Sonia Choquette's recent journey, from death and divorce, to true authentic spiritual awakening

[Natalia]

An Amazing human experience story of love, loss, grief, healing and renewal (I love it! :) )

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[gripreaper]

What a great story.

[Natalia]

One of the bits that caught me the most:

"All of a sudden my life fell apart. People responded to me in a really interesting way, a lot of people were like, how can this happen to you? As though being a concious person or intuitive person would make me excempt from being a human person, but I kind of bought into that a little bit, and felt sort of ashamed of myself, and friends that I even turned to count on, some that had been very close friends, just weren't there for me, and I was devestated, and filled with anger and filled with grief and filled with shame, and I just prayed on my knees" ~ Sonia Choquette

[spiritwind]

Thank you for this Amethyst, this was a wonderful video illustrating what I have been saying for years. I have noticed this over and over, the denigration and unspoken taboo about expressing grief, rage, and pain. I have been in this process for most of my adult life, particularly since my mid-thirties (I'm pushing 60 these days). 

I remember that is when I started attending a group called "Stuck to Unstuck" facilitated by a Baptist Pastor. Who talked about how on the outside he appeared very successful as the Pastor of a small congregation until one day his wife of many years walked out on him. It turned his world upside down. That is when he realized that his father's suicide when he was just 6 years old had never been dealt with and had a negative impact on the health of his marriage. He learned to never need anyone and always just rely on himself. His wife literally felt like she wasn't needed. 

He talked a lot about the psychological tool box we develop and how some of us, through no fault of our own, either have tools that fit a situation that we needed to survive at a certain time in our life, but are no longer appropriate, or left home without a tool box at all. So he said while faith is good, we need to take a good look at our tool box to see why life may not be working as good as it could for us. 

I can also remember a heated discussion that took place many years ago in a Human Services class I took. We were talking about self esteem and I asked very directly what do you tell someone who comes to see you how you "get some". I was still grappling seriously with this issue myself. I had a great deal of self judgment, shame, and loathing. No one could really answer the question and it made everyone, including myself, very uncomfortable.

I have come a long way from that time in my life and now I know why it is so hard to answer. There is no definitive answer, the path will be different for everyone. I pushed people away for many years because of my undealt with emotional traumas. On the one hand I put out a neediness signal, and at the same time I put out the signal "don't get too close". Looking for a responsible parent in your partner generally doesn't work out. I ended up only attracting those whose psychological and emotional problems were even worse than mine.

But emotions in themselves are not bad, and I totally believe that society itself reinforces the message that only certain emotions are okay to express, and talk about. And emotions,I have found, have no sense of time. They are there, indeed as Sonia says, literally hanging out in our physical bodies until they are allowed expression. Most people think it's crazy to embrace and move into pain, but I have found for myself it is the only way.

I too have learned to love myself through this process. It is so nice to hear someone else talk about their personal journey in such a meaningful way. I also found when I realized that I had an expectation or a judgment that my partner could have done better it mirrored an inner feeling that I could have done better. There is that judgment again. When I turned it around and accepted the possibility that maybe we were all doing the best that we can with what we knew and understood at the time (using the tools we had), I was able to move out of judgment into compassion and forgiveness for myself and others. 

To me this is indeed powerful stuff and does free up your personal energy for more productive activities and interests. I love what she said about intellectualizing our problems away as a way to not acknowledge them and feel into them. Then we miss what they have to teach us. Believe me, if I could have just thought my way out of my intense emotional angst that was such a constant fixture in my life for so long, I would have. I can think and analyze things to death. It just wasn't going to get me there. I still occasionally fall back into old patterns, but overall I can honestly say I no longer place my entire sense of self worth on others acceptance of me. I am of value just because I am. And so are you.