Untangling the tangled

BY TRISHA SMITH

In my previous article I wrote about the importance of keeping your mental house happy. It’s hard to do that though, when so many people have wronged you or you find yourself taking one step forward and two steps back in life. All this manifestation talk out there can stress the need to think positive, teaching you to focus on what you want in order to draw it closer to you. One would argue, how you can do that when everything in your life is going wrong.  Do you sweep your anger or sadness under the rug and play happy? Force your mind to say affirmations that you truly don’t believe because your life is in shambles? This is even more difficult for some born in the Caribbean where you are surrounded by struggle and poverty.

So where do we begin? People love to tell others what to do but fail to show you how to do it.

Instead of forcing yourself to be happy, let’s take a step back and start with the first step to creating a life that feels good on the inside.

My healing journey was and still is an ever-unfolding one. None of it could be remotely possible if I didn’t do this one thing first. Take responsibility for my life and all the experiences I’ve had that lead me up to this point.

For a good chunk of my life, I finger-pointed and blamed everyone and everything for all that had gone wrong.  I was never to blame, only the people who betrayed, used and abused me.

Have you ever stopped to think about what all those experiences have in common? The common denominator is you. I get it, nobody sets themselves up to get hurt, but when it happens it’s usually because we’ve ignored the red flags or our own intuition. Pain can also happen simply because it needs to in order for us to grow.

If we focus on the pain and the person who caused it, we miss the lesson. We victimize ourselves and allow the experience to become our story. We don’t trust anybody anymore because of them. We won’t open our hearts to love because of them. We will never do favours for anybody anymore because of them and the list goes on.

My question to you is why does that person who hurt you have so much power in your life? Their actions have caused you to shut down and close yourself off from the world and the people in it. Their ability to shift your quality of life is the power that you have given them.

The only way to take back that power is by taking responsibility for the role you played in that said experience.

My path to untangling my tangled heart and emotions started with journaling. As I wrote about my deep-seated trauma and those in my life whom I despised at the time, I searched the experiences and found the hand I played in its unfolding. After writing it out I would then write “I take responsibility for the role I played in this, I will no longer blame, I will heal the parts of me that allowed it to happen so it never will again”.

In doing this I was able to identify my weaknesses and understand why I was such an easy target for the predators I was once victim to.

Don’t get me wrong, the other party is not home free, but that is their karma, it is not yours to worry about.

Today I want you to take up the mantle of your life, no matter how heavy or painful it is. Take an introspective look within and see what life was trying to teach you. This is not a time to be hard on yourself, to blame or judge yourself, it’s time to be honest with yourself. Hold yourself accountable.

Take the time to journal, to speak with a trusted mentor, counsellor or spiritual advisor. When you speak of your problems often, your mind ceases to be at rest, but when you speak of your problems with a solution near, your heart becomes at ease, and you are one step closer to inner peace.

One shift in the way you look at things can change your life forever.