when the past meets the now

I have been working hard through something that I was up against in the past month or so.

One of the things that my therapist said to me today during my deep emotions was “you need to place the anger and the hurt at the feet of the person who made you feel this way”

I had a major anxiety attack for the first time in 10 years last night. It was truly scary and brought me back to the child who suffered inner anxiety on a daily basis.

It wasn’t only scary for me, it was scary for my husband who thought was going to have to call 911 because I have an underlying heart condition, and we couldn’t tell if it was my heart or anxiety – it was anxiety.

When the past meets the now, it brings me back to all the familiar feelings. The child like feelings deep inside. The fear, the survival mode, the protection, the child like actions and complete feelings like I need to hide – but yet, I am the 40 year old woman who also knows the side to healing; the healing in the know where the past is a memory.

It’s not easy being in a place where you feel completely empowered at one moment in your healing, to feeling completely back to the past the next.

I am frustrated, and confused. I am confused on what to do, and how to move out of this – but the one thing I am focusing on is the connection to all those around me.

I took some deep breaths tonight, I sat in my bed, and thought to myself “I am in the now, and right now I am a wonderful woman who is capable of so much more than how this person made me feel in the past month.

I am so much more empowered than the fear and the hurt it caused me. I am the woman who has been strong and healing for 5 years along side someone I have trusted completely with my story, and tonight I have come to realize – nothing has changed.

One of the things that I love that my therapist Andy says all the time is “what options do we have in “THS” moment to have power over what is going on?”. “What choices do we have to change this in OUR work?” “What do “WE” have control over?”

I have the control to know the difference between my past and the now. I have the control to trust the same support that has been working along side of me for 5 years no matter if it was distorted. I have the power to take that distortion and make it restored from the trust I learned to accept. I have the power to be empowered over this. I have the power to turn around and push the past back once again where it belongs.

The anger, the distortion, the fear, the sadness all belongs at the feet of the person who made me feel this way. This is NOT mine to hold.

What IS mine to hold is what I know, and what I know is that “I am a good person, I deserving of connection and support, I am capable of healing and finding me. I am a person who enjoys healing and doing empowered things in my healing. I am a person who has the best support system she could ever ask for, and that is including GOD.

I did not ask for this – and with that I am going to stand and say NO! I am here in the now, and I am on my path to healing; along side people who hold me up and walk with me towards the path that lights the way – THAT is what I do know – THAT is what I have control over in the now.