John Vance Cheney said, “My soul would have no rainbows if my eyes did not have any tears.” I read it somewhere, and noted in my mental diary forever. Just like me, many of you might have read such inspirational quotes. You might have used them when you were distressed, sad or broken. The idea behind all the inspirational quotes is to not just recognize moments or events in your life, but to recognize yourself. Yes, RECOGNIZE yourself and REALIZE your roles.
Muddling through many inner conflicts, having experienced years of domestic violence and child abuse, by the time I was around 15, 16 years old, I was filled with a lot of anger and resentment, and was about to crash. I was living in a world of chaos. There was no meaning to my existence. The oppressiveness in my parents’ home was suffocating me. They did not trust me and I did not trust them.
My test scores were always low and my parents often called me “dumb, duffer, and muddle head.” I was spanked and scolded at home every day. Slapping or cursing me was a typical action that my mother did almost daily; though, she used to claim that she loved me a lot. I used to feel like an orphaned child and this feeling was overwhelmingly devastating. I tried to pull through my depression but my parents’ constant hate words, and that entire dysfunctional set up threw me back failing me and destroying me. During those years, I had attempted suicide twice. I had seen myself alienated from my parents. I was driven to the brink of quitting life when an uncle, who lived in our neighbourhood, molested me and my father did not stand up for me. This was too embarrassing and shocking for me to accept.
I was also manipulated and used by my boyfriend when I was 20 years old. I attempted suicide again; at that time, I was not killing my body, but I was killing my soul. People say that their circumstances marred their souls, but I would say that not just circumstances, but I myself was contributing toward marring my soul. In short, I was all consumed in chronic depression and was on the path of self-harm. My chronic depression was not just a result of some chemical imbalance in my brain; it was a combination of a series of miserable feelings that had been depositing in my mind over all those years while I was facing dejection, distrust and full-blown depressive episodes since my childhood. The despair seemed unending. There was no one to befriend me and my parents, as usual, were too busy in their own fights to notice me. I was oversleeping, I was missing out my meals, I had left my job and there seemed no sense as to why and for whom I even existed in this world.
Now, I am 37 years old and I look back and ask myself, “Why was I doing so? Why was I letting depression engulf me? Why was I contributing towards damaging myself when my boyfriend ditched me?” The answer is that I lacked integrity then; there was no backup support for me. And, it took me a good amount of time to learn to love myself, respect and TRUST myself. That was my terrible past. It took me quite some time to regain myself, but I did it.
Recently, I was going through disappointment in love. This love was the only emotional anchor left in my life; losing love now was like losing my life. Once again, there was lot of anguish, lots of tears and for some time. The clocks had frozen, time had halted and I had started feeling dead again. It was as if, I was not living a life, but a nightmare. My whole aura had become so negative that I felt as if I was losing myself. The parting away from someone whom I really loved was draining my all energies. But how could I bury myself while I was still alive and I had a serious role to take care of, the role of a mother. So, after shedding tears on the most recent loss, I sat alone, walked alone, played some games on my phone, looked myself in the mirror many times, cried many times, and, then, I wiped away those tears.
I decided to LET it GO. Yes, Let Go of the negative situation, the negative feelings, the negative you. I realized that bringing back myself as a New Person can be an amazing job. I could have kept a fair collection of bad memories, I could have clung to them, crying and weeping endlessly, but I asked myself, “Is this fun? Is that what I want from my life? Am I not wasting myself? Am I not hurting my son by displaying my weaknesses?”
The monologues kept occurring in my mind. Those inspirational quotes that I had pasted on my mind, were bringing me back to myself. It was homecoming to my heart as I knew that I ought to rise above the disappointment. I accept that I am very hurt and upset about things that have happened recently, but I decided that I am not going to feel anymore trauma. I will not allow this bad situation to become traumatic for me. I can love myself truly and unconditionally, and that is sufficient. The rebuilding inside me started happening very fast because I was sure that I didn’t want to become toxic to myself as I had done in my 20s. Departing from those gloomy moments, the numbness and that silent, but screaming lonely me, I was coming home to my own heart; eliminating the fears and rejoicing with the rhythm and my beliefs. That is why I proudly call myself a VICTOR. I know that I cannot erase the past or forget it; I also know that I cannot change or control the other person’s behaviour or emotions toward me. All I can do is let go my anger and pain, and move on to a better place, and that is my own heart.
To be a VICTOR, we need to learn to preserve ourselves so that rebuilding our life after a breakdown does not become an impossible challenge. To preserve ourselves, we must learn to LET GO of anger, angst, depression and all those heavy emotions. One of the hardest, thorniest and most difficult things we humans are ever called upon to do is to respond to rudeness with kindness, and to forgive the unforgivable. We love to read stories about people who have responded to hatred with love, but when that very thing is demanded of us personally, our default seems to be anger, angst, depression, righteousness, hatred, etc. Yet study after study shows that one of the keys to good health is to develop a habit of gratitude and let go of past hurts. You are the one with the ability to move forward into the life you deserve and the life that you want. DO NOT be HELD DOWN by the CHAINS of depression and the WEIGHT of your PAST, you NEED to LET GO all that. When this weight is off your shoulders, you will find that you can run faster toward your goals than ever before.
I have learned that I have a choice; the choice to live as a VICTOR or a VICTIM. I learned to RISE ABOVE the suffering. Forgiveness allowed me to move on towards a better understanding of the setbacks that came in my life. Forgiveness knows that love and humbleness is the answer to all the questions. For my wellbeing, I must let go the toxic emotions from my body and soul, and supply myself with the best of my emotions. If I hold something unforgiving inside me, I will be nurturing anger, hatred, resentment or maybe even guilt. These emotions will keep me locked into the moment, and I will be continually reliving the distressing events. Consequently, all that will consume my mental and life energy. I learned that bitterness and sadness are like cancer and they can keep growing until they consume the person. So, we must embrace friendliness and contentment, spread smiles and positivity, and make things better, if not best.
