The sweetness was all for me (a poem)
Tell me, what would I have been left with if I showed you All I Really had?
All my shine and sparkle thrilled you. All my Possibilities. All my joy Lit up the dark spaces Inside you. We both know it Was only a fraction Of what I have. And you knew. Accusing me of withholding More to give More to give More to give More for you To take. You wanted to taste me Craved my sweetness Like nutrition. I’m familiar. He loved me for who I made him appear to be For what seemed to be true About him When he stood next to me. It made her boast When she showed them My headshot— Flattening me Two dimensional. It made her beam with pride To glean upon my gold. Until it didn’t. Is this how you get your thrills? Your response is how I got mine. How I got Hooked. Tell me, What would I have been Left with If I showed you All I really had? I’m familiar Loving And withholding And uplifting People like you. Giving my “all,” As a performance Keeping the most Sacred thing Hidden away. Some call it deceit. Fake. Inauthentic. I've heard it all. It's safe To know how to Play the game. Hidden in the Spiral of my heart Hidden Even from myself.
People like you Know there is more Than what I show. People like you Are willing to mine for it. I watched her suck it up Into an insatiable vortex Never enough Never enough Never enough. I watched her spend it All for herself Then blame me when I was gone. I had to hide Deep in the well. Frozen. Hidden Even from myself. So one day When it was Safe enough I’d have saved enough Nectar of myself To Run And make a life of my own In My FORTRESS. This sweetness is all for me. This sweetness Was always All for me.
Finally, finally, in my FORTRESS.
Last week I published an episode on Everything Belongs with my dear friend Melissa, where I go deep into my own fear of exposing my authenticity and heart, in a guided somatic exploration live on the show.
Essentially, I move though the fears named in this poem (which I wrote 2+ years ago) and teach my younger selves that it’s finally, finally safe to be me.
Listen here: Risking Authenticity - Episode 123
We talk about:
The risks of authenticity
Riding the waves of fear as we lean into healthy discomfort
Embracing our full humanity
Our desire to be seen and known
Having clear mirrors
Reconciling fakeness in the relational field
Heartfelt humility
Expressing our heart
Catching our younger parts up to it being safe here and now
As you may gather from the conversation, revealing my heart has neither been easy nor safe, as layers of shame, fear extraction and abuse lay the imprint of my early relational dynamics.
I wrote this poem as I exited a relational dynamic that exposed how deeply I was living from this imprint. At the time, I seemed unable to create safety, stability and ease in my relationships, despite trying “everything.”
It’s been a hefty two years leaning into healing from chronic shame, creating conditions that would allow my heart to bloom, and slowly melting the layers of freeze that were wrapped round my heart, making it feel impossible to ever create something different.
As you may hear in the show, something different was possible… I just didn’t know how yet.
As I’ll share in Tuesday’s workshop, Sacred Sword, shame is like the glue that holds all our threat responses and trauma-imprints in place, like an epoxy. As we alchemize shame, what we will find is that our Fullest Self-Expression emerges… because we finally feel safe to see our Fullness. :)
This is what we will be exploring in my year-long program, The FORTRESS, which opens for enrollment this Wednesday.
If you’d like a preview of the program, and want to have a 2-hour experience where you reconnect to your Fullest Self, join us Tuesday for Sacred Sword: Shame Alchemy for Full Self-Expression.
To put it simply…
Come discover just how safe it is to be you.
Big love,
Madison
