Release: One Man’s Trash is Another’s Treasure

My beloved awoke in the middle of the night.

He couldn’t sleep, as his mind was racing around a playground of past experiences he had encountered with different people. People who were no longer in his life. He said to me:

“The majority of people in one’s life will use you up, attempt to force you to be what they want you to be, taking from you all that you are and then toss you away like trash when you no longer comply.”

This opened up mental dialogue regarding the past and how it subconsciously impacts the present.

I have been working on active release now for approximately four years and I’m here to say it’s not like meeting a life achievement or major milestone. In fact, it’s quite the opposite in that it’s the awareness of the need to release where true magic happens.

This morning, I wanted to reach out and ask…..

what have you done to heal the damage that another has caused you?

what have you done to forgive them for the betrayal?

what have you done to forgive them for the emotional and physical abuse?

what have you done to forgive them for the violent act?

what have you done to forgive them for the control?

what have you done to forgive them for the abandonment?

what have you done to forgive them for the maltreatment?

what have you done to forgive them for the neglect?

what have you done to forgive them for preying on your vulnerabilities?

We are responsible for our own release and that begins with TRUE forgiveness, which is more about us cutting the cords of negativity that link us to the pain than letting someone off of the hook.

When WE are TRIGGERED by what happened to us in the past, the trauma, the experience, the situation, we then KNOW for a fact that we need to heal! That some part, whether big or small, is festering inside and creating an inflammation response!

I call this the mirror’s reflection of what it is I need to be aware of and release.

Just a few years ago, I was in a relationship with a man who at first, reached out and opened up to me as if he was there to unconditionally help me. I was going through a separation and divorce following a marriage of betrayal, deceit, alcoholism, loss, neglect and non-commitment and this individual magically appeared with love letters, a calm voice and professions of undying love.

I had not yet healed from the traumas of my marriage and was vulnerable to the charisma and charm of someone completely opposite of my experience. The dating relationship was fast and furious, and despite many red flags in the beginning and warnings from family and friends, I allowed myself to be weak and succumb.

Over the years, it became so emotionally volatile and ridden with expectations, accusations and verbal abuse that I absolutely lost the core of my own existence in order to make someone else happy…and that didn’t happen.

The daily letters turned into accusations of my own inability to reciprocate love by writing letters too, even when I forced myself to write them. My childlike playfulness became an accusation of betrayal. Even the clothing I wore was a reason to accuse me of being a ‘whore’! I had completely given up any trace of ME to satiate an unrelenting and narcissistic individual.

There was nothing of myself left.

Every so often, I would rise up to stand against the abuse and accusations; the double standards that my intuition TOLD me were happening but my heart and my blind eye didn’t want to see like his own secret relationships with young girls barely out of high school, his hidden substance abuse, his issues with virility, his hacking and monitoring all my of accounts, his toxic and abusive past, his dark federal criminal history and his own experiences of violent trauma and abuse as a child and teen.

Unfortunately, those instances of momentary valor would often end in some form of elevated verbal abuse, toxic escape attempts and the breaking of items. I saw these same patterns in his daughter’s relationship and began to understand just how caged I was.

It was only when the relationship turned physically violent and I thankfully was able to record him stabbing himself in the chest and saying he ‘was going to call the police and tell them I had stabbed him because they were his friends and protected him’ did the relationship come to an abrupt and violent halt, me with a concussion and the police now warning me that this individual’s rage would only escalate and the statistics associated with this type of crazed narcissistic type of personality.

From there, I began to LIVE. Otherwise, I might have died.

I began to work on active release of the toxicity and the past. Forgiving myself. Forgiving others. The physical, emotional and spiritual traumas, I began to work through. The having temporarily given up all I was to make someone else ‘happy’…which never happened.

I worked hard to release the need to try and defend myself against those individuals who knew nothing of our real relationship. I put active intention into releasing my own irritation to knowing he had twisted the relationship to make it look like I was some kind of demon. I had told two people of his abuse in case anything had ever happened to me. I also had to set up boundaries against those who knew of his violence but chose to close a blind eye.

I worked hard to release the fact that he had indeed hooked up with the young teen who was in high school at the time I first noticed their questionable interactions and my intuition screamed loudly. This was a challenge, as I received confirmation AFTER the relationship ended.

The letters. The dreams. The accusations. The things I destroyed of myself to make him happy. The broken bones, walls and doors.

I let it go.

Telling the story now is more of a roadmap of where I have been. There are no emotions, only wisdom and experience.

Active release is being aware of the issues linked to past traumatic experiences AND working hard to let them go AS THEY present themselves. It is a constant effort on an ever growing spectrum of experiences.

To NOT acknowledge and release these experiences is to hold them tightly within your clutches like broken shards of glass….you will continue to bleed!

My toxic relationship was one where I was used up and discarded like trash when I no longer allowed myself to be forced to be someone I was not. I could understand exactly what my beloved meant during his midnight confessions!

When we look back at our lives, we have two stories. The reality is that both stories are TRUE and REAL.

Those who have discarded us along the way may have been horrible, toxic, abusive, cheating individuals who wronged us and created the situations that we are in or they may have been the very reason we are the amazing people we are today in the amazing places we are in this very moment!

Understanding that we can only be discarded if we allow ourselves to be AFTER we step into our own awareness is the majority of the battle in our lives.

Forgive others fully for our OWN wellbeing.

Love fully the self and all whom reside in the circle of love and kindness.

Be who you are in every facet of your existence. Don’t dull your shine.

Never give up yourself for the comfort of others.

Never tolerate violence or abuse!

Never allow yourself to be someone else’s trash for being you.