How can I wish the privileges of my life for everyone, and also at the same time know that most people would never want the life that I live if they knew what it really consists of?
I think it’s because when you zoom in on any single day, my life is a dream, but when you link the days together, and they add up to a year, and then 5 years, and then 11 years, and then 16 years of a life lived with staggering and unstable privileges, unspeakable pain, unpredictable mobility and abilities, with most of my energy and resources devoted to making everyone around me OK, comfortable, happy, and avoiding the pain and suffering I have experienced, and then massively failing at all of it, of course.
It’s confusing to hear people say kind things about you, or to hear that people speak highly of you, when you know yourself.
I used to call a certain person “the nicest bitch you’ll ever meet”, but I wonder if that was a projection. I am the one that has always been the nicest bitch. That’s really the realest way to say that I have lived my life being passive aggressive. Without boundaries. Co-dependent. And willing to benefit from certain privileges because it makes my life in this once-able now disabled body and with this late-diagnosed neurodivergent brain so much easier. I am disgusted that I no longer wish to participate as I used to…I used to be so charitable, so kind-hearted, so generous, so willing to be open-minded and loving. At the exact same time I’m free to decide when to give; what to think and who to invite into my very tiny circle, just how far into it they can come, and who to love. Unconditional has new meaning and it applies to me this time, as well. The nicest bitch has new meaning, too, and I own it now, because it’s with conscious delivery.
For over 40 years, I was deceived, taken advantage of time and time again, and the wildest part is how willing a participant I was. I didn’t see it as abuse - it was a comfortable way of being higher, better, and more chosen. It felt good. Isn’t that what martyrs are? Isn’t that what I was called to be? A martyr, over and over. Sacrificing my talent, my intelligence, my body, and my thoughts, ideas, and even financial stability and identity for “the family”, “The Church”, the business, the sisters, the choir, the youth, the children, the leaders…whoever called for it, it was theirs. And it felt good and everyone said I was good.
There was a whole part of my soul that knew there was something wrong - it’s why I wouldn’t let my kids participate in certain things or be picked up by certain leaders. So when I complained, or talked about people behind their backs, or questioned anything, and the bitch in me came out, I was still oh so sweet and sandwiched everything in with some kindness. Like a West Coast version of “bless her heart”, I guess.
I still have an underlying brain-based belief that being a martyr is noble and will get me into some kind of heaven, although my heart no longer buys into it. I know because I have spent the last two years building new muscles around my own spirit - something I didn’t believe was mine - something I was taught and thoroughly believed was governed by nearly everyone but me.
When you lose most of your physical ability and the support that was promised to you by those who promised to govern your spirit, you have to make a decision: let your spirit stay weak and die or build the strength to survive on your own.
I was ready to let my spirit die. I was ready to give it up because the people and the institution who promised that they would carry me through if I was ever alone or sick would do all the heavy lifting. They didn’t do any lifting. They shamed me. They judged me. They didn’t believe me. The best thing they could have ever done was to do those things because it revealed all of the deceit and the strength of my own will, my own sovereign being, and my own spirit that would take a few years, but would emerge.
There is so much room for curiosity and discovery where once there was a veil that may as well have been steel - no one and nothing could pierce what I believed to be true about the world, about humanity, and about God.
The expansion of truth and curiosity has been the greatest gift, but it is also a privilege.
The price of my physical mobility is not a punishment - it happened a decade before I made these decisions, but I did believe I was being punished for mundane daily decisions and thoughts that are everyday human emotions and reactions - even my own diagnosis of bipolar disorder and the abuse I was enduring was a punishment in that world of belief.
To escape that; to overcome and learn to think and discover beyond that small box of thought was greater than any physical movement could ever give me.
I live a life of privilege and at the same time I have all of the financial, physical and relationship struggles that a person can have. Why do I see my life as so good, then?
Because of the way I move through life, the shifts in the repeating Sentences, the Emotions I choose to feel on purpose, the Actions I decide to take, and the way I very intentionally choose to Canvass and ask for and then Harvest and receive all that I have.
Each of these is a step in the delicate and deliberate Energetic Creation of the exact life I have right now. There are circumstances that would, in the past, have caused me to have a total breakdown, triggered a manic episode, or caused fights or problems in my relationship, but I decide how to look at every circumstance so differently - they are all energetic patterns on a timeline and I am separate and have no energetic connection to them.
This doesn’t dismiss my responsibility or accountability in the world, it just gives me a bigger, more open lens, like a view from a drone rather than zooming in on problems.
It’s vice versa with the humans in my life - I want to zoom in on them and focus and be present and let everything else be blurry in the background.
I never know if they feel this. I can’t know. My mobility and energy is limited so much. Children express so well when they receive my energy, but I can sense their need for my physical interaction - something I’m not able to give. Time is also limited because of my physical limitations. It’s not understood. It’s not accepted. It’s not always believed. And I have wholly accepted this as my truth. I look fine. I act fine some days. My masking ability has been refined for years. It’s second nature. I couldn’t undo it if I tried. So I let them know once and if it’s understood, great, and if not, I have no control. Pain and lack of mobility are not something that ever go away for me. I can stand for a couple of minutes. I can walk for a few more. And that’s it. Sitting in a reclined position is my life. 24/7. I nap several times a day. If I do more than this, I sleep for hours and hours at a time to recover. Chronic illness is a weird animal but it’s not my animal to tame. I have taken every step possible - there is no cure there is no answer there is just living with it.
Trying makes it worse. Yes. Anything. Trying anything. So much worse.
All of us with chronic illness have tried. You don’t need to suggest. We’ve tried.
BEing is the relief.
How would you handle a major change, physically, in your life, if you had to slow way down? If most of your time had to be spent in your mind rather than moving your body and DOing, what would you change?
What about now - what opportunities, advantages, freedoms and privileges do you enjoy or do people often comment on? What are the biggest disadvantages - things you doubt anyone would want to steal from your life? If there was anything you would change, what would it be and why?
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