By accepting our situations, we can surrender to the process of metamorphosis and personal growth. Acceptance and surrender, however, does not mean giving up or becoming a martyr. It means embracing what is, right now, for it is only when we accept what is, that we can have the clarity to see how to best handle things and what steps to take to learn and grow from every situation and experience.

In the last Butterfly Journal entry, I discussed how I work to transform unpleasant or negative emotions into the next best thing: It’s surrendering, embracing, and also loving what I feel that allows it to metamorphose into better feelings and into feeling better. It can also be helpful to understand the “why’s.” As I say: the why’s have much to teach us! Why have I felt irritated and frustrated often when dealing with my mother? This is a loaded “why.” As mentioned before, the Alzheimer’s behaviors are easy to deal with, and actually bring in some comic relief. The superficial answer to the “why” is that it is frustrating dealing with sociopathic behaviors (for anyone), and any hurt that may still be lingering from childhood neglect and abuse may come out as further irritation. However, I haven’t felt hurtful anger towards my mother in many years, and through understanding her pain, struggles, and suffering I have forgiven her.

Now let’s take a huge deep breath and dip below the surface of the water to explore the depths! My relationship with my mother was echoed in many ways in many of my personal relationships, both partnership relationships and friends. I repeatedly experienced relationships that showed the same qualities and behaviors to different degrees: lying/keeping secrets, manipulation, theft, neglect, repeatedly being let down, and all forms of abuse. These experiences came in all different shapes, forms, and quantities, but each time (and luckily more quickly each time) I’d see the echoing behaviors of my mother.

Once I had accepted that some part of me deep inside my unconscious was allowing these experiences into my life so that I could learn to stand up for myself, not allow others to take from me or take advantage of me, and not allow myself to over-give beyond my means putting my own survival needs and safety at risk, I was able to clear my life of such people. It was only then that I knew I had returned to my hometown, to the source of this grand lesson, to complete this life-long cycle of healing. It was through embracing my own painful experiences that I have been able to learn, grow, and release them completely. Through acceptance, we release. We must embrace that which we wish to let go of!

As I mentioned in this Tarot Tuesday post discussing my New Year spread: 2013 was the year of rest, recuperation, and healing, and of re-organizing, planning, incubating, and visualizing what I was working towards creating and re-creating. 2014 is the year I give birth to myself and a new life, and expand and grow in abundance and love. I have to say, I do feel so incredibly healthy, strong, newborn, and lighter. Though in the day-to-day for the time being I do often watch my mother and she can be irritating, so much has been released both through conscious and unconscious work, that the moments of irritation and frustration pass very quickly. Acceptance and embracing the darkness inside the cocoon has freed me for further growth and expansion.

In some of my early Butterfly Journal posts, I discussed some of my dream series concerning my huge life transformation and move. The dreams stopped shortly thereafter, but last week I had another one, one that seems to be a dream that brings that whole cycle to closure:

I was curious what it would be like if I returned to my old house. (This was a lucid dream thought. Also before I went to sleep I was exploring what a parallel timeline would be if I had not moved.) I went to a woman (unknown) friend’s home, and she was working on starting up a private medical practice. She was discussing her plans and how we could work together. It felt uneasy to me. Though I figured I could get some of my clients back, I didn’t like her plans.

I went to my old house. No one was living there. Inside the basement level (where I had had my office) had been gutted. I would have to rebuild it from scratch. I didn’t know how I would do this. I had no money to pay the mortgage, and didn’t even have a treatment table. The upstairs was empty, and all the walls were the pale blue color they had been when I first moved in in 2003.

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