i trust myself

October 2016,

At a ‘Healing Retreat’, one of the participants says: “I trust myself” and I burst into tears. Three simple words. I think about them everyday and sometimes like that day, I hurt.

I have always had ‘trust issues’. You can’t trust anyone. Its a lesson I am taught through pain and at perhaps too young an age. Though, I consider myself irrevocably soft. When it comes to trust, while that’s one of the harder parts of my heart.

“I trust myself” It wasn’t until I heard those words that I realised, I did not even trust  myself. An epiphany. I did not trust others because they hurt me, but over time, I had eternalised all that and I had and do hurt myself.

and I hurt myself, so that it doesn’t hurt when others do it

and when it does,

I punish myself for nearly completing the trust fall.

and when I am numb,

I harm myself to feel.

and sometimes I harm myself,

because I am afraid

of me

and you cannot trust those you fear.

 

I have been slowly grappling with that for nearly two years now: how to trust myself. So today, I wrote myself a recipe:

I am going to heal the self-inflicted wounds

take deep breaths

do the things that set my soul on fire

follow my instincts

and I will not berate or punish myself when those instincts occasionally fail me

I will continue to dig deeper into myself

I will love myself

I will live creatively

and on the numb days, the tenebrous days- I will write- for my pen is my light.

on the light days- I will write still

and every day, every day, I will think on those words-I trust myself-  they will become mantra, practice and belief.

I trust myself

 

 

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