Remembering Who We Are

remember: ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French remembrer, from late Latin rememorari ‘call to mind,’ from re- (expressing intensive force) + Latin memor ‘mindful.’

I recently came across the book title, Healing is Remembering Who You Are, and I like the title, if remembering who we are is being mindful that we are holy. But it also can be difficult, to say the least, to remember who we are if our memories are fraught with hurtful phrases and barely remembered sensations of not being worthy. Maybe healing is not remembering who we are, singularly, but remembering who we are, collectively. Remembering who we are in a space where someone else can see who we are. Activating our mirror neurons in a way that affirms our (and each others) wholeness and holiness.

Research shows that healing happens in relationship, in trusting, supportive and nonjudgmental relationship. How do we find this? I honestly have to say that I first and mostly found this in therapy. This is not to say that I didn’t have family and friends who have loved and cared about me. But it is to say, that how they were able to love and care about me was often suspect. Not out of malice, but out of their own not knowing, or not remembering. In therapy-speak, this has often been called “emotional abuse.” I’m trying to find words that aren’t so accusing, that are more accurate of not knowing. I don’t think someone wakes up in the morning and says, “I’m going to perpetrate emotional abuse on this person I’m in relationship with.” I believe its more an issue of that person, not remembering who they are. Too many of us have forgotten.

On the other hand, when the one who feels the “abuse” doesn’t have words for it, it is helpful to know, for instance, that the feelings you have when someone treats you less than honorable are actually accurate for the situation. So, how do we move away from blaming language into creating language that helps us remember who we are? Can we create safe ways to say things like:
“I don’t feel honored when you yell at me.”
“I feel invisible when you are in the room with me but not present for me.”
“I feel diminished when you don’t listen to me.”
“I feel unworthy when you compare me to someone else.”

So, because one of the few safe places I’ve ever known is a therapy room, how do I move on out into the larger room, (wherever I go, ideally) carrying and honoring my own sense of holiness? One of the ways to frame this is in the context of trust: how to trust others, when to trust others, and with what? And then there’s how to trust myself, and of course, how to trust the universe. If healing is remembering (being mindful of) who we are, how will I recognize myself? Some of these answers, I have found just emerge. It is a dance with the divine, some might say an answer to prayer. It is a remembering to do what we have the power to do and then resting back in letting the universe bring forth the energy we need. This energy may manifest in people or places, or even things.

Last spring, for Easter, I wanted to buy flowers for the table. I ended up buying potted yellow roses. Perfect. After a bit, I realized these roses were a small rose bush, and if transplanted just might keep living and blooming. I was happy that I’d bought something living, not cut flowers, something that might provide me with flowers for a while, for on my budget, flowers are an indulgence. Yet I’m also trying to live in abundance and trust, this balancing act of rejecting what most people around me believe about money and having enough, and well, quite literally trust. Trust that I can have joy.

As I accept more abundant living and as I’ve learned to be more trusting, I’ve been blessed with a friend who too believes in the abundant universe, who is rejecting the paradigms that we were born into. As I trust myself, I trust her wisdom also, and we are creating a bond of hopefulness and trust. She encourages me in my dreams and visions (as I do hers); and when I’m discouraged by other new therapists trying to start practices, she asks me questions like, “Why is it so hard for these therapists to be entrepreneurs?”

Just yesterday, I completed my graduate studies in Human Development. A huge milestone, but I also have to acknowledge that I’ve used my energy to master studies and achieve degrees, in a way to manage my creative energy, something I don’t want to do anymore. I want to use my energy to create more healing relationships through therapy and grow my business. To create abundance in my life. To do this I have to trust myself, the process and the universe. Trusting education systems seemed safe, and accepted. It was a framework for my energy. Now, as in the Human Development program, I have to create even the framework for my work as a therapist. It seems daunting, yet, as my oldest sister said, “You’ve taken steps, now you need to take a leap.” As in “Jump!”

Fall is nearly here, I’ve brought my rose bush inside by my small kitchen window. The leaves have been falling off of it, and I’ve scratched my hands on the thorns while watering it and taking the dead leaves off. This morning, however, there are several new buds, simply sprouted overnight. New life, ready to bloom into beautiful little yellow roses. Beautiful energy, emerging from dirt, sun, water. One accomplishment behind me; a new one just begun, beautiful energy emerging, ready to bloom.