“In the end she became the journey, and like all journeys she did not end, she just simply changed directions and kept going.” r.m. drake
A journey to self health does not only mean eating well, exercising and getting enough sleep. The journey to self health means you must take the list that you are using toward making your body healthier and stronger and apply that list to dig deep into your soul. If you have been tolerating toxic habits that are hurting your body, you are most likely accepting and tolerating relationships that are toxic to your soul and hurting your journey.
If I am to be completely honest, my journey started forty five years ago when my father, for reasons of his own, decided he needed to leave his family and start a new life with a new wife and another family. It was beyond hurt, it felt like someone had taken a knife and sliced me in half down the middle. To my child self I felt acutely aware that he had made his choice, and his choice meant I was not part of his journey. The path was not easy as there was much anger, mistrust and complete chaos between my parents. I’m not sure if my parents thought about how this chaos was affecting their children, in hindsight they must have, but to my child self I felt alone and my parents didn’t realize that with each harsh word and every court date, I was building my wall, my wall of what my existence meant to this world. I realize now as an adult that the words I was using to myself at that time were; I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t a person worthy of love, only negative things happen, there is no such thing as love and every time these words ended up in my head, the wall became thicker and thicker until the words could no longer reach me.
As thick as a wall I built, those words stuck with my being and I questioned everything I did, school was difficult because I never felt completely accepted, I was always someone who was looking from the outside in. Teachers never understood me, yet they liked me because I was never a problem. I just sat in the back doing my thing and I made it clear that I wanted to be left alone. Forming healthy relationships with this foundation was difficult, but I managed to form some great friendships, friendships that have lasted a lifetime. However, in my life I have accepted and tolerated friendships that I thought were friendships of mutual respect and admiration only to realize the friendships were very one sided.
Going back to the words I used as a child, not worthy of love, I have realized that these words have crept into some of the friendships I have formed, by allowing someone in my life who has not accepted me as my whole self, rather this person sees me as less than, and even though she calls me sister what she really means is elder, she is someone who knows more and is far more distinguished than I could ever be.
How do I know this, I know this from comments and actions I have fielded for years. As mad as some of these actions have made me, I have to accept responsibility for allowing and tolerating this attitude. I realized a long time ago that if I accepted this persons limitations of me, then I am accepting these limitations of myself and it was time for me to change that direction and love my whole self. I knew it meant that I could no longer be around this person in the same way. To explain this to someone who clearly is lost in her own limitations and development is difficult, so I chose not to, I just kept working with my being and knew that the journey would go in the direction that it was meant to.
The word tolerance is an interesting word:
The definition of tolerance sounds so civilized doesn’t it. Within this definition alone, I realized that my tolerance level for acceptance of elitist and repressive behaviour in my life goes back to my childhood days when I tolerated the level of chaos within my household simply to survive my childhood. I’ve had to accept the fact that I tolerated behaviour that was less than kind to my existence simply because I thought I was being a friend.
I have come to the realization that I must befriend myself first or else my journey will never take the twists and turns that makes journeys joyous and harmonious within the realm around us.
- patience
- resilience
- strength
- toughness
- endurance
- guts
- hardiness
- opposition
- stamina
- steadfastness
- steadiness
- vigor
- staying power
The opposite words of tolerance are worlds apart and doesn’t necessarily seem as civilized as toleration, however the soul does not need tolerance, the soul needs truth and the only way to truth is to be the opposite of tolerance and acceptance of anything other than truth is to accept an abrupt end to your journey, leaving you in a place of contempt for your being and your existence.
Where my journey lands, I don’t know, all I know is that I have to apply the same trick that I learned a long time ago when I took up running and I was trying to increase my endurance to become a better runner. I simply stopped looking at the long road ahead of me and concentrated on taking one step at a time.
Johanne Fraser
MOMWHEARINGLOSS 