Sometimes the best we can do is just hang on. Instead of a beautiful even braid of intention and action, healing and boundaries what you get is a tangled ball of old behaviors and new, old boundaries and new which are so inextricably knotted it can seem impossible to separate them. What seemed clear before becomes full of questions and what had been a firm foundation becomes a mire we can’t seem to escape. Old issues resurface, feelings we thought were gone appear like whales from the deep. What was calm waters becomes a churn which threatens to wash away everything we have done and become.
Yet there are moments we can hang onto. Moments when we made a different choice, a new choice on how to respond that is more in keeping with who we are becoming. There are moments when the words slide off and become small with no edges. There are small islands where we can get a glimpse of how far we have come before we are plunged back into the fray. Through the cacophony we can hear the comments that say the others see it too and are uneasy or displeased. If we can just hang onto that moment we may get breathing room after everything is done to savor it.
It is easy to become the voices that surround us, taking on the roles of critic, abuser, dysfunctional authority. It is what we know. It is familiar like old worn in jeans. It takes courage to hang on. To hang on to the realization that this is not truly who we are. This is who they want us to be. It takes effort to add in a new voice, the voice that reminds us of health and happiness, of love and acceptance, of conversations what don’t cut, of relationships that aren’t a competition, of a life which isn’t about tearing others down, but of rising up. But once you do, you know you’ll be able to do it again. So hang on.