Our own recovery should be our first priority.....

Reflection

When she goes out she leaves a hall light on and a radio playing as she hates to come home to silence and a dark apartment. When she comes home and turns the key she experiences a shift in her karmic sphere - a reaction to her actions. She closes her eyes and leans against the door then turns the key all the way and pushes the door open. She still wonders what she must have done in a previous life that made it necessary to find herself alone again. 

As she now painfully travels this new path of her life journey she is constantly discovering how strong she will have to be to withstand the moments of uncertainty that life has inevitably thrown her way. This relationship fracture, not in any way her choice or her doing, came crashing into her world and she came face to face with having to very quickly make some drastic and necessary life changes. Should she go as per the ultimatum? Should she continue to love at all costs? Should she forgive and forget one more time? The 'shoulds' became a deep internal craving as she tried to process what the best outcome for her life would be.

She has now realized she had, for so long, held on to what was no longer working and had continued to place her footprints on the same rocky path. And she has now found that why she continued to hold on to something that hurt her potential to be happy and had harmed her health, physically and mentally, needs to be looked at closely and so she continues to ask herself why she is not yet able to fully move on emotionally.

However, along her road to recovery she has discovered that life is really a balance of holding on and letting go. She truly wants to make the right choices but wonders how she will know when it is really time to let go and move on. She knows that sometimes it is easier to hold on to something that isn't working out, out of fear that she won't be able to find a safe place to land. Perhaps her greatest fear, therefore, is the unknown, which is possibly why she holds on and tries to now manipulate her life situation to control her surroundings - her new life space. But the outcome, no matter what she does, always seems to be the same - more pain, immense frustration, anger, self-doubt, and a huge sense of loss.

Along her journey, she has learned that staying in a situation that is toxic - a situation that no longer serves her well - will not bring her happiness or give meaning to her life. She now knows that she needs to initiate change, take a step forward, and emotionally disconnect from the past to be able to move on and create a solid life plan. Yes, her thoughts still go more to memories than to the present. Yes, she still feels alone, unheard, unloved, rejected, and disrespected.  Yes, she still cries more than she laughs. But she hasn't, even through all the pain and heartache, stopped hoping or stopped expecting things to get better. She is still exhausted emotionally and spiritually, but she can force a smile to mask the pain. She knows that she has not completely lost who she is and has not compromised or sacrificed her core values and beliefs and so can begin to reinvent her true self. And she has made huge progress in that she no longer expects or hopes or pleads for the person responsible for her pain to change, as she has learned, through his despicable actions, that he is not worth one more minute of her time and emotional pain.

So now, as she thoroughly, seriously and honestly searches her soul, she reflects on her life and continually works on changing the course of her path, carefully placing her footprints on an alternate route, moving forward, trusting her future and letting her journey guide her, in due time, to new happiness.