I'm back! Yay commitment!
My thoughts today revolve around the fact that personally, I cannot separate my healing process from my artistic process. One does not exist without the other. One informs the other and vice versa. Time I spend giving space, figuring out, and prioritizing healing is very much linked to the direction and shape my creation takes. Yes, sometimes there is healing simply for healing's sake. Sometimes there is creative expression simply for creative expression's sake. But I am also not going to feel like I have 'wasted time' or derailed myself from art/creation focused time because I chose to work on healing. For me, healing inspires creation and creation inspires healing.
I gave myself a chunk of time today to work through, or just be with, intense feelings of betrayal. These feelings have been coming up for a while, and a lot of it is related to trauma older than me that I carry in my body.
I went outside and found four rocks to help me hold this space. I lit a white candle for peace. I burnt some incense to open myself up to the spirit world. I did a meditation where I asked the sun to form a protective glowing shield around my body (something I learned from nisha ahuja - important to cultivate protection when you are opening doors to spirits and ancestors). I placed the four rocks around the four corners of my bed. I wrote a few words about betrayal that I cannot reconcile. I laid in my bed and I effing cried like a baby. a scary, monster baby.
The thoughts that I usually push away because they're too much to deal with - I let them come. I let myself make ugly cry sounds. (crying into a pillow can help with not wanting to freak out your neighbours ;) I let myself scream and shake. My cats were a little worried, but they held down the space with me!
When I felt done, I ate some strawberries to ask for sweetness to fill me up in the places where betrayal was leaving. I went outside with the rocks and a strawberry and I sat in the park behind my apartment. I imagined the betrayal as a colour (it came to me like this sticky, black tar kinda substance) and I imagined it leaving my body and sinking into the earth where it will be transformed into something beautiful.
I spoke out loud, "I forgive everyone." I named every person I could think of who i have felt betrayed by and I spoke out loud that I forgive them. I have never done that before. At certain times I didn't have it in me to forgive, because it meant I was accepting injustice. I think this is important. And I would never tell someone that they need to forgive an act of injustice.
But for myself, in this moment, I need to forgive everyone because I know I need forgiveness more than anything else. I know I'll always need it. I need to know that when I make mistakes, I will still be loved. Even if I make many, many mistakes, I need to know that I will be forgiven. That I will learn. That I will change. I forgive everyone because I need to be free of what betrayal is doing to my body and spirit. I forgive so that I can be stronger and grounded in love, compassion and yes, justice.
I thanked the rocks for helping me to hold these feelings and this space. I left them under a tree with a strawberry, an offering of sweetness to spirits and ancestors who were with me. When doing this kind of healing work, it's very important to close doors that you open; to finish rituals so that you're not carrying around that unfinished energy. When I came back home I smudged myself and my bed with sage, with the intention that the work was done for the day.
Taking the time to heal and "meet yourself" in many layers is important if you want to dive deep into character development or performance work. It can give you the space to be aware of who you are in the depths of different kinds of emotions - so that you can be in control of accessing those emotions when you choose to on stage, or in a character.
The Erasable Woman and the Woman with the Machete are both women in me, and I have lived as both of these women. The Erasable Woman is the part of me whose heart is big enough to give and sacrifice herself for a partner who won't stop hitting her. The Woman with the Machete is the part of me who will kill a man for hurting her family, with a weapon she made with her own bare hands. One woman is begging you not to leave her. The other is kicking you in the face. The thing is, these two women, one never shows up without the other. And they're always around, together, when I feel betrayed.
My thoughts today revolve around the fact that personally, I cannot separate my healing process from my artistic process. One does not exist without the other. One informs the other and vice versa. Time I spend giving space, figuring out, and prioritizing healing is very much linked to the direction and shape my creation takes. Yes, sometimes there is healing simply for healing's sake. Sometimes there is creative expression simply for creative expression's sake. But I am also not going to feel like I have 'wasted time' or derailed myself from art/creation focused time because I chose to work on healing. For me, healing inspires creation and creation inspires healing.
I gave myself a chunk of time today to work through, or just be with, intense feelings of betrayal. These feelings have been coming up for a while, and a lot of it is related to trauma older than me that I carry in my body.
I went outside and found four rocks to help me hold this space. I lit a white candle for peace. I burnt some incense to open myself up to the spirit world. I did a meditation where I asked the sun to form a protective glowing shield around my body (something I learned from nisha ahuja - important to cultivate protection when you are opening doors to spirits and ancestors). I placed the four rocks around the four corners of my bed. I wrote a few words about betrayal that I cannot reconcile. I laid in my bed and I effing cried like a baby. a scary, monster baby.
The thoughts that I usually push away because they're too much to deal with - I let them come. I let myself make ugly cry sounds. (crying into a pillow can help with not wanting to freak out your neighbours ;) I let myself scream and shake. My cats were a little worried, but they held down the space with me!
When I felt done, I ate some strawberries to ask for sweetness to fill me up in the places where betrayal was leaving. I went outside with the rocks and a strawberry and I sat in the park behind my apartment. I imagined the betrayal as a colour (it came to me like this sticky, black tar kinda substance) and I imagined it leaving my body and sinking into the earth where it will be transformed into something beautiful.
I spoke out loud, "I forgive everyone." I named every person I could think of who i have felt betrayed by and I spoke out loud that I forgive them. I have never done that before. At certain times I didn't have it in me to forgive, because it meant I was accepting injustice. I think this is important. And I would never tell someone that they need to forgive an act of injustice.
But for myself, in this moment, I need to forgive everyone because I know I need forgiveness more than anything else. I know I'll always need it. I need to know that when I make mistakes, I will still be loved. Even if I make many, many mistakes, I need to know that I will be forgiven. That I will learn. That I will change. I forgive everyone because I need to be free of what betrayal is doing to my body and spirit. I forgive so that I can be stronger and grounded in love, compassion and yes, justice.
I thanked the rocks for helping me to hold these feelings and this space. I left them under a tree with a strawberry, an offering of sweetness to spirits and ancestors who were with me. When doing this kind of healing work, it's very important to close doors that you open; to finish rituals so that you're not carrying around that unfinished energy. When I came back home I smudged myself and my bed with sage, with the intention that the work was done for the day.
Taking the time to heal and "meet yourself" in many layers is important if you want to dive deep into character development or performance work. It can give you the space to be aware of who you are in the depths of different kinds of emotions - so that you can be in control of accessing those emotions when you choose to on stage, or in a character.
The Erasable Woman and the Woman with the Machete are both women in me, and I have lived as both of these women. The Erasable Woman is the part of me whose heart is big enough to give and sacrifice herself for a partner who won't stop hitting her. The Woman with the Machete is the part of me who will kill a man for hurting her family, with a weapon she made with her own bare hands. One woman is begging you not to leave her. The other is kicking you in the face. The thing is, these two women, one never shows up without the other. And they're always around, together, when I feel betrayed.