"This, Too, Shall Pass"

I feel like I have been beaten with a two by four. My muscles are aching so profoundly that I find myself not breathing deeply. I feel like I have the flu. The exhaustion is overwhelming. There are new aches and pains in my body that I have not previously experienced. I hurt. I hurt physically. I hurt spiritually.

Fibromyalgia.

I always do my best to make peace with you. You are brutal.

You always teach me such amazing things, if I can weather each visit from you with deep compassion for myself and my vulnerability.

I did my best through all the trauma, drama and chaos of the last year to draw good boundaries for myself. I took the very best care of myself that I knew how to do. But just having experienced the journey was enough to trigger my body, my spirit into this space.

It was one of the hardest years I have ever experienced.

I surrender to it all--to every pain, every ache. I surrender to all the pounding reverberating through me.

In the last couple of weeks I have become aware that, even though I did some massive boundary drawing in a very healthy way for myself through this last year of my father's illness and death, I have been carrying around hidden, unconscious beliefs about this.

I chose me. I chose life. I chose putting myself first. These were not easy decisions. These are not the ways of my history. But I have learned over the years, through processes of many mistakes and lessons. I would not do this any other way--not this time.

And so I took care of myself.

It was so very hard. Without really even been consciously aware of it, there has been so much grief and judgment of myself for choosing me and what I needed--first.

Finally it all has come tumbling out into my awareness.

I am very sure that my father is perfectly happy and alright with how things went down between us this last year of his life--now. But unconsciously I have believed that I somehow let him down and somehow contributed to his suffering. He was not very nice to me about it when he was going through it. No, he was not very nice about it at all. He was so angry with me about it all. He was finally beaten by his experiences into submission and then he finally allowed himself to let go and pass on. Peace did finally come for him. I am so very glad of this.

I did this the only way that I could. Dad did this the only way that he could.

Healing is now possible for the both of us. Dad is doing much better about this right now than I am. I feel him visiting and trying his best to bring me peace and healing, too. I open to it and I allow it. It comes in the surrender to what is for me. And what is in this moment is a kick-ass bout of Fibromyalgia.

But this, too, shall pass.

Copyright 2012. Transformation of a Mystic. Barbara F. Manning