Release

On the 8th anniversary of your death, I want to honor us both by doing it differently.

Our first vacation together to Busch Gardens Florida

January 30 is not my favorite day. For the last 8 years it has been a day of loss, mourning, grieving, and memories. It is usually preceded by a week or more of nightmares, lack of sleep and deep depression. My ex-husband died on this day and I had to tell my daughter her father was gone. It was horrible. It has continued to be horrible but I have learned so much, grown so much, and healed so much in the past few years. This year I am doing it differently.

I have a friend who has suffered a deep loss as well and she refers to the anniversary day of her loss as a “spirit release day”. I always thought that was a beautiful way to say it but I couldn’t bring myself to say that about Ryan. There was nothing beautiful about that day. I couldn’t see it if there was. Every year on this date I would spend my day broken down by memories and conflicting emotions. I felt anger, hurt, deep sadness and victim-hood, for myself and for my daughter. We were victims of our life with him and victims in his death. That was what I felt, saw, experienced, and I didn’t feel a release of his spirit or of ours.

This year, and for the last few years, I have been working with a guide to change. I wanted to get through and process the traumas of my life and to find myself again. I wanted to be free, to find release. Sometimes you need to be careful what you ask for because there is no easy way to do this. The body needs to process the feelings that were too difficult to feel at the time of the trauma. The body needs to experience it and then experience something new in the face of that old wound. I feel extremely lucky to have a guide who can be a safe person for me to relive, re-feel, and who provides me with a safe, loving space to experience it differently. So instead of feeling like I am drowning in grief and pain, I can feel the comfort of being completely broken before another human being and not having to be different, or just being witnessed in my brokenness and it not making them uncomfortable or making them feel like they have to make it better. The truth is that there is no making things better. Just sitting with someone in their deepest pain without judging it is enough, it is powerful. I learned that I wouldn’t die if I felt the pain to its depths. I had always thought it was too much so I wouldn’t let myself go that deep.

Over the last 8 years I have built a village. The village knows my story; they know the pain, the trauma, and the details. This has been a great comfort to me and has helped me get this far. This year, however, I longed for something more. I wanted release, I wanted freedom. So I asked for help in that. I asked to be shown a way and I have received it. It is a work in progress but I have started and I will continue.

About four nights ago I had a dream about Ryan and his family. It was familiar. The details aren’t important but what I was left with when I woke up was hurt, pain, upset, sadness, fear, and anger. There was one little thing that was different though, I also had a feeling like I could say no, I could do it differently. So I reached out for some support and made this the intention of my next session with my guide. I wanted to say no, I wanted to do it differently.

What I learned is that in order to do it differently I had to let a part of me die. I had to say good bye to the part of me that is the victim, not just in this circumstance but in all the circumstances of my life. REALLY???? But I was a victim. This was so loudly shouting in my soul that I couldn’t ignore it. And it was true. Terrible things had happened in my relationship with Ryan, in the divorce, in the years after, and in his death, to me. Those things made me build up an armor that I had so badly needed at the time. It was a shield of hurt and anger that protected me and my heart for years. It gave me the strength to go through with a divorce I didn’t want, court dates I didn’t want to have, confrontations I would have been too scared to have and to see truths that were being swept under the rug by so many. The strength to get through those dark days with my daughter and the pain that would continue. I loved that shield. I honestly feel that that shield saved my life and gave me superhuman strength sometimes. I knew that it saved my life and I felt stronger with it in my hands. I had needed that shield to protect me and my child and I don’t for one second regret picking up that shield.

Except now the shield has to go. It has to die. The anger, the upset, the hurt and pain that caused me to pick it up-it has been 8 years that I’ve kept it alive-even in the truth that Ryan was gone and the hurt (well his part in it) was done. How could I continue to be a victim of someone from the grave? Turns out quite successfully if I continued to raise my shield and carry around my victim story and the anger, fear, and upset that came with it. This year I realized that I don’t need the story or the shield anymore and I’m here to lay it down.

Ryan, I release your soul.

I release with it my victim story (as much as I can right now, but I will continue releasing).

What happened hurt so much because I loved you so.

I release my anger, my hurt, my rage toward you and those who hurt me in protection of you.

I release the chains that tied me to your disease (addiction) and that kept me from remembering us both as beautiful people before it grabbed us.

I release the fear that has kept a shield around my heart and prevented me from being loving, powerful, and free.

I release my story of being of victim even though it makes me feel naked and vulnerable and scared. I have relied on it for so long to protect me and I’m terrified to be without it. Yet I am also filled with a hope that I cannot express at the thought of a life free of that heavy, angry shield.

I know in my heart that you always loved me and our daughter and that putting down this shield, letting this part of me die will free your spirit as well as mine. It will make things possible for our daughter that wouldn’t happen if I kept it alive forever. I know you would want me to be free, to put that shield down so that love can enter, so that I can be more open to real connection with those that I love without them having to try to pierce my shield just to get to my heart. I know you would want my heart to be open and free. My husband and my children deserve my whole heart.  

Victim me, I release you.

I thank you for saving my life and for protecting me during a traumatic time in my life.

Thank you for the strength you gave me and the power you afforded me in times of fear.

Your services are no longer needed.

I release you in love and gratitude.

Powerful me, I embrace you.

I see you, I feel you, and I love you.

I believe in your strength and I look forward to living a life of vulnerability, free of being a victim.

I look forward to taking responsibility for myself and embodying the powerful woman that I have learned to be. I choose my life. I write this story. I stand in truth and power.

If you are on this journey, if you suspect that your victim shield is becoming too heavy to carry around anymore and you need someone to sit with you in your terrible truth and not judge you, I am here. I have no qualification except that I have had it done for me and want you to experience the same. I can sit in love, as it was done for me, and let you find the truth, that your are powerful enough on your own to change your life. To let that shit go, and to choose another way of being. I know the fear of letting a part of you that has protected you for so long die. I just know. And I know that you will live without it, and that you will thrive.

Happy spirit release day Ryan. I release you in love.

Today I will honor myself with rest, comfort, love, and naps because this is exhausting!