The Path to Starting Over

This morning during our meditation session, Ms. Tous suggested letting go of bad energy by thinking of someone who never reminds you of disappointment, resent, or bad feelings. More than anything else this morning, this statement perturbed me greatly. Initially, I wasn’t shaken by her comment as I began to mentally scroll through my closest friends and family to find “my person.” To my surprise, I found no one. Nervous, I rapidly started adding names to the list, convinced that there must be some one – some one- who had not disappointed me. Still, I found no one.

I have never been a person that let many people in. Before I let a person see the “dark, twisty” parts of me, as Meredith Grey would call them, that person has to gain my trust, which is not an easy thing to do.

From these rare, carefully selected people to which I allow myself to open up, I expect a lot. In a subconscious effort to never be hurt, I only expose myself to those who I have decided will never hurt me or disappoint me.

But I am sometimes wrong.

And that is scary.

 But it is the times that the people you trust the most disappoint you that you find out just how strong you are. When you give someone everything you have only to find that that person sees no value in it, you discover that omnipotent part of you that will exist regardless of your relationships to others.

It is the times when you realize that every interaction you have had with a person was meaningless when you come to respect your own resilience.

But resilience is not immunity. When you allow someone to see you bleed, scars are inevitable. 

I am in the process of discovering that scars are not a sign of weakness, but rather a sign of growth and fortitude. To find the Inner Peace that I am seeking, I need to stop viewing my emotional scars as signs of misplaced trust and failed endeavors, and begin viewing them as reminders of survival.

Everyone will disappoint you at some point. I have learned that no matter how invincible a friendship seems, humans are flawed. We are prone to breaking everything we touch, no matter how hard we try to preserve it.

But does that mean we should never try? Does that mean we are doomed to lives of loneliness and failure?

 I don’t think so.

Sure, taking the leap and trusting someone is scary. And falling truly hurts. But pain is temporary, no matter how intense it may feel. And once you have been whittled down to the bare, vulnerable core, you can begin to build again, stronger than ever before.

However, by discovering your inner peace and happiness through thinking of any single person in your life, you risk losing everything.

I don’t yet know how I will continue my journey to discover happiness. Maybe I never will know. But regardless of the scrapes and scars and bruises I will gain along the way, I will never stop trying. I am stronger than that. I can never be defeated, as long as I find happiness in myself without being detained by fear- be it fear of others, fear of myself, or fear that one day, if I give enough of myself away, there will be nothing left.

 --Caroline