The other day, after dropping a truth bomb on Kev,
I smiled wryly and followed it with, “I’m sorry…but not really.”
Here’s what’s happening ~
Having turned 60 this year, I’ve grown into a season of self-allowing where I can’t suppress my feelings even when a part of me still pulls toward “keeping the peace.”
In speaking that truth to my husband, I felt something was different. My inner voice was aligned with my outer voice.
And I believe I heard some cosmic clapping from the corners of the cosmos.
No more turning a phrase in my head a thousand times to “get it just right” so no one gets mad or hurt. That was my own fear talking.
No more swallowing my feelings to ostensibly play nice, choosing compromise over risk of abandonment.
I think it might have crept up on me, this aligning with myself.
Formerly, I was the champ of self-abandonment. Whatever you needed, I’d try to provide, no matter the cost to my head or heart or soul. I was a pretzel, twisting myself up in all sorts of directions. “Keeping the peace” was a common phrase around my childhood home. I learned to defer a request, do without, not stir up trouble.
In other words, I learned to deny my truth.
My body became inflamed with the inner war I was waging to avoid being hurt or punished or disappointing.
No wonder I got so sick.
When life-as-I-knew-it ended due to my illness, I called a truce with myself. Having no choice but to attend to the parts of me I had exiled, I began a journey of self-compassion that signaled to my most fearsome parts that I “had my own back.”
As the pressure of self-denial began easing, I set about speaking my truth to those I had tiptoed around before. I wrote honest letters, met people in diners, spoke to the departed in the sky. In telling the truth, I found my way back to myself in a space of radical trust and allowing.
Now I am choosing peace over appeasement.
But that doesn’t mean I bulldoze all over the people in my life.
I’ve discovered a third way: creating and tending spaces where truth can be told gently and received with dignity. I don’t have to erase myself in order to be with you.
At the beginning of this letter, I chalked up my new inner/outer alignment to my age, but it isn’t just a number. It’s years of longing and a deep desire to do good in this world. I cannot offer you a space of safety if I can’t create one within myself.
Ending the separation between the voice inside and the voice outside…that’s where peace lives.
I’ll meet you there, in a space of allowing.
Warm hugs and peace,
Nancy
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