The Lotus Butterfly

Emotional bondage is not easily seen by the human eye like the way we know for sure and can see the physical body when it's locked up behind bars. Emotional bondage is an invisible prison that has no bars. We can be doing everything morally right, have a generous heart, good intentions and be very helpful, mindful, and spiritual and still be in bondage. The reason is because many of us have childhood traumas and were never aware that we needed to heal the root core of our inner pain. This has caused many of us confusion as to why we spend so many years chasing after worldly things to make us feel good, using outside sources to fill us up making us full temporarily because we do not feel whole and adequate on the inside. There are so many of us doing great things and have the desire to be good people but still we continue to live a life of suffering. Our faithfulness, spirituality, calling, talents, career, likeability and outwardly perceived happiness and successes helps us survive our wounds however, these things do not and will not deliver us from them. Our wounds can be dormant for many years when we replace our healing with achievements, serving others, living in our dreams and fulfilling our purpose, because the behavior of us doing what needs to be done in life on the outside treats the symptoms of our wounds and we mistakenly believe that because are insecurities and wounds are not at the forefront and lie dormant, we have overcome them. The world around us is functioning comfortably in dysfunction because most of us are living with unidentified, unaddressed, emotional issues and childhood traumas that are hindering and blocking our ability to live our best life and are hindering us from being able to identify and engage in healthy relationships. No matter how much we have accomplished and no matter how much good we do in this life, we don't outgrow brokenness and we must heal those experiences that have broken us. We can choose to live forever in our childhood wounds or we can choose to heal and live in our purpose. It's easy to relapse and revisit the hurt, disappointment and pain of our past because the pattern and the pathology have been set. The antidote is mindfulness, which means we have to be aware of our childhood emotional triggers without being ruled by them. This is to recognize our triggers so that when an event brings us back to our familiar pathology, we can clearly be conscious of our responses and not respond in the same way as we always do based on habit and pattern. The “Aha” moment came to me when I finally realized that I never needed to respond to my life from a place of hurt because that only fueled and gave power to my pain. I allowed my emotional life to be shaped by my parent's weaknesses. Their lack of concern and care was a reflection of their own level of life experiences and understanding and had absolutely nothing to do with me. Once I realized that it wasn't personal, the weight of my pain was lifted! If we want to be happy and live a life filled with love, opportunity and peace, we have to let go of our past and our pain. Even though the choices that my parents made and the things that I was exposed to were traumatic and emotionally devastating, I finally figured out how to heal after all of these years. I was trying to be strong to get over my childhood wounds but in my strength, I just kept on moving forward with life and was ignoring and suppressing the hurt and not truly addressing it. I was hiding behind saving others, healing others, success and achievements. I realized in all of my doing that it was never strength that I needed. It was surrender, courage and faith. My surrender to my need to be in control of trying to deal with and overcome the hurt on my own, the courage to finally get professional help to learn how to heal and let go of my past, and the faith to trust God's will for my life and my future and not to lean on my own understanding. Once I just let it all go and claimed that I would be taking back everything that the devil has stolen from me and started exercising my faith. This opened up my life to receive better and greater. Faith now keeps me focused on looking ahead for what I am going to gain instead of focusing on trying to control what I might lose. I have experienced the power of surrender and that's when my true self and life began to thrive. It takes a lot of work and it is not easy by any means. But I had to change. I had to find the silver lining and give purpose to my pain and now I've learned how to use everything that I've been through as the wind beneath my wings.