Sometimes “Fuck You” is Also Grace.

Photo by Cornelia Kurtew

Witchy Bitch Credo #301:
Sometimes “Fuck You” is also grace.

The peaks and valleys of rebirth into our next phase especially when we don’t know what that phase might look like can feel like metaphysical whiplash.    Within moments of major transition and shifts lay the seed for our greatest growth, expansion, and capacity for grace; but ALSO for rage, frustration, and anger. In moments of change, a pendulum swing in our behavior or emotions is a part of the rebirth process.

I used to have a thing where I wouldn’t set firm boundaries unless I was pushed to my absolute limit/breaking point aka my “Fuck You” point.  I had to get angry to set boundaries. They usually came with resentments as well because I’d swallowed a lot of shit I couldn’t tolerate before I reached that limit.  I had a friend once ask if it might not serve me better if I could do it without the “fuck you”, and asked if I could. At the time I actually couldn’t. I needed the build up of resentment and anger to be willing to take care of myself.

In this most recent round of shifts I had been focusing on finding and leaning into the grace of each moment and challenge.  I had been experiencing some moments that felt familiar, and thought maybe that is what I still need to unearth. It had been going pretty well, and then I had a moment where I was experiencing circumstances that placed me firmly in the “Fuck you”.  Somewhere in the midst of deep upset while madly journaling I realized my anger and grace do not always have to be mutually exclusive.

What if in some cases the “Fuck You” is the grace?  What if what is coming up is the desire to tear it all down and instead the “Fuck You” shows up.  What if those words... those harsh uncultured unmediated unfettered words WERE the grace? What if the core parts of me had given in and  surrendered, loved and lived and all I had left was “fuck you”.  What if in some cases that was the closest I could get to a baseline of fairness and love? … What if the closest I could get to some form of compassion was a mutha fuckin' loud ass FUCK YOU.  

What if it was the closest to peace in route to change in the cases of much bigger systemic issues where the rage or tearing apart the whole damn shebang,  or blowing up of a system of deplorable behavior was not an option? What if fuck you was the best I could manage …what if fuck you is restraint in some cases… maybe the only grace I could get to?

I never advocate violence.  There are constructive ways to channel those explosive emotions AND still let ourselves feel them. I am not saying wallow in them, but we deserve our anger and rage too. That journey through our shadow and our light is necessary.  It stretches the edges of our new self.

Those stumbles in the shadows that sometimes lead to a fall are so we can find the gems at our feet we might have missed. That painful/uncomfortable stretching in each direction of the skin we are comfortable in makes a space for our reborn self. A space that we can rest in with more ease on the other side of the each shift.  

And I have to say... my “Fuck You” was always an ending point in my past, but with this realization in that moment it was transformed into a point of grace and a new beginning.