I Didn't Cause This — sara lynn lashbrook

I write to process. I write to make sense. I write to consolidate what is swirling all around me. I am seated here to do just this. To see if I can in some way, compile and what I ask myself, What is it that I am seeking? What is it , that I am wanting to know, make sense of, understand?

So much seems to be swirling all around me. As I was shoveling snow this morning I was reminded of the phrase from Al-anon, which says “I didn’t cause it.” If it was necessary for me to reduce the teachings of my life down to one phrase, at this very moment it would be this:

I didn’t cause it.

I mean, on some deeper Karmic level I know that I did cause this in some way or another, choices I have made are circling back with folks, opportunities to engage, patterns revealing, messages becoming clear. And, while it has nothing to do with me, meaning I did not cause it, it actually has everything to do with me. For this is my life and my life only. I live my life, no one lives it for me. Only me. Just as others live their lives and they live their lives for them, not me or anyone else. Although I have lived my life for others, for many, many, many years. It is only that I am just now really embodying this life as mine.

Which is why I am acknowledging that I didn’t cause it.

I didn’t and do not cause others to do what they do. This is a lie, a lie that had been told to me over and over and over again. A lie that we still tell our children. “When you_____, it made me_____.” While yes, we get activated and lit up or triggered as some folks say (I already have enough weapons in my mind, I do not need one with a trigger there), it has to do with us, OUR STUFF. It is our stuff that is getting lit up and shown to us. The actions of others show us that we have stuff within us that wants our attention, that wants to be addressed. In these moments I am learning that these are opportunities for me to choose how I want to perceive the encounter, phrase or moment. I can choose to interact with it. I can choose to sit with it, face it or turn away from it. And these, I am seeing are opportunities for stuff, this caked on, dusty stuff, to be washed and cleansed away.

I have been sitting with a running list of stuff that I thought I have caused; I say running because it appears as if it continues to be added to, always dynamic, never static or “done.”

I’ve been writing this list down and speaking it out loud to a few dear friends. The list is full of shame and guilt, laced with incorrect views of my body and image of myself. This list has Victim view written all over it.

This has been swirling for a while now, this potential of me meeting this, facing this, uncovering this. It came to me full on, in a dream. A dream in which an intimate partner came crawling back to me after not being honest. He came back wanting to connect and be together again after being, the words that showed up in the dream were “untruthful.” When he dropped his head down, something on his back, at the nape of his next was revealed to me. A black scar or dot. I asked, “What is this?” He responded, “something.” I followed up with, “Why are you lying to me?” He replied, “I am not lying, I am not telling the whole truth.”

Ah, the whole truth. What is this? The whole truth. Communication is something that is very important to me. I have been reflecting on my values and this is one of them, clear, direct communication. People have a way of manipulating and using words in their favor, crafting sentences, leaving words out, saying very little and this, I have found, leaves my mind confused. These choices of others send my mind on a trip and it is really unpleasurable.

This paired with my value of discernment has got me all tangled up. Returning, reliving, replaying events and conversations in my mind, trying to reveal and uncover something that I missed, something that I did not catch on to that was right in front of my face.

You see, this is one view of the truth. The other view of this same truth is that I know. There is a deep inner knowing that shows me what is going to unfold. Not all of the time. Some of the time, I get messages of what is about to happen or unfold, or I receive a sign. As I am learning, what is being revealed here is another lesson of discernment, when to listen and follow through on the sign and what happens when I don’t. When I do not follow through, I get really, really hard on myself. Self-doubt, blame, shame and guilt come flooding in. I am so disoriented in this state I do not know what is real or true.

Slowly, slowly, as I sit and recover, as I emerge from this I see clearly and I realize that this, whatever it was that I just endured or went through, was another lesson, another opportunity for me to learn more about myself. For those of you who read these entries, you will know what I am learning a lot about myself. Stuff that I have crammed away or swept under the rug, stuff that I do not want to face or have to deal with. This is the love of Shani Dev and the grahas, this is the power of their gaze and electromagnetic field. This is the time of great learnings and a great cleansing. A deep, deep clean.

When I dig deep, asking question after question, I continue to land on the response, “why does it matter?” The words that come are, “you hold yourself with your head held high, carrying yourself with and in integrity and honesty.” I am open, I share. I am in a place now where I am asking for what I need, what is best for me in the moment. I take responsibility and own when shit is mine. What I have found when I peel back each layer and uncover the shit that I placed under the rug or the bed, when I really excavate this, I realize that it either isn’t true or it has nothing to do with me.

Here is a glimpse of what got churned up as a result of this dream. The stories I was telling myself was that the relationship ended because:

I gained weight

He wasn’t attracted to me

I did something he didn’t like

I didn’t do what he wanted

I was needy

I don’t have a job

I am lazy

I want too much

I am too much

We are not aligned

He used me

He didn’t need me anymore

He didn’t like me anymore

Someone else came into the picture

I was too honest

He didn’t want to deal

Didn’t have time for me anymore

He was scared

That I have facial hair on my nose, upper lip, chin and between my eyebrows and I

do not make time to tweeze regularly

That he thinks I am responsible for something that did or didn’t happen for him

That he blames me for something he is feeling and doesn’t like

I saw something in him he didn’t want others to see or didn’t want others to know

Maybe some of these are true. Maybe none of them are true.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT?

It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t really matter at all. I am tired of trying to figure it all out, trying to make sense of others’ decision that I let impact me. Tired of trying to understand the reasoning, timing and motive behind the choices of others. I have given up so much of my time, invested so much of my time trying to rationalize and comprehend that which does not make sense to me. As Dre said to me at the Farmer’s Market, “If something doesn’t make sense, it means it isn’t working.” I am surrendering to a larger power on this. Something larger than me is guiding my way on. Even if some of these or all of these stories are true, they no longer influence me, because they are not true to me. They are not true for me. They are not my truth. They used to be true. Yes, I used to think all of these things, and I did just now, a few days ago. Once I brought them out into the air, once they saw the light, I knew that they were not true. I know that they are not true. I used to think that I needed someone else to determine where I stand in life, to help me understand my relationship with myself and the world around me or others. Now, I know who I am and I do not need someone else to determine where I stand within myself.

I am no longer living by lies that I told myself that I thought were true. No. Nope. No more. I lived for so long thinking that me being me was the cause. That I deserved whatever happened because I caused it. And now I see, really see, that none of this has to do with me. It does and it doesn’t. It does, because this is the vehicle, the events, experiences, moments, comments and behaviors or lack there of, are the vehicles, the container in which these lessons of undoing are being presented and offered to me as opportunities for me to clean up my inner being. To reestablish my relationship with myself. And it doesn’t have anything to do with me, because we all have our stuff to navigate, wade through and figure out. It is not mine. Not mine so I do not pick it up. Which has been a huge tendency or pattern of mine. To take on others shit and stuff and think that is it mine. No. Nope. No longer. As I said, this is a time of deep, deep inner cleaning.

How can I not be in gratitude for this? This huge awareness, this undoing and redoing at the same time. This returning to the truth and knowing the lies. The lies that I told myself for so long.

I didn’t cause it and neither do you.

You didn’t cause it. You didn’t cause this.

Life is unfolding for us, reconfiguring in every moment to bring us EXACTLY what we need to take the next step.

I’m in awe.

With a hug,