Rise From Your Ashes, Snow!

I recently discussed my blog with someone going through a difficult time in their life – my last post, more specifically.

This person has been dealing with issues regarding their ex-spouse, issues which would make one think the ex has Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  NPD is nothing to laugh at.  It’s a problem that once you see it in one person you can’t unsee it, and you’re then a radar for others with the disorder.  You can spot it within minutes to hours of speaking with the person.

The soul that I was speaking with regarding my blog brought up the issue of past hurts.  They said to me, “I wake up everyday thinking…KNOWING…I will be messed up for the rest of my life all because of ‘what (insert spouse’s name here) did.  Despite therapy and knowing the truth about things, what “he/she” did to me cannot be undone.  The scars will always be there.”

Yeah, we feel that way sometimes. A person we trusted with our heart and soul betrayed us in unspeakable ways.  Maybe the person isn’t a spouse.  Maybe it’s a parent.  Maybe it’s a sibling or a best friend.  Either way, we feel damaged and that damage cannot be undone.  It really can’t.  The past cannot be changed.

I feel for the person, I do.  There have been hurts happen in the not so distant past in my life that were a bloody shock to my whole being.  A shock that would change my whole perspective on my life growing up.  Never in a million years did I think I would be betrayed by a person I’ve known and trusted my whole life.  I struggle with my own demons everyday regarding this.

It changes a person, deeply.  It has the ability to darken the brightest of souls, ripping off those rose-colored glasses many empaths and optimists wear.  It has the ability to harden a heart that was born soft and gentle.

But there is the key word – “ability”.

Life is a series of choices.  We can choose to let the ability of something change our whole being, or we can grow from it.  Our choice is what makes us, and ultimately is our responsibility.  If we choose to allow something to take hold of us, it’s our own doing.  “What he did”, “what she said”, “what the hurricane did to the city”, it is what it is.

I love that saying, “it is what it is.”   It is!  Really!  🙂

We can’t change it.  And it’s neither good nor bad because it just “is”.  “Good and bad” are our perspectives.  So the responsibility falls on us, how we take this new information and use it.

Are we going to let it change who we are?   Are we going to choose to be damaged goods?  Or are we going to learn from it?

Choose.

Were you a person born with a soul so pure it believed in the good in everyone?  Were you a positive being of light that radiated for all to see?  I can bet you were.  And you still are.  If you don’t think you are, I assure you, you CAN be.

Let me side track here.  I enjoy watching ABC’s Once Upon a Time.  I got hooked when the whole “Frozen” storyline came about.  Yes, I’m a fan of “Frozen”.  I’m a kid at heart and Anna is the princess I best relate to, so how could I not watch a show that extended that story?  😉  But from that one story, I became enchanted with the other characters.  Fairy tale characters trapped in the so-called “real world” bringing their issues with them.

In a fairly recent episode (about a month or so ago, an episode that helped inspire the “My Best Me Challenge”), Mary Margaret – the character who is “really” Snow White – comes to the realization that she “lost” herself in the everyday negative happenings of her current life in Storybrook.  She steered away from the fire within that made her a warrior and a hero and became the victim, the damsel in distress we normally think of when we hear the name Snow White.  Things happened to her and she allowed the events to override “who she was” essentially.  Her a-ha moment gave her the deep yearning to re-member who she was and therefore vowed to bring back “Snow White”, the hero, the warrior, the one who stood up for right, love, light and hope.

Was she scarred from her past?  Probably.

But she closed her eyes, shook her head and came to the realization that she is NOT a victim, she still is that hero.  The only thing that had changed was how she allowed the events to change her.  But then, she never really did change, as Snow White was always there, within.  She is not damaged goods!

And that is where I connect it to the idea around this blog. 🙂

We may have had things happen to us and it’s unfortunate…or is it?  Was it meant to develop who we truly are?

We are NOT damaged goods!

What if we stopped pointing the finger at the person/event that “did this to us”?   Is it going to kill us?  Probably not.

Instead, let’s look inward at who we really are.  Who we were before “it” happened?  Chances are, that undamaged soul is still there and has actually been sitting there waiting to be released, to bloom from what we learned – rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the fire that killed it in the first place.  And really, that phoenix self-combusted, didn’t it?  Rise from your own ashes.

Don’t think I’m lecturing you about this.  Like I said, this challenge is for me, and it’s your choice to join me as you please.  But I do invite you.  These reflections everyday are things I think about and sometimes I follow the ideas.  And sometimes I’m weak, and I don’t.  But the challenge is for me to have more moments where I follow the path Spirit is leading me.  At least I hope so!  😉  I hope to be as heroic as Snow White in Once Upon a Time.  The character is a great role model for anyone with struggles.

My response to the person I spoke about at the beginning of today’s blog was a shortened version of the rest of it. 😉  “You’re right.  You can’t undo what has been done.  But it’s your choice to see what has developed within you from that.  There is something different and better for you to discover within yourself to display to the world.  This didn’t happen by accident.  You were meant to shine from this experience.”

And so, I need to take my own advice, ponder what I’ve written and let’s see what kind of “My Best Me” can come about.

Love & Light!