For the whole of February, I have been rather lax in keeping up with my social media content, in part due to the Lunar New Year celebration, in part due to— well, I wasn’t in a right place where I could share love with others without first loving myself. However as with most of my blog posts, every time an inspiration comes to me at the oddest moment, I guess it means there is something to be shared…
On the first day of the new lunar year, someone whom I was extremely close with, or at least I thought I was extremely close with, broke a news to me that completely shattered my heart, and finally opened my eyes to what had been staring at me all this while but which I had chosen to blindly look away. It wasn’t the fact that our relationship was officially over that broke me, it was realisation that the person had never deemed it fit to hold my heart with care nor respected our connection enough to be upfront and honest with me even to the end. Coming up with excuses after excuses, but never the truth nor the closure our supposed connection deserved.
“A broken heart does not mean you are broken. The crack is there to let the light in.”
In that light of revelation, I suddenly saw with clarity. And now in hindsight over time, perhaps add on :
“When a heart is shattered, it gives us the opportunity to pick up the pieces and rebuild a bright new beginning the way we want it.”
I knew deep down that I had been wrongly holding on to the role of a healer in this relationship, for far too long (Note : Wrong dynamic for a romantic relationship!). Even after the relationship had ended, the signs were all there but I kept holding on to the faint hope that there might one day be a change of heart, that I needed to hang around in order to be the pillar of support for that person, because this is love, and love doesn’t change just because the status did. I hanged around. Made myself available at all times. Sometimes at the expense of my own wellbeing. Even when my gut feel was screaming red flags.
What I learnt now was, while I was extending love to others, I was criminally extending cruelty to myself. All the love that I was giving freely to others while all the time denying myself of the self love and respect that I needed for myself. Each time I was confronted with a post or story of them on my social media feed, I would freeze in disbelief, doubt and hurt, then beat down whatever emotions I’d experienced then and try to soften the blow by convincing myself that, “the relationship is over anyway— as long as she is happy, why does it matter to you what is going on?” Always thinking for the other person and never about myself.
Yes, I beat down my own feelings at the expense of preserving that image of ‘unconditional love’ that I had somehow built in my head. Which is something like, taking a knife to stab at my own heart so that it doesn’t feel pain anymore.
Taking The First Step
That last exchange with her shifted something in me after the initial pain and resentment subsided. I knew finally what I had to do.
I had to save myself.
I had to love myself.
To do that, I had to heal myself.
And the only way I could do that was to give my wounds the time and space to heal without having them reopened again and again every time a new text, post or story comes up.
I set the intention.
Then set that intention in action.
It hurt at first. It felt weird not knowing. It felt empty not giving anymore. It felt unkind. It felt like an abandonment. But I know that whatever I felt was natural as well, as I begin to shed what no longer serves me and truly begin my process of healing. Like a snake shedding its skin because it has outgrown it and knows that it needed to do so to allow for further growth and to remove parasites that may have attached to its old skin.
The shedding process is uncomfortable, stressful, and vulnerable for the snake, but shed it must.
The healing process is very much like that. Ever so often, we will be exposed to feelings of vulnerability like never before, confronted by more anger, doubt, fear, and guilt etc. than we’d ever experienced. Many times, we will feel worse than before and wonder why we’d even started the journey – isn’t it better to stay in the smaller but comfortable skin and remain in the status quo?
Yes, but would that make us truly happy? How long would such happiness last before the wound gets triggered and inflamed and we feel miserable again? I could possibly go on forever accepting being treated like an option and an after-thought, but I will always repeat the same pattern of hurt for the rest of my life. Maybe not to the same person but to someone else, because I never truly heal what I needed to heal most—which is, patching the part of me that had forgotten to love myself.
By no longer ignoring my wounds and choosing to heal in my own terms, I wasn’t giving up on love. But I was working on myself to be my own unconditional love.
Intention Is Everything
In the same light, I take inspiration from some of my clients for their courage to want to heal as well.
One of them came to me after she was afflicted with sudden bouts of giddiness that affected her life rather badly. She had consulted doctors and done numerous tests, but all results came back negative and she was truly puzzled over her condition. We went through a few sessions and each time she comes back a little more spirited and determined that she will be rid of her ailment. She started to meditate and became more conscious of her thought patterns and physical shifts. That she did not give up trying to find ways to heal says a lot about her spirit. I truly believe she will heal simply because she wants to. It’s really that simple.
Another client came to me because her energetic system was blocked, and she felt that it was affecting her relationship with people as well as experiencing life itself. She was intentional in her belief and very open to energy healing work, taking my suggestions on board and really working on herself. Which was why when she told me the next session how she was actually able to open up to her colleagues at work finally, I felt strongly that her healing journey would unfold beautifully for her. Because again, intention.
Self Reflection
How about you? Are you intentional in your healing belief? How intentional have you been? When you say you want to heal, do you truly want to heal? Are you ready to expose all your vulnerability and confront what might certainly be unpleasant, nasty, and smelly? Or are you just paying lip service to that intention by making up excuses after excuses, again and again for each failing, attributing faults to everything but your role in taking up responsibility for your own healing?
Healing is painful but in setting our intention to heal and really allowing ourselves time and space to do so, we can finally liberate ourselves from the sufferings we so needlessly inflict onto ourselves and others.
And so it is.
Sending love and healing to you.
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