Life does not give me what I want; it gives me what I need.

People have been placed in my life to help, hurt, love, and leave me – in short, to make me into the person I am meant to be. This hard truth has been difficult to swallow. As I play with the possibility that these sentiments are true, my relationships, life, people, and experiences try to teach and liberate me.

I have grasped this concept not as some sort of romantic notion to make all my pain experienced less painful or to gloss over it all – quite the opposite. Pain for me has been my teacher. Rejection has been my educator. Loss has been my guide. Life has been the school I have been attending for almost fifty years, and it’s about time for me to learn through the curriculum I have been handed.

I have played small, and when I did, I knew I was not following my inner compass. When I played small, my hurt still existed. Abandoning my dreams didn’t make me happier, and being angry doesn’t bring back my dad or reconcile the malicious men from the past who have wronged me. I finally absorbed that my not being all I can be only hurts me. And my losses, which I point to as evidence for why I can’t end up as excuses.

If I don’t release my pain and let go, the losses become my anchor and justification for not stepping into the unknown and opening my heart again. Without letting go, even if I indirectly think this toxic sludge benefits me, it doesn’t – it only leaves me stuck. I recently read a hard truth. My expansion and growth don’t care about my feelings. My soul, desiring to bring me back to life where I feel most alive, will do anything and everything it can to get me to answer its call. Oddly enough, every door begins to open after I walk toward and turn the knob.