Attachments and Blockages
An Honest Experiment #4
This week has been a strange one. To call it a rollercoaster would never quite measure the extremities that flowed through my mind and soul. A brutal resurgence of the flu halfway through a shift, an online therapy call, a full supermoon and today (Thursday the 16th) a 5-year anniversary that never was to be.
The notification came up for Facebook memories, our profile pictures were together. And I did not cry. I felt nothing but pity. Pity because I realised just how much I wanted to move on, yet couldn’t. Something I got out of my system as I felt all the lunar activity fill up my consciousness.
“Why won’t you release me?”
Saying it out loud was unexpected, yet natural. It was a profound truth I finally recognised. It was my soul, crying out at last.
It is always best that we let go of things that are no longer serving us and our own expansion in this universe, but what if it’s not our fault that we can’t let go? What if the other parties are refusing to do the same, be it conscious or unconscious? For ages, I was so sure that I was going through the worst of it, trying so hard to move on with my own life at the steady pace that I was. The habits I was breaking, the feelings I was working through, but I was prepped and ready to get going with it. Perhaps I’m impatient. It has been a month, and the world is opening up, but I can’t go out and play because of another’s suffering. Therein lies the conflict I’m finding myself in. Should I trust someone else to pull the lever of this catapult I’m sitting in? I can shoot forward at a breakneck speed, nothing holding me back, step into the bravery I know I have. Is it my responsibility to wait for them? Who is this hurting more?
Part of learning to love yourself is protecting yourself from further pain. I can only imagine the other party will do the same. But when does protecting your heart blend into withholding someone else’s?
So I ask you, reader, if you are in a similar situation, look to yourself and be honest. Who is caught in this metaphroical cage of attachments? Are the bars too thick and close together to just slip through? Who put them there? Are they just sitting there watching, waiting, teasing? And who has the key to freedom? Do they even realise they have it? How willing are they to give it away?
And it’s worse when there are other people involved or are at least involving themselves and adding more chains to this prison.
One example that springs to mind was a very hot topic that has since died down, but one party seems to keep harping on about it. I speak of course of the post-Depp vs Heard defamation trial.
It’s over. It’s done. Why are we still hanging on? And more importantly, who is still hanging on?
I may severely divide up my readership, gain more, or lose my credibility altogether, but televising this trial, the media circus that has followed along before, during and now after, had made it worse. But there are a couple of things that are glaringly obvious, at least to me, about this aftermath. Actor Johnny Depp has been trying to make strides after reliving the abuse (yes he was abused, there is no denying this) during his trial with ex-wife Amber Heard. He’s making music, reconnecting with fans, friends and family, and just trying to move on from his damaged reputation. Taking whatever necessary steps needed to heal. But there is someone else who is in need of healing, and that’s Amber.
I do not stand for abuse, emotional, psychological or physical. I do not stand for lying and petty manipulation. Amber Heard has faced a lot of ridicule for her actions. She has been chewed out by commentators of the trial, of their whole relationship, of her questionable behaviour on the stand in the Virginia court. Heck, I’ve partaken in some of the memes and laughed along. I’m part of this generation too. It’s not right to add fuel to this fire, it’s a terrible feeling receiving the heat of the mob. It can severely impact your mental health. I speak from personal experience.
Amber is not well, and she needs professional help so that she can get better and move on, but she isn’t. She is still talking to news outlets, to anyone who would listen, about the first big trial that she lost compared to the others that she won against Johnny. At what point does she realise the cage she building for herself?
It’s important to have the ability to self-reflect, to transmute this negativity into keys that unlock whatever gates others place in our path. I have the inkling that Johnny Depp has that ability, Amber however needs more time on her own path to get there. But she is standing in her own way if she continues looping back, just to get a win out of this ordeal. She has won plenty of battles in this war, they just wasn’t streamed the way her major courtroom loss was.
We’ve seen it in so many other examples too…
The Twitter feuds and breakups of Taylor Swift have had no shortage of attention in the past. She has taken all that, learned from it, and used it as inspiration for her art. While she had received much hate, I have total respect for the way she would bounce back and owned every attack that came her way, being as authentic in her music as ever as she continues to evolve.
JK Rowling has stuck to her guns when it comes to transgender rights. Once the wildly popular and eloquent children’s author of Harry Potter, the fandom has all but disowned her for her TERF views. Rather than listen to the fans she has marginalised — a big shock considering her books sparked a generation of empathetic and progressive social activists and thinkers — she has not budged, nor has she apologised, and to be honest, none of her latest additions to the franchise, book, film or otherwise, has appealed to the fandom since.
Hello again, I had to start another section, simply because I ran out of things to say and I lost my meaning somewhere above…
I had just taken the last few bites of my Sunday dinner, watching TV with the family, thinking about this theme I tried so hard to organise my thoughts into and decided to finish off this piece.
Attachments…Blockages…Are they different? Opposites? Or are they the two faces of a coin? Does one mutate into the other? Where do we draw the line?
Time is once again proving an inconsistent pause and lurch forward. But I refuse to be too much of a downer no matter how terrible I may feel. There is a happy message to this… somewhere… give me a second!
Well… I suppose if nothing positive can come out, here’s my little piece of straightforward advice.
Stop hurting yourself. Let go. But also, keep your boundaries, be firm about it. Say how you want it to be, but don’t expect anything beyond being listened to, and if they don’t respect your wishes, cut all contact forever.
Or maybe this is just some letter to myself in an attempt to jumpstart a removal of my own blockages.
I’ll keep moving, I’ll get there.
I know you will too.
-M