Speaking. Speaking your Truth. Saying the tough stuff. Saying the real stuff. Dropping the fluffy crap to say just the exact words you need to say, when you need to say them, HOW you need to say them. I found myself ‘screaming’ online last night (writing all in caps) to someone, imploring them to SPEAK THEIR TRUTH!!!! I felt the red hot energy coursing through me, down my arms and sparking out of my fingertips onto my computer screen. “Wow,” I thought, “that’s pretty energetic. I’d better listen to what I’m telling others, because I’m pretty sure it’s what I need to hear right now.”
I look around me, clearing my throat, feeling fatigued, feeling my right shoulder hot, swollen and throbbing with pain, increasingly more painful. I’m feeling the arch of my left foot swollen, red and jabbing pain when I walk. I’m fine - I’m healthy - I’m strong and powerful. I need to speak my Truth. But what does that mean? Most people who know me would laugh at the thought that I ever DON’T say exactly what I mean. One friend recently said, “You’re just so… blunt!” I know the meant it as a compliment, but I don’t even think I’m blunt. To me that feels like I lack tact, and I think I’m usually pretty kind and gentle when it comes to saying the tough stuff. Usually.
Something happened recently, on Black Monday, we’ll call it. I am remarkably private about some things, and this is one of those things, so you won’t read about it here. But it is not a secret. It is public. But I just won’t talk about it in this forum. But because of this ‘thing’ I’m feeling some feelings, and I will own what feelings are MINE. These are some of the things I’m feeling right now: sometimes I feel as if what I say doesn’t matter to others, and if that’s true, you get to a certain point where you just don’t say anything anymore because if your opinion doesn’t matter to these people, then if their world crashes around them, there’s nothing you can say or do that will help, anyway. Look at the track record. Learn. Sometimes you get to step back, detach, and support from afar. I’m feeling like sometimes I want to scream, “I TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!” and maybe it’s just as bad that I write about wanting to say it. I guess in a way then I’ve actually SAID it, albeit not to the particular people I sometimes want to scream it to. I’m feeling that it’s very sad, but we can’t help/control/coerce anyone to do anything unless they choose to do it. As a mother I’m expert at this. C’mon, I can SEE what the best thing is - why won’t they DO it? Because it’s THEIR life, they’ll live it as they see best. And if they get distracted by me yelling directions, they might stumble on their paths, and not learn about how to navigate down the road of life. I certainly don’t want to do that to anybody.
I’m feeling that sometimes I need to move on from situations, even if things aren’t even necessarily ‘bad’, but more because it’s just TIME. I’m feeling guilty for thinking this, but I’m still willing to feel it and think about it and work with it. I am feeling the momentum to move on from some things that have been in my life for several years. Am I afraid? Kind of. But you can’t cling to things just because you’re used to them. If you’re clinging to this one thing, your arms aren’t free to hold anything else, and that prickly porcupine may be really sweet, but there’s that dreamy Beds by Design pillow that’s got your name on it!
I’m feeling that I have the tendency to take on people’s pain, to actually transplant it into my own body, to try to transform and grow it into a beautiful plant. But I’m really FEELING, especially today, that that doesn’t work at all, and mostly maybe just pisses people off. Maybe they don’t KNOW what you’re doing, and they might even ACT like they’re grateful that you’re doing this FOR them, but I think their Spirit is like, “Heck no - back away from this person’s Growth. They need to be responsible for their actions and their lives.” I’m feeling that it’s disrespectful to think you’re so much more capable and knowledgeable about someone’s life that you think you know better than they do. It’s hypocritical mostly because that’s one of the first things I talk about in my Work with others.
I’m thinking about Truth today, as I watch the fat rain come down, sitting in my clammies (clothes that double as jammies). I have to be somewhere in an hour, so I may have to move off this chair, but I think I’ll try to stay as silent today as possible. Rest my voice. Keep some of that energy in. Think about what I want or need to say before I say it. Then try to make sure I’m always speaking the Truth, no more, no less.