Transition or Rupture: Which Empowers?

Transition or Rupture?

Yesterday as I read Mama Gena's blog post Immobilized and Falling Apart, I felt uncomfortable when she referred to what she described as "rupturing" because of bad things happening in life in order to come back together stronger. It's not that I haven't experienced traumatic experiences or dealt with heartache, betrayal, and loss. It was that, while at some point in my life, I may have identified with the idea of it being a rupture, I've come to a different place. I now think of these "ruptures" as transitions. They show me the bits of me that remain in my core regardless of what happens while showing me what I need to release. I am connected to the trauma and I feel it deeply, I don't believe it destroys, or somehow defines, me. I  acknowledge it, feel it, search it for possible lessons it holds, but I put my focus on what in my life I can actually heal or change or control.

I don't fall apart, at least not in the screaming, ranting, raving, sobbing uncontrollably sense. What she described felt like a description of someone I used to be until I discovered that way of being just didn't work for me. It tended to make things worse rather than better, at least for me. I'm not saying how anyone else should react because we must each do what works for us.

I don't pretend everything is okay or that what hurts doesn't hurt, and I'm not advocating that anyone pretend as such. I'm simply more interested in moving forward through the pain and anguish to embrace life in all its fullness again. I think this is ultimately what Mama Gena is recommending as well. She just describes the process of rupturing in a way that no longer serves me.We need to understand that what works for one person may not work for another. I feel everything - the good and the bad - deeply and passionately, but I don't allow myself to spiral into a place where I can no longer see the path forward to the life I deserve. I don't dissolve in a heap nor do I rant and rave.

I can't even imagine ranting and raving or dissolving in a heap. It sounds like a tremendous waste of energy. As I recall, those time in my life when I handled trauma in such a way, it was a tremendous waste of energy and often left me needing to clean up a mess that didn't need to exist.

There was a point in my life when I would have ranted and raved and screamed and shouted and complained and sobbed to everyone in the world about the injustices in my life. These days, I prefer to spend some time in quiet meditation and perhaps have a quiet conversation with a trusted friend or two that allows me to see the reality of the situation in order to move forward without getting bogged down in how awful the injustice is. I sometimes quietly cry in a hot bath and release my pain and the baggage along with it in order to clear my thoughts and emotions.

Most times, a perspective shift to accept reality and find options is enough to get life moving forward again. That doesn't dull the pain of a betrayal or loss or heartache, but it focuses my energy in a place to do what's best for me. Focusing my energy on the pain tends to deplete me of positive energy, and that doesn't serve me. Focusing my energy on what is within my power to resolve or change about what hurts takes me to a place that allows me to handle my grief over a situation in a way that always brings me back to my center.

I don't feel like any less of a woman for my choice to react in a manner some might view as dispassionate or detached. My reaction is neither. It is simply my choice to response to my circumstances in the way that best serves me. After all, they are my circumstances. It is my reaction. This is my life. This is my choice. I choose to be who I am and handle the devastation that pops up in my life as transitions rather than ruptures.

Transition empowers me; rupture disempowers me.