Each step—writing, addressing the envelope, sealing it, putting the stamp on it, and dropping it in the mailbox—caused little shifts in my heart. My feelings were given a voice. You may not even need to send the letter, you may just need to hear your own deep and powerful lion's roar. In my case, I wanted to stop any further lies, so I sent it. I wasn't the only one who needed to hear my roar.
Then I got to work on me. I had to untangle what had really happened from the dramatic story I had made up. What were the facts?
He told lies.
I wasn't a victim.
He was being him, and I was being me.
We chose each other and we were still playing our parts perfectly.
I could forgive us both—again.
Several days later, he replied to my letter with a long letter of his own, but only these four lovely words mattered: “Your anger is justified.” I still find that response to be just about as miraculous as they come. As a result, forgiveness was his, and peace was mine.
If you don't receive justification from your Mr. X, find a dear friend who will acknowledge your anger or your pain for you. You can role play with friends, telling them exactly what you need them to say to you. You can even write it down for them like a script and have them say it to you exactly as you need to hear it. Tell them what you need them to hear and then have them repeat their lines as many times as necessary.
Acknowledgment is a powerful tool, because it grounds us in the present moment, and it can calm the crazy firestorms. Face it: when you are in a firestorm, you are pretty much entrenched in the past. I was so entrenched in looking at Mr. X's misdeeds that I was nearly buried alive. His acknowledgment gave me the shovel I needed to dig myself out of my obsession with the past.
Let's move our way back into the present moment now, sweetheart. Right this way . . .
Acknowledgment not only quells your crazy firestorms, it also nurtures your Mighty Flame. I had a friend who was very angry about having cancer. I took her to her favorite beach, which had a private cove. For the good part of an afternoon, she yelled and screamed and let all that anger out. My job was just to bear witness and to provide her with an endless supply of rocks to throw at the cliff. Did the anger at her cancer end that day? Not at all. But the acknowledgment of it lit up her Mighty Flame. By the end of the day, she was glowing. The experience gave her relief from the grief and a place to return to in her heart when the anger rose up again.
Grief, sadness, anger, and rage can all take turns creating fires. In the very darkest days after my breakup with Mr. X, I felt knocked down by both anger and sadness. Anger exhausted me and sadness was an ever-present leaden, smoldering cloak weighing me down. I often felt as if I didn't have the strength to lift it off my shoulders. The more I fought it, the worse it got.
Sad, repetitive thoughts can be insidious and disempowering. They can ebb less frequently than anger, so the respites between them are fewer and farther apart. And before you know it, you are drowning in them. Sad thoughts are like deep, dark waters. You can't even see where the light is, so you never know where to come up for air.
Most important, if you're too busy fighting, you can't see the source of these thoughts. I always want to run through uncomfortable emotions like a freight train, as if my feelings are enemies that need to be mowed down. In reality, they are like white surrender flags saying: “Look here, please!” My friend Fran has received more than her share of calls from me with complaints that I can't stop crying or that I am “still” sad. She always patiently repeats: “Of course you're sad. And, that's okay.” I don't know how many times she has repeated these words over the decades: “Be gentle with yourself.” It was in the midst of my breakup with Mr. X that I finally was able to hear her.
Sometimes you just need to be sad, and sometimes you just need to be mad. But if the crazy firestorms don't quit or if they feel out of proportion to your circumstances, you may want to explore what's underneath that top layer of grief. We will learn how to do that in the next chapter. For now, you need to know that the more you ignore the source of the fire, the more you end up shutting down the parts of yourself that are begging to be remembered, nurtured, or given a voice.
Crazy firestorms are God's way of shining light on the unfinished business in your heart. Consciously dealing with that unfinished business can be thrilling, can bring you deep relief, and will always prove worth the effort.
YOUR MIGHTY FLAME
The other source of fire that is essential to your recovery is your Mighty Flame. Have you ever had the experience of “knowing” or “feeling” something to be true? A time when your intuition was spot on and you felt as if you were divinely guided? That's your Mighty Flame at work. It has been with you since the very beginning. It is what fed your first cry of life, your first smile. It gave you the urge to propel yourself forward and upward. It is what makes you reach for love.
If you take only one concept away from this book, I wish it to be this: Your Mighty Flame gives you the power to love and be loved. It gives you the power to fly as a Superhero of Love, to touch other hearts, and to make a difference in the world. And here is the best news: Although you may not feel a connection to your own Mighty Flame yet, and even if you don't believe me that it exists, I am here to promise you it is there. And, even better, although that flame may wane at times, it will never ever die.
The Mighty Flame is inside every superhero. It fuels our super-humanity, sending us beyond, farther, deeper. Like the Olympic flame, it can travel the world, igniting one torch after another, each flame born of the same fire. Such is the journey of our own hearts. We spend our days touching, inspiring, and sparking each other's hearts with our Mighty Flames, whether we know it or not.
Once I became aware of my flame and came to terms with how I had neglected it or abused its power, I realized its importance. I had ignored it. I had dropped the torch. Too often. Don't get me wrong, it's natural to drop this torch. Don't beat yourself up when you do. Just pick it back up. You'll find that flame is damned forgiving.
I first became aware of my own Mighty Flame when I was in the midst of a housing crisis. My landlord told me that I had two months to move. I embarked on the crazy, mad adventure of trying either to buy a house quickly or to find that elusive unicorn, an affordable rental house. I started by making a list of things I wanted in my new home. I created a beautiful collage and remained conscious of my vision. But, because time was so limited, I began to doubt if I would find as nice a place as I wanted in the price range I could afford.
Maybe this is as good as it gets. Maybe I can live with less.
Oh, the humanity of doubt! Luckily, before one house-viewing appointment, I had a session with my coach. She told me to be conscious of the flame inside me before I walked into the house and to keep checking in with it as I moved from room to room. I entered the house and the flame dimmed. This couldn't be my home. It was clear. Even though there was a lot that felt right about the house, and as much as I wanted it to be right, it wasn't.
When you become proficient at monitoring your Mighty Flame, it can be a huge relief. The clarity it brings is stunning. It's like being able to see perfectly after needing glasses your whole life.
Imagine applying this same intuition to love!
I did. I went on dates with some wonderful men. Just as I did with the perfectly wonderful houses, I checked in with my flame. And, just as with the houses, it was sometimes shocking when the flame dimmed.
What? He seemed so cool! I liked that, and that, and even that.
You can certainly make choices about important things in your life by using your mind alone: “That man will make a good father,” or “This house is in a perfect location.” But imagine your purest, unfiltered intuition leading you through life. Imagine trusting it as an unfaltering compass.
All may not instantly become crystal clear when you first test it out.