Friday, February 12, 2016

Reflections on the Value of Sharing Our Stories


 Breaking the Silence

We often grow up in families who adhere - to one degree or another - to the shame-based rules of don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. I also refer to this as shut up, shut down, shut out. Many of us also learn these rules in our culture. Which results in closing off big parts of ourselves to others. And also to often being strangers to our own depths, to our own hearts and genuine needs and authenticity. This is the fertile ground from which shame and addictions, anger and fear, untouched grief and unrecognized projections, and all the many faces of violence - subtle and overt - toward ourselves and others grow. 

And this is what I have been working to recognize and understand about myself and embrace and heal and transform for many years now. 

Speaking and sharing our stories breaks through the silence and the shame and the sense of separateness. And we come to grow, instead, in self-compassion, understanding, trust, acceptance, connection, courage, and love. And the protective walls we have built around our capacity for vulnerability, wholeness, tenderness, empathy, and the sweetness and beauty of our true nature gradually fall away. This is the journey of the blossoming of our hearts. 

May we each be increasingly mindful of our choices related to vulnerabilty. May we choose to share more of our deeper selves with wider circles of those who are also bravely intent on walking a path of lovingkindness and awakening heart. Our world inside and out will change and shift and deepen and evolve as we do. Bless us all. Life is often hard. And rich and beautiful. We need each other. We are truly all in this together.

Namaste ~ Molly

~♥~

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