I’m sitting here in my beautiful new flat, which I feel so lucky to be living in. I am surrounded by loved ones who really care about me, I’m healthy and my business is growing in the way I always wanted it to.
Yet...
Yet. My heart has been heavy for weeks. I have felt such an unshakeable sadness nestled into my bones, which no matter what I do, does not leave me.
I am grieving. And, despite being someone who is known to embrace grief, and has even written a book about it, I don’t want to be. I feel angry that I even have to. I feel that I don’t ‘deserve’ to be going through this. The old conditioning that pain is a punishment has come back to haunt me again.
Two months ago, my relationship of nearly four years ended. We were travelling together and I flew back to England to separate from him and start rebuilding my life without him.
Despite the deep inner work that I do, I still naively thought that I would be over this by a couple of month’s time. Well, it’s been a couple of months, and the pain has remained with me in such a way in which sometimes it takes my breath away.
It’s not that I regret ending it. It’s that I regret starting it. And I’m not one to regret a lot. I can find meaning in everything, the lesson in everything. But the level to which he hurt and betrayed me renders all meaning futile at times. And the feeling of humiliation that I allowed him into my life, allowed this to even happen to me, makes it all feel so much worse. I thought that doing ‘the work’ makes you somewhat discerning to emotional manipulation. And it does… but I started this relationship years ago, when I was a different person. And that makes this messier.
The pain I feel is grief for myself. Grief for the little girl who was starved of love, who was grieving her mother and neglected by her father. Who then allowed men who were not worthy of her time, energy and love into her life. I grieve for the part of me which I feel I gave to this man, and the years I felt I lost in doing so. The part of me which was so vulnerable and needed protection, and instead was harmed cruelly, yet again.
It’s embarrassing to even admit that. I don’t want to be someone who even has to say this.
And yet, this grief was needed. I clearly still had a lot of deep healing work to do regarding self-worth and reparenting my inner child. This relationship showed me that I ignored many red flags because my need not to be abandoned was stronger than my own insight. And I must face that with self-compassion rather than self-blame.
Initiations are usually heavy and grief-laden. It’s about integrating the darkness with the light. Rather than receiving a bolt of warm relief, it’s more about descending into the coldest, darkest, most abandoned parts of our psyche, where our core pain resides. It certainly doesn’t feel like the pretty ‘love and light’ package we’ve been sold through western feminine spirituality. It feels like death. It feels like winter. It feels never-ending.
If there was nothing left to heal, I wouldn’t be sitting with this pain. And this pain is old. Centuries old. This pain is the Wound of The Feminine. This pain is DNA-deep. This is the pain of feeling perpetually not-good-enough, not pretty enough, of feeling replaceable, of being overly sexualized, of feeling neglected and abused without end. This is a pain which I believe resides in every human being, but moreso in those who identify as women. This is the lovechild of patriarchy and colonialism. This is where racism and misogyny meet within me. And it was embedded within me before I was born. I believe I have carried this wound in previous lifetimes too. So it’s not just a ‘passing phase’. No, this is real, and this isn’t going anywhere fast.
The journey from the archetypal Maiden, to Mother, to Crone, takes time.
I can’t wrap all of this up with a nice bow. But I can say that accepting it and sharing what is in my heart with others who resonate has been healing. Holding it lovingly has been healing. Not trying to push it away has been healing. Integrating it within me has been healing. Crying has been healing.
I am someone who helps others to heal. And one of the greatest blessings and burdens of that path is that I have walked in the darkness for more years than I can recall. I have felt the deepest pain. I have pieced fragments of myself back together. I have grieved and lost and grieved and lost, over and over again. And I have been reborn every single time, each time more powerful than the last. No healing comes without pain. And once again, on this journey, I surrender to that knowledge and let it transform me.
My pain is what connects me to others. It’s why I’m even writing these newsletters, and why I do what I do.
I hope that this resonates with those who have known this deep pain. And I wish you healing, hard-earned wisdom and rebirth on your own journeys.
Sending love and gratitude,
Maya
My Offerings
Last year I published my first book; a collection of poetry about death, grief, rage, trauma, mysticism and, ultimately, healing. It’s called Half Woman Half Grief and it mirrors the mythological heroine’s journey through the underworld of loss and darkness.
I’m an astrologer who combines natal, horary and evolutionary astrology to provide 1:1 readings. My approach is intuitive and deep, bringing light to the darker corners of our chart so we can start to heal and integrate those areas.
And lastly I co-host The Decolonial Podcast, where we explore the harmful impact of British colonialism, as well as the healing and reconciliation of it, through our identities as Indian and Pakistani women.