Permission to be whole.
Permission from who?

To whom have I given this key
to the whole me?

And do they even know they have it?
And do they actually even have it?

Permission to be whole.
Permission to feel everything that asks to be felt.
Whole feeling.
Not swallowing it. Screaming it.
Now drowning in it. Breathing it.
Not running from it. Jumping inside of it.

Whole feeling. Whole being. Whole.

Why does it feel this needs permission? And who have I given the power to grant me this wish? Where have I confused kindness of others with kindness of myself? To the point that kindness of others came at a sacrifice to kindness to myself. And yet. There are no others. So how can that possibly make sense to my Whole Being?

Oh yes. Of course. It does not make sense. And so I must build a world to make sense of it. A world built with walls of judgements of those that I do not understand, or make me feel lesser than.

I lift myself high upon the pedestal of righteousness. Standing boldly in my ‘right’ and your ‘wrong’. If only you knew what I do. You would know this One truth too.

But you don’t.
And I actually – don’t.

Because I am not One, but only one side, one right, one wrong, one perspective, one body, one human.

Still hiding my broken pieces because I am waiting for permission to love them back into me.

To love them will hurt them. They like to stay tucked away, safe in the dark.
To love them will hurt them. Blinding them to their very own identity.
To love them will hurt them. Setting something free that only feels safe when the door to the cage is locked tight.

To love them will hurt them.
I do not want to hurt them.
I do not want to hurt.
I do not want permission.
Permission to be whole.

Ohhhhhh …

That is who I have given the key.
The them that is me.
The painbody.

This is far too woven with all those I love.
And they do not give me permission.

But my walls of judgement have confused my clear seeing and what I thought was their weakness that I must protect, was in fact hidden within my very own being.

And this permission I have been craving has always been in me, in waiting.

And so …I give myself permission to be whole.

I go to the pits of my pain and feel my heart ache. Trusting in her strength to do this. I do not try to make the pain stop. And so the ache sets in as I travel down deeper, down to the core of my identity.

Now settling into my belly I feel my gut grip me in fear, butterflies feel like needles stabbing me from the inside.

But I remember I can trust my body to do this, to hurt and to not run.

And so I hurt and I sit in the stench of my own rotten fluids.

From here I see weblike threads growing out of me. Alive with tentacles searching out those that share my pain. Even within the hurt I am mesmerized by their creativity and obvious intelligence. So familiar they are, as if we have been together for many lifetimes. And I love them. They are family.

I witness the tentacles growing smaller from my very presence that is now seated deeply in the pain. They are drawing back into me, no longer reaching and searching, they are now recoiling back inside. Filling the holes of their absence, with their own whole presence.

My heart jumps in my throat as I realize my cords are drawing away from many I love. So many that share this painbody. I do not want to leave them. I love them. I take it all back. I will live just as I am, pain hidden in pain, I will do whatever I must to stay connected to those I love.

But I cannot shove my pain back down. She has been liberated and has joined me.
Once I have seen, I can no longer not see.

And so I surrender. I cry. I grieve for all I love. I did not mean to leave them. I did not mean to hurt them. I did not mean to see them.

And then, I hear them.

Alive in my painbody, now resurrected by my side. “I am them” she whispers through the sweetest smile. “And I can show you how to truly love them”

My entire body melts in awe and shock at the reality that seems so clear I cannot believe I could ever have not seen.

“To love them will hurt them.” I had thought.

But the hurt is the key. The hurt is the gift. The hurt is the door to the new reality.
And the hurt, does not hurt in the way I thought it would.

It is like the births of my children, under the shelter of nothing more than our very own home.

The hurt is the gift.
Hurt says … look here. Don’t miss this. This is the most sacred of all, right here inside of you. Your beloved is here!
Reach down, touch her wet warm head.
As she fills your whole insides with such pressure you should explode.
Hurt says Feel This.
This is the Gift.

Hurt.
Will not let me abandon – me.

And I have always had permission.

Permission to be whole.