about getting all riled up about it, as you will shortly see, so don’t be afraid to really go here.)
If you’re human, you’ve been hurt. At some point. By someone. Some of our wounds are deep. It’s within here that we repress aspects of ourselves. Did I give pause about answering the initial question? We disassociate from some parts of ourselves. I focus on my present, not on ancient history. We neglect and disown these parts of our psyches. Never mind! I’m going to focus on the positive. In shamanic terms, this is “soul loss.”
Well, that doesn’t sound so good.
Because when we don’t face these truths about ourselves, we live our lives with missing pieces. We don’t bring our whole selves into our relationships, our experiences, our journey.
We are incomplete. We hold ourselves back. We stifle the greatness we could unleash.
We give our power away, and we don’t even know we are doing it. We think we’re being positive about it all.
But where in your life do the same characteristics of those who have hurt you, also show up as coming from you? Because when we repress shit, it comes out sideways. You hated those spontaneous home haircuts as a kid, but you refuse to allow your teenager to have the long hair he wants to try. You never felt heard, and now you refuse to lose an argument — or even a discussion. You wish your parents provided you with a more grounded and stable home life, yet you’re running the family in circles with your children’s activities because you don’t want to limit their opportunities and interests.
When we can look honestly at how we feel, our helplessness begins to release. We begin to forgive and let go.
Yeah, those terms really do suck. “Forgiveness” and “letting go” make us think and feel that we’re giving the perpetrator a free pass. That we’re supposed to just suck it up. Take the high road, turn the other cheek, pretend nothing ever happened.
And now we are right back to repressing, disassociating, and neglecting. Soul loss.
Fortunately, that’s not what forgiveness and letting go are. What they really are, is no longer being trapped. No longer being a victim. We release ourselves from being influenced by the whole stupid, angry, belittling, upsetting, unfair, mean, cruel, hurtful, manipulative, controlling, insensitive, abusive wrongdoing. We lay our burden down. We stop holding onto that hot coal while getting mad at it for still burning our hand.
We get our own power back. We gain our soul retrieval. Which, really, has nothing to do at all with the other person. Yay, us!
I feel ten pounds lighter just thinking about it.
Q 10, 11, & 12
gina drellack 
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