Monday, 30 March 2015
Take Your Own Time
I can’t imagine functioning as well as she did carrying all that grief. She still pushed through with workshops and speaking engagements and clients. But it was through one of those workshops that she heard of the Pilgrimage for El Camino de Santiago (The Way of Saint James). A participant mentioned that it was transformational. For awhile Sonia forgot about it until another participant at another workshop mentioned it again. She got the message!
She set out on her pilgrimage without really ‘training’ for it. 800 Km (yes eight hundred kilometres) later she would arrive in Santiago after walking across Spain in mostly rain and much over hill and dale. She suffered with infections in every toe caused by the footwear she was in. She had had the flu. But more than that she was forced to face the journey of her life and her grief.
Although I found the book absolutely wonderful with so many insights into my own life it wasn’t until the last chapter that she wrote something that brought relief to my own life. In the last five years I have had many blows. The roller coaster has gone up…and down. It’s had me hanging upside down and holding on for dear life. There were people in my life over the last few years who would say things like “You need to forgive and let it all go and you will be done with your grief.” Or “You’re getting bogged down with emotion. Be Spiritual!” Or if they didn’t say that they thought it or said something similar. Oddly Sonia was led to drop non-beneficial friendships and associations. I’ve had that experience too.
Sonia one of a few mentors in my journey. I literally gobble up everything she writes. She dealt with deep scars and much needed healing. She is a powerful six-sensory intuitive. Oh and by the way, before you go wondering, “Why didn’t she see it coming and deal with it or prevent it?” She addresses that too. But I won’t steal her thunder.
The one point that I saw in black in white with great relief was that she can’t just push away her feelings. It’s not how she’s build. She feels very deeply and needs to process at that level and honour herself and take the time to do so. Because of the life she’d created for herself she was always ‘on’ for other people and would just stuff the grief down saying she’d let it go. She did that with her failing marriage for years; with the anger towards her mentally ill brother & anger with her father because she never measured up. But it was while Walking Home that she came face to face with the anger, pain, hurt, abandonment, broken trust and more. She had only stuffed it down. She hadn’t really healed it. She goes on to say that unlike some of the popular Guru’s she does not believe that you can just wish it all away. You DO have to deal with it or it will deal with you through illness and breakdowns. While walking she faced the pain involved with her brother. She dealt with the anger she had for her father. She faced her feelings of betrayal with her soon to be ex-husband. And I’ll tell you this much: I honestly don’t believe I have the stamina that she demonstrated on this month-long walk. Yes I said A MONTH!!!
I know for me, I have to really FEEL my feelings, too. I can’t just pass them by. They don’t pass me by. Quite frankly I don’t believe that they really pass anyone by if they’re being truly honest.
Yesterday, I felt like another layer had been peeled away. I no longer had to worry about what other people said that I SHOULD be feeling or doing. I, too, feel very, very deeply. Most people have no idea how much grief there was in ending BOTH of my marriages, especially the second one. But I do. God did. And now, five years later I can honestly say “I don’t live at that address anymore.” Not a physical address; an emotional & spiritual one.
So if you are in pain or have passed over pain, deal with it in the way that works for you. Yes there possibly are those who can forgive and forget in a matter of seconds (although I really have my doubts). For me, it has taken just over four years to start to feel ‘normal’, or at least a new normal. And I can say I am grateful for the journey. It was painful at times. But it was worth it.
Take Your Own Time
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