Thank you for the way you made me heal
I have a secret to tell you.
I am now a Swiftie.
If you would had told me a few months ago or even years ago that I would be where I am today with my love affair with Taylor Swift, I would have double-dog dared you to the ground. No freaking way did I ever anticipate becoming what the world calls her fan club…a Swiftie.
I am.
Her new album and lyrics have converted me.
I have come from that place that Swift speaks of…the quiet place where one smiles as she is being bullied and does the bigger appropriate thing in front of all the dissing in public. We think we are taking the high road. We believe our spiritual essence is above the discrimination of another human being on our character.
In a role reversal, it actually diminishes our light when we do not stand up and speak face to face with the hate being slung our way.
There is a good girl archetype that lives in each of us. We are taught to be a good human who cares so deeply about people who overlook their own emotional landscape and what the slinging warfare of words does to our spirit.
And it was always that same searing pain, but I dreamed that one day I could say
The moment the good girl rises to believe she is not above or below her own emotions and conjures satisfaction in her feeling nature is the moment she can alchemize her pain into potential. Our human potential is the foundation for our creative expression to flourish and find its way into the world.
All that time you were throwin’ punches, I was buildin’ somethin’
In the game of dodgeball, there are 2 ways to intentionally win the game. One is you focus on all the times the ball has come directly at you and you squatted or twisted in such a way that the direct fire turned into a misfire. The other way is to strategically stand still and believe that while a ball may hit you, you still win. Ha!! Because, actually you like the game of dodgeball and want to really play it. Most of us secretly want out of the game, we just cannot let anyone know at the time of the game. Your deep desire is always about building a foundation for something bigger and grander that can withstand the ebb and flow of life.
Thank you…Cause I can’t forget the way you made me heal.
Why are some paths or experiences more troublesome than others?
I guess that’s the big kahuman question of our time!
We are lonely and yet do not want to commit to that which may very well connect us. We are grieving the loss of a time in our lives when it was quieter and simpler (or maybe even more busy and complicated) yet hate to even consider that it might take a few moments to reinvent a new way.
Is it really that we love to suffer?
I don’t want to admit that. However lately I have watched my language and behaviors around my choices of what to say and what to do (and not say and not do). It’s not that I love to suffer.
It’s that I do not know how to live the life I envision.
Who knows how to live fully happy, satisfied, fulfilled, and peaceful? No one.
The trajectory of sadness and turmoil is that, in our human bodies, those elements are sustainable. Our bodies are wise and tough. They have handled, gotten through, and overcome lifetimes of war, violence, hatred, and sub-par environments. We have a history of story after story. And we can relate to these very action-packed ways of living.
It is, after all, how people came to be where they are today.
I can talk about how much more peaceful I am and satisfied I am since I was estranged from my family of origin. And you may become somewhat enlightened by my description of holidays being more fun and filled with laughter at no one’s expense. You may want to know how my children have become so much freer since the estrangement as they navigate a world they seek for themselves and are not filled with the expectations of others.
Just hearing my stories is not enough for you to feel a sense of empowerment so that you can make a decision that requires courage, bravery, and the dream to speak up. The only guidance that leads us back to a stronger sense of self is for you to acknowledge and get cozy with your pain from some earlier experiences. It is the only way to the other side of that pain where freedom and liberation reside.
That is why Taylor Swift’s new album cut to the core and cozied itself up to my heart. The lyrics in almost every song touch the pain in my heart and revolutionize the rise of my own passion to be a spoken one.
How can I creatively express my pain? How can I take my hurt that runs deep in my veins and alchemize that into purpose and value?
The advantage of a lived experience is that you lived it and to craft it into something meaningful means you must pack it into a backpack and travel with it to a new place.
Last weekend I walked the streets of a local neighborhood filled with history and tradition for the Italian way of life. I smelled my grandma in moments when she cooked favorites like spiedini, crème puffs, homemade noodles, crusty Italian bread, and chicken soup. I saw images in pictures of things I remembered from my childhood. I wanted a movie later about Italy and recalled phrases I heard her say to her sisters who were all 100% Italian. Speaking Italian and hearing Italian spoke to another awakens some part of me.
This is how we bring forth pain into purpose. We consciously decide what we will bring with us.
My husband and I talked about making homemade ravioli for Christmas. This way I get to bring a lived experience of when I was young and naïve, through the pain of an emotional upheaval from a father that left and a mother who is unavailable, to a shared experience of showing my children a part of my roots.
We share our stories because they are familiar. When we share our rootedness, we must accept all aspects of a lived experience. We do not get to be selective in our rootedness. Creative expression comes from a deeply spiritual root manifested from pain or the alchemy of pain. It is how we resurrect the intensity of living in a tumultuous moment of our lives.
Contrary to popular opinion, magic is not a matter of commanding the universe, but rather inviting it in.
-unknown
We don’t want anyone to know that in our artistic expression, or the unearthing of a poetic life, we have really invited pain to be our friend. A love affair where we tether up our human potential to that which speaks an ancient truth into our soul. And the form that comes alive is that which has been the most painful.
This is the journey of creative expression.
We are not all Swifties in that we are able to capture the magic of words to delineate a hurt into harmony with music. We want to join her journey as she cultivates a promise to herself that, while she experiences such hurt and emotional wounds, she will not repress that pain but make it into more of something truer. And in the process, she might even touch upon her true self which then awakens the soul.
You do not have to be a Swiftie or a fan of her music to choose this process.
Share your story through the lens of the emotional wound. Let that be the character that revolutionizes the circumference of truth and yields a new earth amongst us all.
thanK you aIMee,
cause I can’t forget the way you made me heal.