Quiet Victories

Quiet Victories (a poem about 2020)

This past year, I grieved. Hardly and deeply. I let go of resistance from my pain, to grow. Instead of trying to forget, I felt.

I cried, I laughed, I wept, I longed, I connected, I lived.

By surrendering to whatever pain I felt, I listened to myself for the first time ever.

I developed and found my inner knowing; I discovered the power of my intuition. I initiated my heart to catch up to what my mind always knew all along. And I won over the people who didn’t deserve me.

2020 felt like a part of me has died.

There was an empty void in my heart, yelling that I am inadequate, incompetent, guilty, and saturated with shame, blame, regret, misery. My heart came from a place of lack.

But sometimes, we need to die a little inside in order to realize our invaluable beauty and worth. Pain only serves to strengthen us.

So the part of me that died simply was the toxicity I have outgrown, in order to return to myself that is abundant in love. This feels like the first page of my last chapter in healing: this year, I WILL be and feel whole.

2020 was the year I finally realized my worth.

I learned how to dance, how to not care about what people think of me, how to connect back to the profound infiniteness within me. I learned that I don’t need to fit into the mold of people’s expectations. I am free to love anyone, despite identity. I don’t need an explanation for other people to understand me. For those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind. I now know the difference between unconditional love and conditional love. I learned that love can only be found from within me. I learned that boundaries are not selfish, but rather a form of self-respect — I do not lack it, but rather there are lots of cracks in my ability to set them.

But I will mend these cracks; in doing so, I will be content, regardless of inevitable tension. I will not allow my inner pain to hurt others. By asserting and discovering my needs and wants, I can combat future misunderstandings and external pain. It is only through hurting, grieving, crying, laughing, and feeling it ALL, that spurs growth and persistence to keep on growing. Life doesn’t give anything more than we could handle.

Inner work is the best work to do: journalling, meditation, therapy, practicing AWARENESS. And with my newfound knowledge of unknowingly suffering from narcissistic psychological abuse, recognizing my fatherly wounds, and (perhaps most importantly) connecting back to my roots of past familial intergenerational trauma, I am now embracing change that serves me: cultivating healthy detachment.

I am now shifting towards my own individualized nifty cusp: acceptance, forgiveness, love, inner peace, and WHOLENESS. The purpose in my healing and others’ healing stems from the empathy, compassion, and understanding that this messy (and often cold) world overlooks.

I challenge you to stay warm in a world that can be cold.

In writing this, I have acknowledged my quiet victories.

Now, celebrate yours.

- Kat

IG: @plantifullylivin