Hello lovely @serowa ❤️

[This reply ended up being very long. Big, gentle loving hugs to you too! I'm also delighted to have met you.]

Being new to Hive: no worries. I'm only a couple of months ahead of you and also still figuring things out by trying things.

No choice: I hear you. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to go and visit these girls and know that you could do nothing but love them and leave them in the circumstances they're in. That would have been heart breaking.

I also hear that, 1. We are so fortunate with the abundance of choice you and I seem to both have, and 2. Different people need to hear different lessons at different times.

Also, the reason your post resonated so deeply with me is that I too have experienced assault and felt like I had no choice with my body, that I too could not say 'no'. So it's an interesting enquiry to engage in, for both you and I, and anyone following along:

Where is the meeting point of
feeling like you have a choice and exercising that power
and
realising, in that moment, that your only choice is how deeply you accept what is?

Because even in the most horrific of situations we have a choice:
Do I embrace it or do I fight it?

Or said another way:
Do I accept what is or do I deny what is?

We often think that to change something we have to fight it. But reality always wins. It's much bigger than us - what is, is. But if we can embrace what is, right now and be with what is, right now, then it has a chance to move and shift and change, right before our very eyes.

@serowa, you know what this feels like in your body because you've experienced it; when you shared your experience of being assaulted and people dismissed it and told you just get over it and move on they were denying your reality and how you felt.

But when these 7 Men embraced you as you are and accepted your reality as painful and loved you as you were without needing to change you, then you had a spontaneous experience of healing and of having your heart open again.

This is what I believe is possible when we remember we have choice, in all circumstances. Healing is possible. Though I'm definitely not saying it's easy. If someone had said this to me soon after any of the times I'd been assaulted I either would have burst into tears or sworn loudly and viciously. It's unlikely the best lesson to teach anyone who has just experienced a traumatic event of any kind.

But us, as witnesses to the pain of others, have a choice as to how we see the other person. Are we seeing this person who is experiencing something awful, as a powerless victim with no choice who we cannot help? Or are we seeing them as an incredible, strong, capable human being who is able to withstand huge amounts of hardship and still smile?

My aim, @serowa, (as difficult as this is and I stuff it up endlessly, all the time!) is to see people as infinitely powerful, incredible humans and love them as they are with all the love I have to give. For this is the very best gift I can give them, and myself.