Soul Cleanse 37: Nope, Not Today

Hello all. The Unleashed One here. It's been a really long time since I've done a Soul Cleanse, but to be fair, a whole lot has occurred. I'm not saying that to make excuses. It's true. 

Therefore, I won't waste any time. I'm going to jump into the thick of it.

Nope. Not today.

It was late 2018. I was vacationing in Vero Beach, Florida. I was at their local Walmart and couldn’t resist the purchase. On top of that, it was a light hoodie and shirt set. On most days, it is meant as a joke.

I was initially going to wear a different outfit. I tend to pick my outfits in advance. My original outfit was going to pair a reddish purple shirt to match the small pinstripe lines in my gray menswear cut slacks. However, since our work place decided to relax dress code for the remainder of the week, I wanted to take full advantage of wearing jeans. When I switched to the jeans, I felt the need to change the top. The hoodie and shirt was the change.

On this day, the message resonates different. This is my Soul Speak:

Nope. Not today.

Nope. Not tomorrow.

Nope. From this point onward.

Let me begin with some back story.

Note: I never know how long my Soul Speaks are going to be but they are typically detailed. I encourage you to grab you a snack and a drink, or if you aren’t in a space to read something heavy, wait until you have extra time and then return. I just free write.

Now that you’ve been warned, moving on.

Before identifying and embracing my gift as well as educating myself about it, there was always this underlying propensity to help. Since one of my strong suits is the ability to listen, there would be people, ranging from the stranger on the street to people at work to close ones, that would just talk to me without me saying a thing or inquiring about their troubles. In the past, when my circle was larger, if I was able to help, I would do so. When times in my life became strained (in a financial sense), I’d still try to do what I could. At my core, suffering bothers me—in particular, suffering that is inflicted due to an external circumstance or by another party. Over the years, I began transitioning. Pulling back that helping hand propensity due to bad experiences. I won’t go into extensive detail because I’ve covered a lot of examples in earlier Soul Cleanses, but I will give an overview on the one which impacted me the most. In mid-2008, I’d suffered a heartbreak. Although I adored the area, the ex's family wanted me off the property when the ex moved out. Since it was too hard on my pocketbook to remain in that area, I made the smart but difficult decision to relocate, although that increased my commute time to work from under 10 minutes to over 20 minutes. Along the way, there was this male friend named “J”. He lived in NY; I was in NJ. Our main connectivity was his love for music. We shared the same astrological sign as well, although his birthday is in August and mine is in September. He would tell me about certain experiences that he didn’t have, so as a friend, I thought it would be great to bring some of those experiences to life. As the old saying goes, “Give someone an inch; he’ll take it a mile”. “J” took it a thousand miles. Soon, he was demanding things. Some of these things were on the more extravagant side. I couldn’t pinpoint why he was tunnel visioned on high end items when he was living with a female roommate and wasn’t working. Later, due to the roommate’s financial straits, she decided to move back in with her parents. “J” didn’t want to check into a homeless shelter but wanted to move in with me to my new apartment.

I wanted to have an opportunity to be on my own. Plus there was no guarantee he would pull his financial weight. I didn’t want to be in another situation where I’d have to be the heavy and take care of someone. When I refused “J”, he smeared my name to everyone who would listen, even with people that had friendship with the both of us. Once that happened, I 86’d him. I felt he had used my good nature to try and get over on me—be “hobo sheik” as people deem it now. That was the major turning point … a signal flare that I’d have to be more protective of certain elements of myself because of how they could, and often do, get misconstrued by others.

Recently (in the past couple of years), I decided to no longer suppress what I was finally able to identify as being empathic. At first, there was little to no control over it … to the point where I felt powerless. After doing some research, I began to do the work associated with this trait, so that I can master the surroundings which can trigger an empathic overload. I can’t really describe how it is to feel others’ emotions or to see inside people. It is different for everyone. For me, it varies based on the type of energy they radiate. One thing is for sure—the people who are closest to me are the ones I’m the most impacted by. Like, if the energy is off, it’d wreak havoc on me, to the point where I would get physically ill, even if the person wasn’t in proximity. The mantras and shielding help, but with some, it takes a lot more effort. A lot more effort, as in removing myself from the equation to reset. Before my growth, the R.R. (or Running Reflex) would manifest from patterns whose birthplace was in my upbringing. The immediate members of our family would not speak about things which bothered them. More often than not, their method consisted of (1) keeping silent forever or until something propelled them to anger or loose lips or (2) confiding in someone I was the vessel that served as the confidant of chaos. Although physically I was too young to truly understand or heal what plagued them.

It was difficult to speak truth without feathers getting ruffled … without a person going below the belt, going “tit for tat”. Storming off in a huff, the slamming of doors, and the shedding of tears was always the end game. There was never that moment when the disagreeing parties came together, talked it out in a calm, civil manner, apologized for the wrong, or discussed ways to move forward so that the misunderstanding wouldn’t resurface. Instead, it was never brought up again or the person ended up cutting the other out of the person’s life. If there was the rare occasion where the parties were steal dealing with each other it was very strained. Like going along to get along. It became easy for me to equate speaking what’s on one’s mind as a negative thing and silence as being a golden thing, a positive thing. But, in its extremes, silence is a suffocating entity. It shackles one into responsibility for another person’s emotional flux. It gets to the point where you become a robotic form of yourself, using context clues and body language to develop an algorithm. You learn what you can and cannot say as well as what you can or cannot do in order to sustain the most peaceful environment possible. You adjust the calculations based on who you deal with. This is what I became. Each form of myself was adaptable. The crime is I not only became less of myself but had to decipher which was actually me and which was “worker” me. For performing on that level was work. It was easy in those days to deny the essence of soul sight and soul feel. It was easier to draw those who were damaged, seeking my help. No, I never sought them out. They came to me.

By the time the imbalance came to light, it was too late … too late in the sense of my love for some of these individuals. Where love became a tomb instead of freedom. Where I would feel guilty for being angry at those who used the healer in me to be psychologically and emotionally manipulative. Those who have followed me since my Yahoo 360 days know the story of “M”. For those who don’t, here’s a baby recap. About a year and a half before our union ended (late 2006/early 2007), “M” was engaging in self-harm practices and was frequently suicidal. Although I was suffering, I stuck around because I loved “M”. I thought being there for the hard times was part of love, even if the personal cost was tremendous. “M”’s therapist stated it was best for us to reside in separate rooms and not interact as a romantic couple until “M”'s behavioral difficulties got straightened out. I agreed to that, caring about “M”’s overall well-being. “M” repaid me by vacating our shared residence in mid-2008. The emotional and psychological manipulation played out more after the breakup. You see, “M” thought we could still be friends after the abandonment. Each time “M” couldn’t cope, a nervous breakdown would ensue, along with being admitted into a psychiatric hospital. During these times, “M” would call me.

Not Mother, not Father, not Younger Brother, but Me.

At the time, I would come running, for I was initially told that by “M” that the reason for leaving had to do with getting to a good place psychologically. The truth flooded in after the last suicide attempt. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, “M” revealed the new lover decided to leave the relationship as the reason for the neurotic breakdown. This “new lover” had been around three months before “M” left me. “M” had psychologically and manipulated me to still be there when members of the family didn’t want to be bothered with the madness. The deception crushed me. The whole “boy who cried wolf routine” just to get me to come incensed me. It was the last time I visited “M”. I did not answer any more of the attention cries. “M” wasn’t the only succubus. My ex-husband was one also.

This existence is very draining.

It was around my divorce when I got sick of all my “forms”. I destroyed the prototypes in order to live a more authentic me … to have peace in my own existence. That cannot be achieved if truth is held back by fear or anticipating what the other will say. One of the healthiest practices that an empath can enact is setting boundaries, even to those who are the closest. In all actuality, setting boundaries for one’s inner circle is the most important.

Since I’d been traveling through life without this important premise, people believed they could do what they wished and get away with it. Because I put others before myself, I subjected myself to atrocities that I’d never wish on anyone else.

Silence wasn’t the savior; it was the demon that needed an exorcism.

The exorcisms have caused quite a few to run for the hills. I guess they didn’t need to be around anyway. Or they weren’t ready to do the personal work that was necessary to be part of my space. To occupy my time, my thoughts, and my space is not a given. Nor is it a right. If anything, it is an honor because as a person who’s also an introvert, if I take time to talk with you, think of you, or interact with you, it’s saying a lot … for I could be utilizing that essence in other ways.

At moments, it’s just as easy as typing what I just typed for a person to go apeshit and blast off. Yet I’ve grown. I’m no longer willing to be someone’s emotional punching bag based off unresolved trauma or because you can’t get to the person you are really pissed off at. When I think that is what’s happening, I’ll speak my piece and then I disengage. It does no good to battle another’s trauma in a current situation, for it has nothing to do with me. Besides, one cannot speak rationale to one who has the capability to take past trauma and manipulate it to suit the current situation. Don’t put thoughts there that aren’t in my mind or my heart. That gets me lit, especially when a person says that “they know me”. If I am truly known by a person, that person should already know that I don’t do a “tit for tat” or keep track of what a person does and doesn’t do. I do that with people where I don’t give a damn whether they are in my presence or not. Or folks who borrow money from me and I have a timeline on when I get those coins back. Matter of fact, I don’t even lend money out anymore. However, if I deal with you on a spiritual level, to let that poison emit from your lips is sacrilege to me and causes me to view you with a bit of side eye. I never speak on perfection unless it pertains to me. Therefore, I’ve never expected it from anyone else. At best, I want a person to handle themselves in an honorable and authentic way. In my experience, that’s slim to none. For me to expect perfection in others is asinine. Truthfully, I don’t even demand it of myself anymore: that’s how far along I’ve come. I strive to be the best I can be when I can and while I can. Some days it is easier than others. Therefore, when the narrative of my “expecting perfection” gets flung at me, I also deflect it, for I never claimed to be perfect nor has that language ever come from my mouth to anyone: in my circle or not.

Why is my running reflex in activation?

It goes back to the performance of things outside of mantras and shields. I am in a space where I need cleansing from spiritual toxins. When someone close to me regresses and goes into toxic deflection, it is a way to protect myself to prevent those energies for taking host in my spirit. If people share similar trauma, then sometimes an active one can resuscitate one that was dormant in someone else. I’m at a high level of self-awareness where I can discern between speaking because something is bothering me in the present and spouting off based on trauma’s synapses. Interactions can become strained if I’m enmeshed in the purpose of constant evolution and healing while another person isn’t consistent with exerting logic over the illogical and repeating habits which self sabotage, not only one’s self but the very person who has been anything but the opposite of the very whispers trauma is saying.

Nope. Not today.

Nope. Not tomorrow.

Nope. From this point onward.

I don’t want any love coated with fear, anxiety, trepidation, paranoia, expectation, or obligation. I know what’s that like. I’ve been on the giving and receiving end. That love is a slow kill that dismantles methodically. It taints everything it touches. I want a love that nourishes, that encourages, that is fearless. A love that speaks truth to save others. A love that remains even in the tough times. A love that is healthy enough to let someone walk away, even if the person one loves the most is the one causing the tumult. A love that is not ashamed to acknowledge, accept, apologize, and amend in a way that can produce solutions. A love that opens the door for vulnerability and recognizes the strength in that. A love that respects the grieving process for a bond that has received too many knife stabs for liquid cement to work but accepts that a new one has to come into bloom, even if the cost is starting at square one.

From this point onward.

Peace.