I blogged a few weeks ago about trauma, about holding on and letting go. After pulling Trauma and Recovery off the shelf and rereading it again, I am rethinking the whole thing.
Sometimes retelling the story isn't enough; sometimes it keeps us stuck in the muck of the story, unable to move forward in the healing process. We do need to tell our story to someone who believes in us, who hears the story and has faith that there is more to who we are than just the story of what happened.
Whatever or whoever has hurt or harmed you in the past, rest in the knowledge that it is over. It is done. It is part of your story but it is not who you are. The essence of who you are existed before any of that happened, before you were left, hurt, rejected, violated, disrespected, ignored, forgotten, overlooked, dismissed, misunderstood, beaten, silenced or shamed.
The river of your soul runs so much deeper and wider than that.
The river of your soul flows with warm, clear water that is pure, untainted, full of life. Its current naturally carries you wherever you need to go. You can't push the river; that won't serve you at all. The river is there to carry you. Once you lean back into surrender, you will float effortlessly. You will not crash into rocks; you will not drown. You will be carried. You are being carried.
Tentatively
I tip my toe
into the river of un-knowing
innocently
I feel for the rhythms
of a transformation's undertowing
wantonly
I open and I open
like a seed that's ripe for sowing
somehow I taste the freedom
and relief
that I don't know who I am
and I don't know where I'm going
–Treasure Miller, "River of Unknowing," excerpted in Sacred Therapy by Estelle Frankel, p. 77-78