What's in the Box?

I have a visual I use for processing deep pain or layers of things I need to be safe with. I want to share this with you so you can see how protected and safe it can be to process some very deep rooted pains.  And I would like to invite you in.  Just for a moment so you can see how to alchemize anything.  This can be used anyway you need it to be used.  As long as it is a place you feel safe.  

So here is mine -

Standing on my great grandmother's porch. The Saint Augustine grass laid out like a blanket before me.  I step off the concrete and my feet touch the grass.  It's cool and pillowy.  I look at my feet and they are so small. Little girls bare feet with the heavenly grass beneath them.  I can feel myself spinning dancing across the grass.  Free from every stress or worry. The sunset is frozen in time just beyond the west pasture.  The warmth on my face from its rays is like a touch from God on my face.  To the north is a fence lined with gourd vines twisting around every tree and fence post it can reach.  Creating a canopy of vines within the tall tree branches.  So I found my way to the bench between two trees right in the center.  Sitting on that bench I really don't feel separated from everything around me.  This little girl is both tiny and as massive as the trees overhead.  Every leaf blowing I am connected to. A soft song that no one could hear in this peaceful, safe place.  I know I am safe, loved, protected and free.  Before me appears a box.  A small box that fits just in my lap. Ragged old cardboard box with stains and rips. Looks like it had been beat around for years.  As I open the box I can feel the sadness.  Feel the grief. There were little pieces of Mom Mann inside it, tiny reminders of her. Tiny reminders I hesitate to touch.  She was so wonderful, so strong and fearless.  She never felt like she was bothered by anything.  So I moved things around in the box and there were broken bits in the bottom.  As soon as I touched them I was seeing the painful events after she passed.  The way everyone was acting.  The grotesque assault on her belongings while people fought over things.  I felt myself in her chair watching adults in their strange practices that never made sense to me.  The passive aggressive words that I didn't understand but I knew they were not good.  I watched their eyes and their emotions.  Like they didn't even know her.  How could you know such a graceful strong woman and reflect that love by being so horrible and selfish?  I didn't want China, I wanted her to give me oreos.  I wanted to feel her touch my face like no one else did.  And say I love you so much, precious!  You are so beautiful!  But she was gone.  I feel the shadow in the box reminding me no one ever would again.  I would be forever from this moment watching a world that is more concerned with china and never again would I be precious to anyone. Not like that.  Not with such love and authenticity.  Never again would I be seen the way she saw me.  A little girl who just needed to hear someone say that and actually mean it like she did.  

I can sit with that here.  I can sit in the safety of my tree. Sit under the vines with the warm sun coming through and allow my tears to flow.  No judgment and no reason to throw the box in anyone else's faces.  This was my box.  Just as a single tear hits the cardboard it is absorbed.  And the moments become purposeful.  Because of how she loved me. I take my little girl's face and I tell her all the time how amazing she is.  Because of how she inspired me to love, I can love fearlessly and I can be strong and gentle.  Because of how she loved me I can be courageous in the face of impossible odds.  And while the world cares so much about the china.  I am teaching my children that they are more amazing than any material good ever.  I begin to fill the box with the purpose those memories gave me.  With the outcome that I created from the roots of those moments.  And the passion they fed to my roots.  The box disappears and a giant flower blooms in the tree over my head.  

This place I can stop here or keep opening boxes.  I don't need to share them with people to see and demand others acknowledge how they hurt me or what they did.  They have their own boxes.  

In healing we often want others to see what mess they made.  But when you really understand that we all have these boxes you will understand that they too have their own.  This is for you.  Take a tiny box at a time. Feel just what is in that box and allow yourself to release what was. See how you used that moment.  What it built within you.  And if it was good then release that!  Appreciate what is there that made you stronger or more of how you bless this world.  If it isn't good for you then find a way to use it.  To take the moment and use it for the greatest blessing. Because all moments have boxes and all broken things can become a blooming flower if you give the box PURPOSE. 

Making everything about what others did and how THEY did it. Trying to demand the universe give you justice and make them see or feel it.  Will only keep that pain deep within you. Just talking about the pain over and over will only keep that present like a vase on your dining room table.  But this is the act of transmutation.  Taking what was meant to hurt you and giving it full purpose. Releasing them to their own functions and processes without judgment.