Ascent: What is the story I tell myself?

Have you ever heard the Story of the Seven Gates, ancient Sumerian folklore?

I’m working from memory here and half hearted research…

In this epic tale, our heroine, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Goddess of Love and War, decides to descend into the underworld to attend the funeral rites of her sister’s husband. To do this, she has to pass through seven gates.

At each gate, Inanna is told by the gatekeeper that she must strip away something of her royalty—a jewel, a symbol of her power, her garments.

At every gate, she asks the gatekeeper why she must do this.  And at every gate, the answer is essentially the same: Quiet woman, the ways of the underworld are perfect.

By the time she reaches the throne room, everything that marked her as Queen of Heaven has been stripped away. She is naked and vulnerable. She bows low before her sister.

She is judged by the lords of the underworld, struck down, turned into a corpse, and hung from a hook for three days and three nights.

But never fear.

Tiny creatures sent by the god Enki enter the underworld carrying the Water of Life. They encounter Inanna’s grieving sister, Ereshkigal, and rather than trying to fix her pain, they witness it. They mirror it. They meet her in it.

And somehow, that empathy opens the way for Inanna’s body to be given to them.

They sprinkle her with the Water of Life.

And Inanna rises.

So, what is that story I tell myself?

I am kind. I am strong. I am resilient. I am funny. I am so very smart. I am lucky. I am abundant. I am creative. I am alive! I am thoughtful. I am empathetic. I care. I am also the land of chances for people, for some reason.

Sometimes, I allow their potential to override their demonstrated behavior. Even when my physical reaction is a hard no.

Why?

Why do I let others back in after they have shown me who they are?

Someone treats me badly… I see it. I feel it. I understand it. And then I use my capacity for empathy, forgiveness and hope to argue myself out of what I already know.

I had to stop and ask myself some different questions.

Because ultimately, for as long as I can remember, I have lived under some version of:

Keep the peace.
Be nice.
Don’t make a scene.
Try to understand.
Accommodate.
Make other people’s discomfort my problem.
Compromise yourself for the sake of others.

And when I look at my life through the shadow side of the things I believe are my greatest strengths, it becomes clear why things in my life have turned out the way they have.

With empathy, I can say, “I understand why they did it.”

With compassion and care, I can say, “They were hurting, too.”

With a boundless sea of hope, I can say, “Maybe this time it will be different.”

With resilience, I can say, “I can handle it if it isn’t different.”

My loyalty allows me to say, “I don’t want to give up on people.”

And my willingness to forgive says, “I don’t want to hold this against them.”

Back at the end of February 2010, I was beaten badly by a man I had already given several chances.

We started our relationship when I was 20. He showed me then that I wasn’t his person when, without letting me know personally, someone else was more enticing.

It crushed me.

For nine years after, I played his game. He would often call or show up and disrupt the life I was trying to create for myself to pull me back in. And because of the shadows of my greatest attributes, I fell for it.

When the life he had created for himself came to an end, he came running back because I am safe and soft and forgiving.

For nearly five years, we had a tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship.  I was relieved when he moved out of my house and into a different city.

But then he convinced me to leave behind everything and start fresh in that new city.

I did it without reservation. I jumped in wholly.

What I found was that things hadn’t changed.

I cashed in life insurance policies, picked up extra work, made adjustments to make sure my child and I could have some form of normal.

And then, February 2010…

I had never known that kind of violence, anger and hate.

It took me a few weeks to realize and process what had happened.

I should have called the police.

I did not.

All of the things that I know make me great worked against me.

I ended up fleeing.

I let people know what really happened.

In doing so, it opened me up to jabs from his family—letting ME know what a terrible person I was for saying something.

Not that the behavior that caused me to say something in the first place was terrible.

The shadows of my strong self abided, but only for a moment.

I ended up getting a restraining order.

I was trying to start my new life, and there were things I just couldn’t overcome.

I ended up going through a “Cord Cutting” ceremony with a dear spiritual friend. She explained that in order to cut everything tying us together, I needed to cut all positive and negative cords.

I assumed she was talking about the restraining order.

And so, after about seven months, I appealed to the court to get rid of the order.

The shadows of my formidable characteristics told me it was the right thing to do.  I was living in the middle of my happy life and felt strong enough to maintain it.

But then I bumped into him in the wild.

He said he wanted to apologize to me.

I needed that apology, I felt.

What it did, however, was open the door to the cycle.

Within three months, I was stuck in it.

What he told me had changed, hadn’t.

He never raised a hand to me again, but I know there were times he wanted to.

Because of this, during mediation, I requested communication ONLY through a court-approved app. Something that can be monitored if needed.

I won’t look back.

I won’t deviate.

He has shown me who he is, and it’s high time I believe that more.

Recently, I was in a very short relationship with someone.

I earnestly thought he was a solid human. And maybe he is.

I knew it was going to be short because he had very specific plans to leave the city on a very precise date.

As that date neared, I learned there was someone else in the picture that I was not aware of.

We were headed out to our final goodbye dinner, and because I had said something before we left, that the lack of knowledge seemed a bit deceptive, it seemed too difficult for him to navigate, he turned around halfway through the drive to our destination.

Without a word, he dropped me off back at home and drove away.

And then the cycle continued.

He texted about a week later to let me know that he didn’t want it to end that way, so I agreed to try dinner again.

And then, about three weeks later, while I was out enjoying my life to the fullest, he let me know that he couldn’t live without me.

And then, about a month later, he showed back up in my city.

And for less than a week, enjoyed my company and all of my greatest attributes…

Only to leave town simply with a text message while I was working to let me know that I am too difficult because my life is too crazy.

I deserved to have this delivered to my face.

I wouldn’t have argued or tried to convince him otherwise.

But I deserved better.

If we back up to the night he turned around and dropped me off without a word…

What I felt in my body.

What I felt in my soul.

What I understood about my own feelings.

That should have been louder than the shadow of my strong characteristics.

Oh, that body of mine…

My body already answered the question.

I just didn’t like the answer.

That may be the hardest part to admit.

I didn’t lack information.

I lacked willingness to honor what the data meant.

I knew.

And then I explained.

I abandoned myself.

When does it become okay to say, “I love you, but that doesn’t mean I need to have you in my life”?

When can I say, “I forgive you. I understand why you did that. You are hurting, too. BUT I will not abandon myself anymore.”

What is the magic formula?

How many times will I allow this in my life before saying enough is enough?

I am coming to this question with honest curiosity.

I feel like no matter how hard I work on myself, this self-abandonment piece is so overpowering that I will always be stuck in this position.

It shows up with my children.

It shows up with my friendships.

It shows up at work.

It even shows up with my family.

I’m struggling with the fact that, in order to break the cycle, I may have to walk away from the version of whatever relationship in which I abandon myself and my inner knowing to keep it.

I have always been the woman who firmly believes there is always more love to give, more understanding to offer, more context to consider, more chances to extend.

I think it comes from truly observing and learning and loving others as they are.

This is all well and good, but I have come to realize that I am, more often than not, the only one who pays for all those chances.

It feels selfish and conceited to treat access to me like an exclusive club.

But I’ve also noticed that I often find myself completely depleted of energy after giving it away so freely.

Besides going back to the places where I’ve abandoned myself the most, healing as much as I can, and integrating those parts of myself back into this whole person…

Is my failure to fully trust myself and my true feelings in these matters simply the result of old patterns?

Does it really come down to the old saying:

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?”

But is that really true?

I’ve been taking classes to learn new skills like dancing and elevated pottery.

I’ve been traveling alone.

Making art.

Finding new and interesting ways to teach.

Approaching galleries.

Changing how I parent.

Setting boundaries and learning boundaries.

Examining my own nervous system.

Questioning decades-old patterns.

I am literally teaching this old dog new tricks.

Maybe this is what I’ve been afraid of.

Maybe I’ve spent so much time learning these patterns and cycles that they are simply who I am now.

But then I remember something.

An old dog is STILL a living thing.

And apparently, so am I.

I don’t know, exactly, what the magic formula is.

I don’t know how many times it will take before this becomes instinct rather than extreme effort.

I don’t know if self-trust is something I can simply decide to have.

But maybe that’s not the point at all.

Maybe I don’t have to know how to ascend all seven gates today.

Maybe I just have to stop at the next one.

And when the gatekeeper tells me to surrender another piece of myself, maybe this time I’ll recognize...

the lie.

My compassion does not require my participation in my own mistreatment.

Full. Stop.

And maybe this is what rising looks like.

Not becoming harder.

Not becoming less loving.

Not becoming less forgiving.

Not becoming someone who never gives another chance.

Maybe it is simply becoming unwilling to leave myself behind in order to love someone else.

Inanna’s story does not actually end as neatly as the version I remembered.

She rises from the dead, but the laws of the underworld demand a substitute. Someone else must take her place.

There is more to the story.

There always is.

But maybe I don’t have to follow every part of it.

Maybe I can write my own ending.

Maybe I don’t have to sacrifice someone else to get myself back.

Maybe I don’t have to sacrifice myself, either.

Maybe the cycle ends here.

Please send the Water of Life.

I am ready to ascend.

I am ready to break this cycle.

I am ready to stop abandoning myself for others.

Today.

Right now.