You don’t need to be afraid anymore
From October 2019
I love it when a healing message reveals itself over time! A few weekends ago we had a class exercise where we needed to read and select parent messages that perhaps we hadn’t heard from our own parents. I read through the list several times and was surprised each time that the one that “popped” for me was the phrase, “You don’t need to be afraid anymore.” I wasn’t sure why this phrase resonated so much with me because I hear this message from my parents all the time (and I know they mean it). I couldn’t deny the fact that this phrase jumped out for me every time though. So I went with it and accepted that specific phrase as one that I would need to listen to in life, and be open to. At the time I wondered if it had to do with my husbands health, or perhaps with finances about school? I wasn’t sure.
One week later, my dad took me on an overnight hike. The hike was incredible, however, in the middle of the night, I needed to leave the hut to use the washroom. There, in the middle of a mountain, in the middle of the night: I WAS TERRIFIED. I could barely make it to the bottom of the steps I was so afraid. Although the moment felt like an eternity, I was able to quickly dash back into the hut to safety. The next morning was euphoric.
The day before, I had walked up the mountain with quite a bit of worry, then faced feeling terrified in the middle of the night. But the next morning, the sun was shining and we were above the clouds! I knew I was “above the clouds” in my own thinking as well. I felt like I was healing and as we hiked home, I had an incredible sense of peace and renewed hope for my marriage and my husbands health. During the hike down, I told my dad about the terror in the middle of the night. He told me to listen to that moment because on this specific hike, strong emotions will often come up, and they let us know where healing can happen. My dad wondered with me in that moment whether the “fear in the middle of the night” had anything to do with my husbands health. I wasn’t sure but mentioned that the week prior, the phrase “You don’t need to be afraid anymore” had also popped up. We left it at that.
At our next class, two weeks after the hike, a member from the Tsleil-waututh nation, shared that she was feeling anxious and needing the support of her ancestors. She asked if she was able to sing a song that was a part of her family called, “The Strong Woman Song” which could be used in times of grief or celebration. When she sang the song for us, something cracked in me. In that moment, I realized, that although I am aware of the fear I have of my husband dying, I was terrified to admit that I feel like I was falling apart. I had been the strong woman for two and a half years. Two and a half years prior, when he got sick, I did what anyone would do when the love of their life got sick: I took on everything. I fell apart the first year health-wise but felt that I had reached better balance in the following year-ish with a much improved lifestyle (early bedtimes) and diet. I guess not. What I realized is that I can’t be “the strong woman” anymore in the way I was still imposing on myself: denying myself of feelings about this situation and of our everyday reality, soldiering on alone.
Two things still resonate with me. In this moment of wondering what my future will look like, it can be terrifying to feel like there is nothing to hold on to. Dr. Heesoon told me that she had heard (re: feeling like I’m falling) that, “The bad news is that you’re falling, the good news is that there’s no bottom.” This is a fascinating concept and one that I am grappling with. Why do I feel there’s a bottom? Also, who says there’s no bottom! Another item I keep considering is based on an experience Dr. Heesoon had shared with us, where she had felt victimized by a situation many years prior and someone had told her, “You wanted it.” I also ask myself, how did I want this? (I don’t have a full answer yet.) (To read the answer that came a month later, click here.)
A few days after, I read the next chapter in “Women Who Run With the Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. (I had been slowly reading through it since the summer.) The particular chapter happened to be about survival instincts. I came across the quotes,
“When a woman insists ‘I am a survivor’ over and over again once the time for its usefulness is past, the work ahead is clear. We must loosen the persons clutch on the survivor archetype. Otherwise nothing else can grow. I liken it to a tough little plant that managed – without water, sunlight, nutrients – to send out a brave and ornery little leave anyway. In spite of it all. But thriving means, now that the bad times are behind, to put ourselves into occasions of the lush, the nutritive, the light, and there to flourish, to thrive with bushy, shaggy, heavy blossoms and leaves. It is better to name ourselves names that challenge us to grow as free creatures. That is thriving. That is what was meant for us.” (P. 211)
“Thriving, not just surviving, is our birthright as women.” (P.212)
I keep reminding myself that I don’t need to be afraid anymore.
As for the pictures: Two pics are of the view I had when I woke up on the mountain, above the clouds. The following is a quick sketch I did of a painting (or pen and ink) that I would like to do. The image came to me after the tearful breakdown in class. It’s of a woman, crying, in a reservoir of her own tears: but the dam is beginning to crack.
