Bitterness.
I see it with some women after relationship losses or long periods of being in a relationship.
The pull to be bitter is seductive. If you weaken, you will be sucked into its sticky web.

Don’t do it.
It’s not who you are.
You are love.

And whatever you can do to swim against those waves that want to take you out into that dark sea of bitterness or lament, to scramble back onto that shore of love, do it.

It may take time and all the strength you have to go for higher ground. Do it.

Or you will surely lose yourself.

If you don’t, it can take a long time to find ‘you’ again. To have to sift through the rubble of heartbreak years on, the rubble of long-lost dreams and of unawakened and futile hopes. For bitterness can become crusty if left in the body for too long. It can become toxic. It can freeze you in time, become harsh on your face and show up in your body as brittle or carrying a little too much weight. Don’t become hard. Or even collapsed for too long. It’s not who you are.

Be courageous and seek to uncover the underbelly of it. Perhaps anger, sadness, rejection, loss, meaninglessness. Be with THESE. Hold these feelings tenderly while honouring the story, the soul's story, without obsessing over and over into their storyline.

If anger, walk it, shake it, speak it, shout it in the privacy of your car, write it, draw it, paint it. There might be a time to be angry but not to live in it continuously day after day. Anger in its purest form can only last for a few seconds but when we add our thinking and ruminating to it over time it can turn sour in our system, and turn into bitterness and resentment. 

Nelson Mandela once said, ‘Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.’

Sadness, rejection, loss, heartbreak. Give these feelings a voice until there are no words left but silence.

And then ... Just be. Find the light in your surroundings. And go towards that.

In the end, you have to just stop fighting reality. To come to an acceptance of what is.

And as time goes by, as sure as the tide will go out, it will leave you.  Suddenly you will notice your heart has become quiet. Still. Silent. Compassionate.

Its gifts will be left on the shore of love to find. Find that one resilient shell that can symbolise who you are. The one that has been weathered by the crushing seas of life. Yet still there. Still here.

SS. Still Standing. Still LOVE.

That is your only mission now.  

TO RETURN TO LOVE.

And then eventually, all can be well. All will be well.

If you feel it's time to soften into your own heart and let go of some of that weight you have been carrying for way too long, I'd love to welcome you to join us for Womantime Retreat ~ Ancient Wisdom for the Modern Day Woman