The Unlocking

“I can’t do this anymore”

Ella had been here many times before. Yet another lover had walked out on her. It seemed that just as she opened her heart, indeed at the very moment of her choosing, the lover, in whom she had placed her entire trust; would betray her.

It had just happened again. This time Jed was the lover.

He had uttered all the right words, made all the right noises. He’d caused her to let down her guard, actively encouraged it. She’d tried her best to resist him - as though something inside of her was saying: ‘Not this, not this.’

Yet every time that inner voice spoke, Jed would say or do something that led to her trust in him; rather than trusting her instincts.

Like the time she had a sense that he was up to no good, not returning her phone calls and disappearing for hours on end. She had known then that the knot in her stomach was trying to tell her something, something beyond just worrying about what Jed was up to.

She'd made a decision not to continue with the relationship but then he'd suddenly reappeared at her door. He so was full of remorse and dramatic excuses for why he couldn't be with her as planned, that she didn't have the heart to reject him.

The pattern kept repeating itself. Jed disappearing and then reappearing.

Each time he’d come back bearing gifts and being extra attentive towards her. Ella - yearning as she was for some loving attention would cave under the weight of his advances, excuses, and remorse.

She'd feel safe again for that moment, falling back into believing that she had at last found the love of her life.

She was sure, as Jed had suggested over and over again, that she had trust issues that she needed to work out. She knew he was right. It was true, she did have trust issues, so how could she contradict him? She struggled to trust anyone, anyone at all.

Ella would then end up feeling guilty that she'd been giving Jed such a hard time simply because her trust had been betrayed so often in the past. It got so that if Jed disappeared again on one of his adventures she'd be afraid to speak up for fear of appearing too needy.

She knew that her neediness scared people away. They could sense her fear and longing and it always made them run for the hills. So she'd stopped asking Jed for what she really wanted, which was meaningful time together.

She wanted, no needed, someone who would be there for her no matter what. She needed someone who could love her so intensely that it would fill the immense chasm inside her.

That inner chasm was of seismic proportions and she knew that if she ever revealed its depths if she ever let it crack open, she would just chase Jed away. And that was something she just couldn't take. No way.

Now here she was on the cold floor of her apartment, sobbing, devastated and alone. She’d found out that day, that she was pregnant.

She’d been so happy! Visions of white dresses and wedding bells, of them building a home together and raising their child, had raced through her mind. She couldn’t wait to tell Jed.

But when she finally got to tell Jed the good news, it felt like she was in the worst, most clichéd movie. Rather than being excited, Jed had suddenly gone cold and become withdrawn.

Eventually, he'd asked - after she pleaded for him to say something, anything - if the child was really his. He told her that he just wasn't able to make that kind of commitment right now.

He'd said that perhaps it was best if they spent some time apart and that she needed to get rid of the life that was growing inside her.

Ella, inwardly freaking out and feeling dazed and confused, said nothing, but the thought that was running through her head was:

’You mean the life of our child?’

Jed then got up to leave and Ella went a little crazy. She'd clung onto him as he was leaving. She’d even allowed herself to be dragged along the floor, begging him to stay, as he tried to fend her off. Finally, with a look of disgust, he’d turned and yelled.

“I'm married okay! Now get the fuck away from me. I don't need no more kids. I can barely take care of the three I've got.”

Even then, Ella couldn't quite register what was happening.

She'd continued to cling on to him and he'd finally kicked at her in desperation; his foot landing tellingly right in the centre of her stomach. The look of disgust on his face as he did this, said everything he was thinking.

He’d turned abruptly, walked towards the door, roughly opened it, gave her one final pitying look, then slammed the door behind him. She could hear his footsteps speeding down the stairs. He'd sounded like he was running for his life.

Ella lay where he'd left her, and sobbed uncontrollably.

She wondered how the hell she ended up here. She wondered what she was going to do about this thing growing inside her. She wondered why she hadn't listened to her instincts when they were telling her that this guy was not right for her.

She lay on the floor for a long time that night. She remained there, collapsed on the floor in a heap, the room cooling, as the sun set and darkness began to emerge.

The darkness continued to deepen, casting its surly shadows on whatever was left of Ella’s dignity and self-respect.

She’d lain there, legs and clothes askew, sobbing violently for a long time. In between each sob, she gasped for gulps of air and repeated the same phrase over and over again.

“I can't do this anymore.”

When Ella finally drifted into an exhausted sleep, too broken to even move, she was sure she could hear faint but distinct words, coming from somewhere deep inside her mind. But sleep mercifully held her in its healing embrace and she’d succumbed willingly.

Yet Ella wasn't mistaken. She had indeed heard something. Words and questions that were profoundly healing were being whispered to her:

“If there are no others in your world, then who is Jed?”

And as she continued her weary voyage into the world of deep sleep and the subconscious mind, the dreamlike words kept trying to permeate her consciousness.

There was a clear purpose and long pauses in the questioning. There was also deep and fearless love there. It asked powerful and unlocking questions:

If you were to know what Jed represented, what would you know?

How have you engaged in self-abandonment?

Who abandoned who; first?

What is it that you are really, yearning for?

What is your life mirroring to you?

Who is it that you don't really trust?

As this pain rises within you, what is also here?

If there is always love available to you, what then is it that you’re seeking?

What part of you needed someone to love so badly, that you created a new life?

What is the lesson, what is the gift here, Ella?”

Deep in the sleep of the body and deep in the sleep of her conditioned mind Ella couldn't hear these profound questions.

Even if she could, she wouldn't have been able to understand or answer them with any real insight.

They were being asked from the broadest, wisest, perspective. It was a perspective that she would need to grow into before she could even hear the questions clearly, never mind answer them.

It was a perspective that required self-forgiveness, self-honouring, self-nurturing, self-love and levels of self-awareness that were way beyond her current state.

Yet when she was ready, when she was truly ready; she would grow into hearing these questions loud and clear. And both the hearing and the answering of them would be the path of deep healing for Ella.