Can we relearn everything about love
Rape is a problem all over the world, its no secret, and the people that experience that pain go through deep feelings of powerlessness. That powerlessness creates a vacuum of silence that is deepened by several silencers: denial by the rapist, lack of protection for the victim, no consequences for the perpetrator, no love or support for the victim and sadly, often ringing true, the victim becoming a perpetrator. Because of the psychological consequences of denying your experience; people that are taught to not honor their experience live in a suppressing silence of schizophrenic confusion. We see what has happened to the country because they have denied, suppressed, and been shameful of their past. This denial creates a bulwark between you and creating a language to foster change. Addressing your trauma allows you to find the language that will lead to your healing, and once you can capture the pain in language you can diligently work to heal that pain. If we are unable to find the language to express our trauma we will become everything we despise. There are children acting out because what happened to them has never been addressed; because the child knows his experience, but no one is being honest about it. The pain forces its way into recognition; in dreams, relationships, sex, loneliness, and friendships. Your delusions and hallucinations are true, and are fighting to be acknowledge amidst the negations of your experience. For us to love and connect; we have to address the elephant in the room. Our babies are getting molested out of a drive for power, control and anger; then the compound of shame causes us raise kids that are unable to tell the truth about their experience. Now our kids suffer in a cycle of silence, powerlessness and distrust of their emotions. Powerlessness is a bankruptcy to self-love and self-respect, but addressing this history creates a space of visibility that makes trusting, loving, loneliness, and sex; a space of transformation. For if this — revealing or addressing — does not come then it will be very difficult for our child to have faith in love.
It is important for us to learn when our responsibility end and begins. In a relationship the responsibility I claim; is to create a space of comfortability and honesty for my partner, but it is my partners responsibility to walk into that space. People hold themselves up trying to get someone to be vulnerable; they assume responsibility to make someone jump into their trust and bear the load of some mistake they put on themselves. However, once the space of healing is created; one must make that jump of vulnerability. It is terrifying for everyone living to be vulnerable and trusting, but that fear is amplified when you have been taken advantage of or abused. But the jump must be made; we have no other choice than to make the jump. While the path may began inarticulable once you decide to jump the path becomes illuminated with assistance from guides, lovers and friends. Although, it begins very lonely and you must find a way to embrace that isolation.
Loneliness has plagued man since he figured out his separetness from the universe, and has been terrified since that day; creating complex responses to this very old fear. This loneliness is heightened when you feel you are the only one suffering. “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”- James Baldwin. We often here people saying euphemisms to combat this loneliness — use the time, use the moment; but what do they all mean. What they are attempting to express, I believe, is find your voice within the silence of that loneliness and exercise that pain. Find somewhere to express, describe and bring humanity to a more altruistic, confidently independent, world. Whether you discover your voice in nature, singing, art, or visiting museums and paying respect. I spoke a little earlier on creating a space of intimacy or vulnerability to assist your partner in making the jump. It is also our responsibility to create that space of intimacy for ourselves; to become healthy more compassionate human beings. If we can be compassionate with ourselves we can share that with other peoples sufferings. We cannot ignore the fact that many people have perished from what comes out of loneliness. Out of that loneliness we develop our addictions, get into relationships with people we don't like, and it is where many die. That space if also where we find our strength, our passions and our source of life. That is why, I say, it is a space of transformation; where we do not even see our choices unfolding; while simultaneously shifting and shaping our being as we maneuver in that space.
We must continually be reminded what it means to suffer, crave someone, miss someone, feel ugly, experience unrequited love, and go without being touched; we have a tendency to suppress these feelings with disastrous consequences. No one can tell the story of how we suffer and how we get through that has not walked through that fire, and moved into a space of contentment. Many assume entering a relationship will give them the opportunity to find the space of peace, but it often amplifies the fears; an inability to be vulnerable, expressive, or seen doesn't go away when another person comes to you. The silence of loneliness is transformative only if we allow it to transform us. This is the basis for our trouble; the loneliness is killing us, isolating us, and terrifying us. We must reveal the story of our experience; dive to the core of who we have become and create a language for OUR story.
We must rebel against a way of life that pushes forward complacency and values that are antithesis to growth. The formation of these values did not consider the Slave, Mexican or Native American. For example, conversations on sex did not include any of those groups, but only came from a Christian hetero-dominate perspective. Sex has been a gift of vulnerability, physical and emotional intimacy, exploration, and creativity; however, mainly for women, there was a time when sex was a place of shame, guilt, fear, anxiety and quickness. The culture has done an excellent job of romanticizing, commercializing, and minimizing the role of sex in our lives. It has romanticized love to sell us dreams of passionate hours of sex every time we get the feeling. Commercialized so we can be sold condoms, penis pills, and dreams of the perfect sex. While minimizing the transformative nature of the intimacy; because it can reveal ideas on living that can revolutionize the status qua, shifting the way of life on the people involved in the transformation. Sex is not magical in mystical terms, but the space of physical and emotional vulnerability coupled with conversations and freedom from thoughts, if you can reach that point, is what is transformational. Learning to experience sex is vital for people that have had there bodies taken advantage of; because sex is easily warped into something bad or dirty.
The beauty of has to be regained for the soldier of sexual assault, so we can experience the beauty of two neighboring solitudes dropping every part of themselves, and moving into a mutuality of respect and closeness. This discovery of compassion and neighboring solitudes coexisting in a mosaic of present desire and past fears and anxieties culminating into this moment of penetration not only in the physical but the spiritual. Sex is you holding, carrying, and caressing's another human being; that is a tremendous responsibility. Sex is, often, an opportunity to do something for someone they have never had done. It took 23 years for me to have a sexual experience where I felt my body being carefully guided and gently kissed. The joy, beauty, and love of physical intimacy cannot be taken away from us — I am doing my best to not minimize the difficulty of the journey; learning to trust and have faith in another persons hands and body is an odyssey. We must recover from this assault on our being; if we are to learn anything about humility and suffering.
We become what we give our attention too, and since what you love you give your attention; we can say we become what we love. Trust what you love, for it can take you somewhere a lack of faith could have never taken you. Because you are given the opportunity to listen, loneliness is a space that produces an opportune silence. Learning to discern the voice of God from the anxiety of Satan is essential; then once you’ve located that voice from God within this ashram of divine messaging; follow where it leads you. If we listen closely you can feel and learn to decipher when God is speaking through you. That voice often speaks down in the valley of suffering and discontentment. Catching these moments of divine intervention pushes society forward because you become an example of the heights humanity can reach in faith. At one point I really hated the story of Job, but in living I realized Job is happening all around us and will forever happen. We must find a way to have a faithful participation in the development of our world. That faith begins with us individually and ends with being an example for your brother and sister.
It is a commitment to staying connected to your source. To stay connected we have to discover that source of all our faith, attention, and love; if we are to survive and create spaces that foster love. I know the loneliness, sadness and difficulty of this walk to a space of self-love, and self-contentment. There are lessons that bring transformation for following your heart; humans have this unique ability to anticipate, prophesize and prepare for the worst. You can never love if you never walk that road; that road could, possibly, lead to heartbreak, fantasy, fear, loneliness; but the walk has moved you further through the valley. The emotions may be similar but the location is different, and there should be a sense of pride in that movement. Listen for your lessons in the journey you have walked, and make the attempt to create the language for the emotions you feel. Molestation and Rape is not an easy experience to move through, but it is also not a death sentence. Maybe emotions can never be fully described, but you can get as close to the razor blade as possible.
Love is our destiny and we must take an active participation in healing from our feelings of powerlessness. Healing will take a commitment to trusting our experience; utilizing our loneliness, and a new relationship to intimacy. We are not responsible for what someone did to us, but we are responsible for our healing. Remember, a rainbow comes after the thunderstorm.
