Weapons of Mass Destruction — or Creation?

 

Don’t you just hate it when you’re sailing along feeling like you are quite healed and enlightened when an event or words suddenly occur and you find yourself in extreme reaction? It feels like a Weapon of Mass Destruction has descended on your calm and peaceful existence.

Well, that’s how I felt recently when someone shared with me a person’s negative comments about me and the message of my book. I immediately went into total reaction, appearing to be the most unaware person on the planet — I felt devastated, hurt, extreme anger poured through my body.

Of course then I added anger thoughts towards myself – I should be able to be above all this reacting. You’ve done all this healing work on yourself — you even wrote a book about it. What does this say about “the work?”

Actually, it says a lot, and that is why I am sharing my unenlightened moment with you. It provided me the opportunity to turn around and look into the mirror. I wrote an entire chapter in “Who’s Pulling My Strings” about The Truth in the Mirror, the gift of criticism. And this particular event was a huge gift as it had hit my Achilles heel.

My reaction showed me  that once again I was hoping for approval from an outside source, approval that I obviously wasn’t giving to myself. I made their disapproval mean something about me. The truth is what someone else says about me is irrelevant. What is relevant is my reaction — the story I tell myself about it. It was my problem, and only my problem.

Then I took it a step further and was incensed that they could look at life so differently from me. I was the unaccepting one here. Believe me, when you are able to look in the mirror with honesty, the gifts and opportunities to heal are rich.

The good news with doing healing work on yourself is that it comes with heightened awareness that you are actually the creator not the victim. And, when events happen or words are said, instead of carrying a grudge for months or even years, you are able, if you choose, to turn around, look into the mirror and glean the gifts quickly.

I wish I could tell you that once you heal and release something you’ll never feel that pain again. Haven’t we all had the opportunity to revisit many times issues we thought we’d healed? Here’s what I know for sure – we are all humans, sensitive and vulnerable — we have feelings. We have great need to be gentle with ourselves. Our deep wounds have many layers. They can be triggered and activated — often in the most unexpected moments.

And, herein lies the gift — each time an old wound is activated and we react, it is an opportunity to go deeper, to excavate and release. When we do this and heal more unhealed areas within us, we are then able to be accepting, to love more, to love deeper.

Perhaps the truth is – these healing opportunities are Weapons of Mass Creation.

2 Comments

  1. Mike Race on December 11, 2017 at 10:59 am

    Love your way of handling life’s hateful road bumps! A positive inter view of ones self can work miracles! Thanks for sharing!

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