In any life situation or relationship there are always lights, darks, and shades of grey. While attracted we focus on the lights, the positives, and this creates space for certain aspects of ourselves to come into play. Other aspects of ourself may be held back, perhaps because we find them dark, or someone else does, or might; or perhaps to keep from calling up darker aspects of others. We tailor ourselves, consciously and unconsciously to a given situation. Often after a while these aspects become restless enough to want freedom and space. Other times aspects of the situation shift or change, increasing our sense of limitation. Experiencing things from a different point of view, looking to find room for aspects of ourselves that don’t have space, we feel a need to leave or break away. We are in transition.
Things that we like or love have a relatively large emotional charge drawing us to them. When a life situation changes so that we must let go of something that we have been attached to we need to deal with this emotional charge. It is hard to walk away from something that still has a positive charge on it, so we tend to shift the charge to the negative. We go from a rosey view to a dark one. Since people and situations are inherently shades of grey, this is not to hard to do. If we have to we can even create new stories that we project onto people or situations to call up the required negative emotions.
To emotionally deal with transitions we often need to over-swing neutrality. But if in steeping forward we paint black everything that is behind, we may catch the aspects of ourself as well, the parts that had space and were engaged. Those aspects that are now associated in emotional memory with the person or situation we are trying to leave behind, will be discarded or given up.
This may cause us to become stuck, oscillating between stepping forward to reclaim parts of ourselves that have been dormant or suppressed, and being drawn back into the old situation in reluctance to leave behind aspects that we had space for there.
If this struggle is strong enough we may have to increase the rejection of the old to break free into the new. This is really a battle weighing aspects of yourself, which often results in an exchange of injuries rather than a new wholeness. This is where the real fierceness comes from, not from losing something outside of ourselves, but in losing the aspects of ourselves that were given space by that person or situation. It will be challenging, but an effort to own the aspects of yourself that were alive and engaged, independently of external circumstances, will help resolve this struggle. You can then walk forward in wholeness, rather than trading one limitation for another.
This is why self-forgiveness is so important. Until we can own the aspects of ourselves which co-created and engaged in a relationship, family, job, or stage of life, we are internally torn and held back from walking forward in wholeness. If in transition we can let go of the external attachments while owning all of ourselves, there is an opportunity to become more complete, to reclaim the parts that were in separation, while honoring and including that parts that were present. From this internal completeness it is easier to let go, move on, and you will be more able to co-create new relationships and situations that have space for that completeness.
(© 1/2012)
