I no longer have the extremely loud very domineering voices in my head telling me what a horrible person I am. Those voices no longer dominate my brain. I am happy with the choices I have made, I am happy with my life. I am happy with the woman I am becomming. I recognize that I still have flaws and that realization doesn't sink me into depression any longer. I own responsibility for the hurts that I cause and the deadlines I miss. But I suppose that as I sit down and think about it, it is true, I still don't truly love myself.
I have thought about hurt in the last few days. A few days ago I had a dream that a friend, I had let go, was trying to steal my soul. This friend was almost werewolf like (though not a werewolf), trying to claw my heart and steal the vital essence that makes me, me. This dream has made me think a lot about the demise of that relationship. And while complicated, it boils down to the fact that I had hurt my friend, and I had continued hurting him even as I was finding myself and learning to love me.
I have really been struggling with the idea that as I was really learning to be okay with me, I still continued to hurt my friend pretty much constantly. To be fair, a large portion of that was not my fault, and I do not take the blame for his part in his own pain, but some of it was my fault. I still held on to the idea that my friend would see this new and improved me as a positive thing, and when his anger, hurt and pain lashed out at me, it made me question everything I had been working on. And I would hurt him back.
I was, and in a way I still am trying to find my footing in this world that I am creating for myself. A world where I don't need half-assed projects and time fillers to be happy. I am still working on figuring out those next steps and in part even the destination that I am working toward. And I suppose that I still wanted approval, acknowledgment and recognition that I was doing the right thing. I felt like I was being attacked, judged and criticized and so I reacted. Instead of responding in comfort to my choices, I had let his opinion of me cloud my own knowledge of self. If I truly loved myself, his opinion of me wouldn't have mattered.
I am still working on the loving myself part, and so in the process will probably hurt those that I love and even some I don't love. It is not intentional. I do not mean to cause others pain. But I think I get what the Buddha is trying to say (at least for me at this moment)...When I truly love myself, it means I will be comfortable with who I am. When I truly love myself, others opinions of me won't matter because I will be confident in me. I will not need someone else to validate me. And truth be told, it is only at the point where I do not need outside validation that I can truly love everyone unconditionally. I could not cause pain to others because there would be no anger, no expectation and no hurt in me, there would be nothing that would cause me to "react" rather than respond.
I know that I still have a long way to go, but I can look back and see just how far I have already come.
To those I have hurt, I am sorry. I have no excuses and my reasons are my own to work through, but I am sorry that I hurt you. To those I will still hurt, I am sorry for that too. I will do my best to not let anger and expectation cloud my emotions, but it is not such an easy thing to do.
I am on the road to healing, but there is only so much I can do. :)
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