Mucking about...

Transformation  --  Copyright 2011, Caris Cerdwyn, All Rights Reserved

Last night I listened to Oprah's life class, and this morning went to see my therapist.  Talk about an AHA moment!  Let me tell you all about it.

So the conversation last night was about ego.  And I'm struggling about whether or not to keep a motor scooter that I got, so I'd have some transportation that isn't so hard on gas and the environment.  So it's brand new and I had been out on it a few times, but then one afternoon I went to start it and it wouldn't start.  The engine made noise, but it wouldn't start.  I read the book about the scooter, and tried the things it suggested, but nothing happened.  So that was it.  I decided I didn't want one more hard thing in my life, this wasn't supposed to be hard.  And I decided that perhaps the motor scooter was somehow connected with my ego. 

In talking with my therapist this morning, something connected.  I realized that NOT keeping the motor scooter was connected with my ego.  I've got this self sacrifice thing down pat.  But beyond that, someone came very close to drowning me when I was 4 or 5.  And I struggled.  But he was stronger than I was.  And so I just "surrendered."  Oprah had talked about "surrendering" before, but I have always had trouble with that word.  That near drowning incident is the reason why.  After fighting and fighting to get away and get back to air, I finally gave in, knew I would die, and I let go.  I think I may have even died at that point for a moment or two, before he brought me back.  And then it felt as though he had the power of life and death over me.  And it was useless to fight. 

So as I'm talking about my motor scooter I remembered that as a youngster I had this dream of riding a motor cycle across the country, but of course now I'm 51 with several health issues and so it wouldn't be wise.  But this little 50cc motor scooter doesn't go over 30 miles an hour and it really would be helpful to have something to go to the grocery store on and such when I go south in my RV.  But maybe I'm just "supposed" to have a bike or walk.  But neither decision seems to give me any peace.  And then I'm crying, thinking about that old dream of mine, and that this little scooter is a piece of that old dream.  It makes me happy.  And it's not my ego at all that wants to keep it.  It's my ego that tells me that nothing ever works out for me.  That I'm not allowed any happiness.  And that is the lie.  The great deception that my ego has got my brain running on.  Owning the scooter isn't the issue.  I always hold lightly to things.  But the issue is the much deeper issue of allowing myself to be happy.

And then LC, my therapist says that he's thinking a rather "head shrinkerish" thing.  And I tell him to go ahead and tell me what he's thinking.  And he says he wonders if perhaps I can't allow myself happiness because that would somehow say that the abuse wasn't as terrible as it was.  That it would be dismissive, and that I was saying to the abusers it was ok that they abused me.  The damn sort of burst then.  It seems so obvious now as I look at it...all my dreams that have "almost" come true, but I wouldn't allow myself to experience what it would feel like to allow them fully into my life. 

It's okay to be happy.  It's ok.  And it doesn't devalue the suffering.  I'm not betraying the younger me.  In fact, allowing that happiness in is honoring her in a big way. 

Thank you God.  Thank you LC.  Thank you Oprah.  And thank you Caris...this is a new place to put up my tent and rest a while.  Or my RV in this case!

Blessings to you, and many AHAs!!!!