Friendships between women are exhilarating, transformational, messy, necessary, life-giving and sometimes devastating. This past week, I made the decision to leave a friendship. Over the years, I felt less and less authentic. My emotional and physical health began to suffer – but I put myself second so I wouldn’t hurt her. Well, I did hurt her. But I’d hurt myself much more.In dealing with my decision, I found a very interesting passage online about the throat chakra:
The throat chakra is the fifth chakra in the body’s energy system, and its purpose is to act as the voice that is able to speak your authentic truth. This chakra provides clarity between what is right and wrong for you. It helps to form the authentic truth in your belief system, and it enables you to be assertive in expressing that truth to others.
My first reaction to this passage was “Oh no! Someone’s had their hands wrapped around my throat chakra because I haven’t been able to speak my truth!”
Those hands were my own. Thank goodness, I loosened my grip before passing out.
In comforting me, my sister left me with this wonderful and fitting imagery. A garden choked over with weeds takes hard (sometimes painful) work to clear. But only by doing that hard work and preparing the soil will you know what new growth can occur.
I’m glad it’s finally spring. What kind of emotional and physical clearing are you doing this time of year?
Was there turmoil in that friendship? Fights? Anything of the sort? I can't believe anyone would leave a friendship for absolutely no reason.
ReplyDeleteGwendolyn -- of course there was. Lots of turmoil, betrayal and hurt. That's the point of the post, that we stay in relationships sometimes to our own detriment.
ReplyDelete