When people walk away from you

When people walk away from you, let them walk. Let them go. 

Bishop T.D. Jakes speaks this wisdom during an electrifying sermon that has gone viral for good reason. His guidance is real, grounded, and truthful.  

When I recall moments of being abandoned whether emotionally or physically by my family, ex-partner,  or other beloveds in my life, I close my eyes and can feel instantly, the sensation of trauma spinning circles within my abdomen, as if my insides are being wrung like a towel. It doesn't feel good, yet at this point, I know it's momentary so I stay with it, breathe deeply, and then it passes, like all things in life. 

As I grow intimate with my own body, I become more amazed by her and what she teaches me. My body is no longer this thing I have to just feed and train and make fit. Western society socializes us to identify "the self" as our minds primarily - our personalities, values, beliefs, and ideas. Thus, our body becomes this separate thing that we have just to aid our psyche. So we tend to treat it like shit. We starve it, we poison it, we push it like crazy, and we frequently ignore what it tells us. Over the past year, I've done the difficult yet liberating work to decolonize this narrow belief about the mind-body separation. I see my body differently. I treat her gently. I listen to her. 

When people walk away from you, let them walk. Let them go. 

I think about my body in these moments when people have left. How the sharp sensations in my stomach were cruelly ignored. How disconnection from the pain kept me from accepting the truth. In my mind, I was completely gripped by my fears and attachments and stories. Instead of letting them walk away, I would hang on as tight as I could or I would keep myself numb and dissociate when they did. I would blame myself that they wanted to leave. I would spend all my might and energy trying to convince them otherwise. That I was worth loving. That I would try harder. That things would be good. 

When people walk away from you, let them walk. Let them go. 

Now, when someone walks away, it still hurts, quite deeply. But instead of ignoring my body's response to it, I allow curiosity to arise. I open myself to the spinning circles in my stomach. I let the physical sensation run its full course. I notice the stories float in and out of my mind like film scenes scrolling by. I witness the tenacious part of me, feeling myself still wanting to convince, but I know better now. 

Finally, I've learned to let them walk. I let them go. 

I turn inwards to Truc, my little person, and I tell her this. 

It's okay. It's not your fault. They walked away because something within them kept them from staying. Something kept them on the shores. You can't help them swim towards deeper waters. To heal. To see truth. To allow possibility. To love themselves. In letting go, you get to choose you. Trust and release. What's meant for you will know and will be.