It is a phrase I heard while listening to "The Dangerous Old Woman"Myths and Stories of the wise woman archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD.
I have loved this whole series of stories. Actually more than loved it..found it invaluable. Not a word I throw around too much.
So back to the room of the dead, it is described as the room we all have that is filled with all the things that are not good for us..or that are no longer good for us...perhaps, once upon a time they may have been but now.. they are not.
The room can be filled with people. It can be filled with our own self doubt and denigration.
It can also be filled with concepts that drag us down...things like:
Behave or Be A Good Girl Or Be A Nice Girl.
Now in and of themselves these are not actually bad things but nine times out of ten what they really mean is "Don't be yourself. Don't be full of life...Don't question my authority..Do what I want...Think what I think."
I am 55 years old and this very summer i had a man say to me " Be A Good Girl".
Seriously and at that moment I thought: Thats it , I am freaking done being a good girl.
I no longer feel the need to conform to any ones idea of what being good..or a girl..or a woman..is...ever again.
TA DA!! Wretched situation that gave me a much needed wakeup.
That stuff is all in my room of the dead.
It is pretty packed in there. Which is how it should be at this point in my life. If it were empty it would mean I still do not recognize that which is toxic for me.
People need to know this.
People should be cautious. Not frightened.. cautious.. huge difference.
Fright holds you back but caution keeps you awake.
We all need to stay awake. It is when we get drowsy that we are prone to make all sorts of mistakes..again and again. When we get tired we forget all the reasons something didn't work the first 85 times we did it.
And then, well then, we do it again.
You know all those things we really want but know in our heart of hearts are not going to work for us.. a job.. a relationship... All the things that end up being blood sucking and life draining instead of life giving. Its all there and when we start to get tired we convince ourselves that this time it will work.
Recently, I had a good friend talk to me about an opportunity that she has to do something that she wants to do very very much. Something that should be a wonderful fit for her.. Something she and I know she would be great at.
However, the problem is she was offered this very opportunity a few months prior and she turned it down because she knew it was going to suck the blood right out of her.
Now those are my words but the point is she knew it was not, as presented, going to work. No matter how much she wanted it... as it was... it was not going to work.
So... she turned it down and she was very very sad about it. It was a huge loss.
So here it is held up to her again. Over the last few months she has realised how much she really wanted it.
So the question is has anything changed? Is there any reason to believe it will work now other than the fact that she wants it to?
I think that is one of the hardest things to leave in the Room of the Dead...the things we really really want. The things we believe should work...if..if something...were different.
I have no idea what my friend will do. It is quite possible that she will bring this out of the room. If she does i will pray for her that she stays awake.. and aware and if it doesn't work that she without hesitation shut it right back up her Room of the Dead.
After all the door has handles on both sides for that very reason.
No comments:
Post a Comment