"But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ." – The Little Prince
I no longer want to be known for being tough. Fierce and strong in my Divine Feminine, yes. But within that is softness. I want to be allowed to be soft.
For any other woman or person who has had to be tough to survive or earn a seat at the table, the Divine Feminine in me that sees and speaks to the Divine Feminine in you, gives you permission to be soft. To shed your tough exterior and allow the light in you to Be the highest self version of yourself possible in your human body, without the confines of any armor. I invite you to expand in your Divinity.
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Shedding my armor and letting go of my “tough” part has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. My “abort mission” part has sounded its alarm bells more than once. I’ve been anxious, depressed, and tearful in the midst of smiles and feeling the sunshine on my skin. My ego wants to know how I will survive without this tough part, and it’s only been with constant reminders from my Reiki therapist, authors, and podcasts hosts that my commitment is in choosing the light and trusting that a new way of being is possible. If you’re still reading this, my assumption is that you’ve also been feeling some of this energy too (although it may be the letting go of a different part), and I just want to remind you that in all this, you are okay, you’re not alone, and the light is coming.
*I really wanted to pair this one with James Spaite’s song “Effort” (You don’t have to work for love anymore), but the song isn’t on Instagram. Still, I highly recommend sitting down and just listening to that one.
First off, let me start out by saying that I love Susain Cain. I think she’s brilliant. When I read one of her books (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking; Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole) I think “That’s me!”.
But… maybe bittersweet isn’t me. Maybe it’s just my state of mind, and my mind is more of my ego than of me. So why am I often full of melancholy after a holiday? Why do I look out at the mountains with a such a deep sense of longing?
As Cain states and I fully agree, feelings of sadness and melancholy can bring people together, to connect us, in a world where many of us feel separate. In fact, this is usually how I recognize people that are “like me”, the others who are highly attuned to pain and who don’t feel like they ever really fit in. Now I believe this is all an illusion.
The false belief is that we are separate. Not just from each other, but even more so, from ourselves.
What I’m learning is that most of us are disconnected from our true selves. We don’t realize it because the split started within the first few years of life, when the world started to shape us rather than allow us to grow into our highest potential of being (not doing). In order to survive in a conditional world, we split from our true selves, from the joy, love, and light that create* our souls. Another way to say this is that our shadow selves block our light, and if we are disconnected from light (we could also say Source, Spirit, etc) we will always be filled with longing.
*Another popular argument that Cain makes (argument isn’t exactly the right word but the best I can come up with) is that those who experience depression or melancholy are often creatives, or artists. I actually think that we’ve only touched on the creativity possible because the emotions of disconnection block it.
My longing isn’t for the mountains. My longing is for me.
My longing is to return to the Home inside myself, where light, love, and peace reside. The mountains-the beauty they hold- simply bring about the feelings of freedom and joy within me, but in my natural state is just that. I’m just usually disconnected from my natural state because of the my shadows, constructs, and the ego voices that fill my mind.
(Again, this where I wholeheartedly agree with Cain that bittersweet emotions can lead to transcendence, as we learn to rise beyond the ego.)
Therefore, the quest in life isn’t to go in search of connection, creativity, or love, but to find it within oneself. To be able to look at oneself with a sense of awe and wonder for the magnificence within. Only then can life truly be an adventure, as we allow opportunities and experiences to come to us rather than force anything to happen.
It is in sitting still and listening to our hearts, while kindly asking our minds to quiet down, that we can begin to return back Home to Self.
**I totally may have gotten a few points wrong from “Bittersweet”. I read it at the end of last year, so I may-probably-have forgotten many of her insights. I also don’t think Cain could have written this chapter as the science of spirituality is relatively new and there isn’t a lot of a research on the topic. Regardless of any of this, Bittersweet is a wonderful book that I highly recommend.
In Star Wars, there was The Resistance, but the darkness (Dark Forces) could never truly disappear until a Rey (ray) of Light came in. This is because the darkness can never survive the light. The darkness, at its core, is simply the unknown, and once the darkness is known (light), it can never be unknown.
The funny thing is that Rey also bought into the idea that the darkness was something to be scared of and to fight, which led to a lot of internal struggles and external battles. All she really had to do was be herself, which encompasses her union with “The Force” (energy, Source, etc.).
Actually, this is what all the movies on dark and light forces get wrong, be it Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or any Marvel movie. All these movies/books play off the story that the darkness is something to be fought, that there has to be a battle between good and evil, but we’ve literally created (manifested) each villain through our own ego-based fears. The villains or enemies might be tangible, but no more so than a building that was created from someone’s imagination. The building can pretty quickly be deconstructed and re-built into something new, better, if allowed. More simply put, once we cease to create darkness, the darkness will cease to exist.
Again, the darkness is simply the unknown. What blocks it from being known, from the illumination of the light, is fear. Fear is what causes separation and creates evil, what most of us refer to as darkness. When I’m talking about fear, I’m not talking about primal, instinctual fear (and honestly, I’m not sure how much fear is actually present when reacting to a danger in the present moment) but the fear created from the ego-mind. The ego-mind is fragile and full of insecurities, so each moment can feel like a threat and the ego will protect, defend, and fight for its survival. We are not the ego-mind, we are not darkness…we ALL are light. Our ego-minds create (fear) darkness. When we realize that, that all fear is an illusion, and nothing created by an illusion can be permanent, we can start to break down the barriers to allowing light in. This is why the more we are all our true selves, all Reys or Rays of Light, we can put an end to the darkness without ever having to fight.
(I think more men have bought into the illusion of separation and fear because of the dominant male energy they were brought up with based on their gender identity. While the feminist part of me still wants to call out gender discrimination in the military, I still think this is why more men are drawn to being a soldier. Where I think most of us have “the fight” wrong is that we pick one person “ruler” to demonize and associate everyone under their leadership as evil. Yet the opportunity to change is not in the leader, but with the people on the ground, where shared humanity is easy to recognize without the false identity given by a uniform. And no “ruler” can lead without people giving him power. –I know there’s some cool programs going on with veterans who are healing by becoming “warriors of love”.)
Around this time a year ago, the droplets being released from my eyes were so big that I nearly blended into the low clouds and rainy afternoons of monsoon season in the San Juan mountains. I was both dying and being broken open. The ego facing the beginning of its loss of power, my spirit just beginning to see the sliver of light called freedom. The first divine words that came to me, “My Love, I will not abandon you.”
*Ego death is a bit of a misnomer. What we want is to rise above is the conditioned fear created around the ego. Once that is overcome, our ego is simply the realization we are human. It keeps us safe in our human bodies. Think of the kid who jumps off her garage thinking she can fly…while this kid is still beautifully connected to the spirit world, she actually needs a little more grounding energy (without over-protection) to help connect with and respect her human body.
I’ve always had a soul that demanded to be free. Yet underneath my shadows, constructs, and conditions to be lovable that I put on myself, my soul remained trapped.
This was, is, the year.
If I didn’t win this battle, if my mind stayed in control over my heart, I’m almost certain my soul would have chosen to depart.
For those unfamiliar with exit points, this is a point in one’s life where a soul may choose to leave the body and return Home (this is different from suicide). The soul may do this when it feels like it has accomplished its mission for this lifetime, or, if it feels like it can’t complete its task, maybe because the trauma experienced was too much to overcome, the soul may choose to go back Home and “regroup” before the next round. (This is not a choice made by the human self. If you are here on this earth today, you are here for a reason, a reason you may not know yet. This life is magical and we have no idea of the intricacies taking place, including how we affect the lives of others now or in the future.) Or, as I believe in the case of my older sister, some souls leave at a time that is best- could lead to the most growth- for their family and friends. As may be obvious to anyone who has read any post of mine, my own evolution toward my Higher Self has increased dramatically over the past few years after my sister’s passing.
And honestly, I’m not sure how, if, I could have made it without the loving guidance of my (spirit-angel) older sister, my (human-angel) twin sister, or my (spirit-guide in blue fur) dog. Then of course there is my dear friend Tara, who, once I got over my initial ego jealousy of her, I instantly recognized as a true soul sister that held all the wisdom and compassion of Green Goddess Tara. While she and I talk only a few times a year now, there’s an instant recognition of connection that in words comes out as “she actually gets me.” These sisters have been my rocks and rivers of hope, offering steady reassurance that everything actually is and will be okay even during the windiest of small mountain town days.
Now, a year later, I finally feel like my heart is winning. That it is going to rise above the fears of my egoic mind that has been keeping me more trapped than safe. The divine message I received has slightly shifted to “My Love, I chose you.” I have one wing tip grazing on the side of freedom, my soul eagerly but patiently waiting for the rest of my body to get there.
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From what I’ve witnessed, there are a lot of people going through a transformative phase right now. (This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, but I won’t dive into that right now.) It can be a really hard, messy process. And you don’t have to do it alone. I spent a lot of nights on my knees praying for help, and for me what I mostly received was clarity on the guidance already around me (with a few new people popping into my life). The ego will trick you into thinking you are always alone, but that is literally never true. We all, always, have spirit guides around us. There are always people willing and wanting to help. (Look for your human-angels.) There are therapists (you don’t have to have a specific reason or mental health condition) or support groups out there. Keep fighting for your heart, your light.
When I came to realize strength, or maybe toughness is the better word (it’s all semantics really), was not an external characteristic but an internal one, I spent a lot of time contemplating what the word actually meant. While this post explores a few topics, such as hustle culture, survival energy, and fertility, much of it is a contemplation on what true strength really is…following my heart in world that is often led by the mind.
Strong isn’t about surviving.
Fertility isn’t about being a mom (although it can certainly encompass motherhood).
Strength and fertility, I am certain, go hand in had. But not in the way most of us think they do…
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I was a tough kid with an empath’s heart.
Scrappy. Always hustling. Not afraid (or maybe more accurate, not caring) of flinging my body across the basketball court or acquiring the next bruise.
“Only the strong survive” read my well-worn armband, a quote from my favorite NBA player Allen Iverson (pre-domestic abuse allegations).
This was my rough exterior. Like a soldier going into battle, only with life being the enemy, I armored my heart and prepared for a life a struggle and having to fight my way to…the top? Happiness? Something better? I didn’t have a whole lot of examples of anything else to look up to, I just knew I wanted something different.
Of course, all my friends saw through my baggy basketball shorts and cut-off t-shirts, sometimes earning the nickname “mom” from some of my male friends. I hated it, but I really couldn’t help myself as I reminded them to study…I just wanted the best for them. As much as I tried to hide it, I could never bury this loving, nurturing part of me.
But with this part came my emotions, and I knew- learned early on in life- that was unacceptable.
My equation? Physical pain= good. Internal pain= bad.
Back to the grind.
Working hard to earn my worth. Slaying my way through another report card of straight As, berating myself for anything less. Hours exhausting myself first spent in the gym, then running outside as I got older. Never really stopping for. a. chance. to. take. a. breath.
To listen to my heart.
Figure myself out.
Even in my 20s as I rebelled and rejected America’s 8-5 (or longer) culture, the hustler in me couldn’t really let go. Dropping the habit was one thing, dropping the mindset was another.
The armor, although softened slightly, remained a vigilant guard around my heart.
Honestly, I didn’t even know it was there, I was so used to it. Or rather, I only became conscious of the protective shield in my early 30s. I didn’t realize there was another way of living.
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I’m not sure what made me decide that the intention for my rights of passage during my second year of grad school would be to embody my Divine Feminine. I don’t think I even really understood the feminine and masculine energies back then. And still, even when I received signs of fertility, abundance, healing, and closeness with Mother Earth (namely snakes and wild turkeys), I wanted to reject them.
(In case you’re wondering, the masculine energy embodies the “doer”and gets things done. The feminine energy is the creative, life-force energy. These two energies work great together…but only if we lead with the feminine. …Did I just explain where America went wrong?)
Fertile? I had never once in my life wanted to have kids. I may have had a very short time period during childhood playing with barbie dolls, but the stories I told during play never involved families. I definitely wasn’t interested in baby dolls. Maybe I knew fertility had a bigger meaning than just having kids…but I’m not sure my mind ventured further than fertile vs. barren soil. And I figured that, at least, I honored and fulfilled my nurturing side at work. For a long, long time I left it at that.
My grad school “yearbook” picture. Looking back, I realize that my friends saw the real me before I even saw myself.
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It has really been only recently, as in two weeks ago, that I started to put two and two together. And really, it was only “kinda” me. Or maybe it was the actual me, the higher self me. Let me explain….
One of the things that has helped me the most in the past few months are my free writing sessions. I also call this channeling, but I don’t want to scare anyone away. Maybe I’ll write about that at another time. In short, the message I received from the quick writing of my left hand was that I didn’t have to fight to survive, that I just needed to allow the earth to provide while living in harmony with it. That this is my Divine Feminine. My only fight was to come back Home to myself.
I likened this to hunters and gatherers I learned about in school. Despite being vegan for a decade (again, habits can die while mentalities live on), I embodied a hunter, risking my life in the search for food. Yet I was always meant to be a gatherer, sometimes growing, but usually just picking, and harvesting the fruit, nuts, and vegetables that were already gifted to me.
In short, fertility is my inherent abundance, my power, and in that is my manifestation* abilities. The only thing I can do is block it. Which I’ve gotten really, really good at after 30 years of practice.
*I actually told my Reiki therapist the other day that I needed to drop the word “manifestation” for a bit and just “be and allow.“
My block? My hustle. Or rather, my hustle mentality. The voice that told me I had to do, do, do in order to be worthy anything good. The voice that said I could only have nice things if I worked hard for them. The voice that said I had to earn even my rest.
My Reiki therapist (his really name is Anthony, but maybe I should give him a name like “Ghandi” or maybe even “Obi-Wan Kenobi”, as Dan Millman nicknamed his teacher “Socrates” in The Way of the Peaceful Warrior) encouraged me to meditate and practice Being, to find the serenity within myself as I also fought to challenge my negative thoughts. Once in awhile, as much as I doubted it, the Universe showed me it working in my favor* , whether by circumstance or intuition.
*The obvious “duh” here is the free, almost daily sessions with Obi-Wan Kenobi and having a place to live (even if I always worry about being a burden) during this wanderlust period.
First, when I blew the tire on my sister’s mountain bike (downhill mood), and then after a laser therapy session (uphill mood), my intuition led me into a nearby bike shop. Still walking in the door, I almost instantly locked into the blue eyes of the bike mechanic behind the counter (I swear, if there was a high resolution camera put in slow motion, you’d see me taken aback and stutter for just a millimeter of a second as my soul registered his). And, whether it’s a summer fling or something more, somehow I found myself spending time with both a teacher in flow (being with movement) and someone that I simply like Being with…sometimes talking, often not, looking at the horizon for hours on end. Could I really not doing anything and still be liked? Or course my mind tried to abandon ship and self-sabotage within a week and a half. Why? Because my Ultimate Block, I realized as I was discussing accepting and allowing Love* in with Anthony/Obi-Wan Kenobi is that I don’t believe I deserve Love. So how could I possible allow Love and joy to flow through me, let alone accept a guy being nice to me? (Empaths and narcissist come from the same wound, even if they fall on opposite sides of the spectrum, which is a big part of the reason why an empath may find themself in a relationship with a narcissist.)
*Capital “L” Love = Unconditional Universal Love.
However, saying this untruth out loud (deep, deep, deep down I know it’s just a cognition I’ve been conditioned to believe) for the first time seemed to help loosen the lie’s death grip. Maybe I could fight this thought (while accepting my ego) and allow Love in.
Herein lies my strength…my choice to fight this internal battle of Love over fear, heart over head, intuition over ego. To stay true to my heart in a world ruled by a conditioned mind. I’ve wanted to give up more times during this run than I ever have during an ultra race. Yet with a soul that demands to be free, I know my life my life depends on me staying in it.
And this is where this story of quitting the hustle, strength, fertility, and following my heart becomes a story to be continued…
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”― Rumi
*Nuance: I use the word “fight” a lot as it’s the best word I have at my fingertips. I kind of mean it and I kind of don’t. In some sense, it absolutely does feel like I am fighting for the freedom of my heart and soul. I am constantly challenging my thoughts and the rule of my mind over my heart. Yet in this, I’m not labeling my mind or thoughts as “bad”. The goal is to be able to witness my thoughts without giving in to them, which allows more room for the heart to lead.
When I was a kid, I would use my imagination to escape the fear-based reality given to me by adults. The rules, the sins, the “eat your lima beans or you’re not leaving the table.” Of course, using one’s imagination was deemed inappropriate not long after age 6, reserved only for books* and movies, so I kept most of my day-dreaming to myself. The woods were full of fairies, magical creatures, and talking trees. I was happy to wander for there for hours.
*Perhaps why I have always found solace in books and was THAT kid in school who would be found reading while walking down the hallway.
My own fantasy land right in the middle of the grey skies and the unhappy adults of Ohio.
But now…
…I wonder if I’ve had it all a little backwards.
Maybe my fantasy world IS reality.
And what I thought was reality is all made up. Maybe it’s still in physical, tangible form, yes, but created from the perception of a fear of an unconscious mind.
Are you following? If not, take a moment to let your mind play and your perception shift. (No, you do not need to take drugs to do this. Really, this is what all the spiritual teachers talk about it, I’m just simplifying it a bit in my own way.)
I may not have yet met a fairy, but there are literally butterflies everywhere this summer. I’m also positive that I know several human angles in my life that are supporting me on my journey, allowing me to fall but never break. Obviously, I live with a magical creature (Pacer). And science proves that trees do talk! (Thank you Suzanne Simard and the many other wonderful scientists/researchers exploring the inner lives of plants.) I’ve also got something better than castles…really, why would I need 500 rooms? To hoard more stuff that will only ever keep me trapped? I’ve got mountains, open space, and stars that wink to me in reassurance. Places to run free.
Pacer, the magical Narwhal of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Sure, there are some villains and demons out there. Most are in my head. Or created from someone else’s head.
In my college dorm room, I had a printed piece of paper hung on my wall that said “Life is what you make of it.” I think I’m starting to get it.
Reality is what you choose to believe in. It’s not ignoring the bad stuff…I’m still going feel my heart sink each time I hear about another school shooting. I’m still going to vote, donate to animal rescue organizations, recycle, and support women’s rights advocates. Yet I am going to choose to believe in love and joy over fear and hate.
Because when I can sit still long enough, let my thoughts settle, and calm my anxiety, I know at my core that love, joy, and light are the basis of reality.
A more accurate title might be “Ignorance is bliss…until it’s a constant discomfort that we try to alleviate with drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, exercises, and compulsive busyness” …but I thought that title was a little long. And so, I’ll define bliss here as not a pure state of joy, but an illusory state of happiness that masks internal pain and external reality.
Before I dive into that loaded statement, let me start out with some context.
My sister is one of the most compassionate, loving human beings you will ever meet. She cares deeply about other humans and ADORES animals. So much so that it literally breaks her heart every time she sees or thinks about animal cruelty. She can’t comprehend why anyone would ever harm an animal.
Similarly, I have a lot of friends who care deeply about Mother Earth and are strong advocates of climate change. They live off the land, use little electricity…and even build their own earthships.
At heart, these are my people.
Yet how do we make sense of cruelty and carelessness without becoming extremely judgmental of our fellow human beings? How can we honor our shared humanity instead of creating more separation?
Per usual, I find answers in going a level deeper and exploring inner worlds from a mental-emotional lens…
…because the truth is, people won’t care about the earth or animal welfare if they remain disconnected from themselves. It is our egos (voice of fear) that cover up our own internal pain and keep us from accessing our true selves. This blocks us from love.
Most people fear the pain, run from it, numb it. It feels too scary to feel, because most of us weren’t taught to honor and feel our emotions. I can’t blame them. Turning our gaze toward the truth…the wounds of our past and the cruelty of the outer world is opening the door to pain, and that pain requires immense bravery to face. I recommend keeping in mind that pain is really just a guide to joy.
This is highly reductionary, but on a mental health level we first have our protector parts (inner critic, over-thinker, etc) that keeps us from feeling the pain of unworthiness, not-enoughness, etc that we felt as children. A shorter way of saying this is that our ego separates us from our true selves. The healing begins when we can “re-parent” our inner child and learn to love ourselves unconditionally. The ego doesn’t necessarily disappear, but its death grip starts to loosen.
In a similar way, we block out the pain of the outer world because the pain feels too much to face. With real life critics and alarmists coming at us from all sides that resemble adults shaming us as kids, we further shut down and refuse to look at the reality we, fear, has created. The choice then is either to ignore animal cruelty, climate change, etc. or accept it. But to accept it is to acknowledge not only the pain we’ve caused others, but our own pain. And how the hell are we supposed to do that if we don’t know how to feel…if we don’t know that is OKAY to feel? So we split and separate ourselves from others (human and animals)… and from love.
The science on animal consciousness and global warming is irrefutable. People who deny these things are not stupid. They’re not necessarily ignoring the facts (no matter how hard they try to make an opposing case), they’re trying to suppress pain.
Compassion is really the only way forward. But god, that self-judgement is so hard to get rid of. This is where the fight is…not against each other, but to keep loving ourselves even when our minds get loud and our hearts want to break into a million pieces.
Once we touch on the pain, there’s a fine line between “fuck it” and keeping our gaze towards the sun in the midst of darkness.
I’ve been to that “fuck it” place too many times…considered if the physical pain of crashing my bike would feel better than the internal turmoil I was experiencing. “It might be nice to just give up”, chimes the pleading, desperate voice of my ego (for those familiar with IFS, this would be the last resort “firefighter”). I’ve had to fight for my Light, trusting that my heart and my joy would guide me back to my purpose and to Love.
I didn’t do this on my own. I prayed for help. My Reiki therapist witnessed my pain and cried with me. That may have been one of the most single healing acts a person has ever done for me. He then waited several days, until I was ready, to help me see how I gave my power (my internal joy) away to my ego, to my Achilles and to running, to the perception of how I feared others would see me, and to the darkness of the world.
If I give in to the cruelty I witness, if I decide to judge others for the harm they cause the earth or their chosen ignorance, I give my power away, too. I might say “fuck it” or I might stay angry forever. While anger is a powerful motivator, it eats away at our insides if we hold on to it. Yet if I can release into love, I might actually be able to hold on to my power and create change.
You see, only love creates love. War energy creates chaos and fear. (Our hearts move us forward, our egos keep us stuck.)
If I can step into my own pain, yes, there’s going to be a lot of tears and potential screaming. But from the dark only light can be created…in fact, this is how the world was created and how humans formed from the stars. The only thing that can be found in pain is a well-spring of love. For myself. For others. For the earth. For animals. This is how we re-unite under Love.
(Pacer napping photos are of my leg, other two photos are of Pacer and my sister.)
“The eyes of an animal have the power to speak a great language.”- Martin Buber
*I’ve want to give credit for this post to my Reiki therapist, who gave me the prompt for this and then told me “now go home and write the rest.”
I am at a waterfall. I am meant to go through. The answer is on the other side.
Why am I hesitating?
Fear.
Fear of what?
I know joy and peace lay just beyond the water’s permeable walls…
I fear myself. My perceived unworthiness. I need to suffer more- to erase the shame- to prove my worthiness.
I need to walk a thousand miles with bloody knees- no, sweating blood as Jesus did. I need to be so tired and broken- having given every once of myself- to deserve to walk through the falls. I am only worthy when in pain.
Yet my heart (Pacer) pulls me forward, anyway. I dig my heels into the ground, breaking against her pull. She tells me it doesn’t have to be this way. Pain isn’t the way to joy. Joy is the way to joy. Pain simply shows us when we’re not in alignment, when we’re separated from Love, joy, an our true selves.
She tells me, “Those false beliefs that have been ingrained in you, your family- it is your Light that is meant to break the illusion, for you and those you love.”
I remember the beginning lines from one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems:
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” (Mary Oliver, Wild Geese)
So I let my heart pull me forward. Through the waterfall that has transformed into rays of light. I step through and exhale…
And then for a moment I step back out. “Actually, what if it’s not that good?” I wonder. “What if none of it’s true and there is still pain and suffering on the other side?”
I guess there’s nothing to lose…
I try again, Pacer impatiently waiting (“patience” is her least favorite “P” word).
All there is is light, even as I keep walking. It just keeps going, almost holding me even as I take another step. It feels like safety and I just want to collapse and rest for a bit. And so I do.
I’m not sure if it’s moments or days later, but eventually I wake up. Pacer and I shake out our sleepies together, but I have the feeling she was watching over me the whole time. Suddenly, we’re at the edge of the fall of lights. I can see the blurred other side through the rays. This time, I let my heart (Pacer) pull me forward without hesitating.
It’s all the same, really. Almost.
Just brighter. Vivid. More intense. Yet the colors don’t blind me and the love doesn’t overwhelm me. It feels like Home.
I am the same too. Just brighter. Clearer.
Okay, maybe I’m a little taller too.
Joy, emanating off my form. Clarity. The worry lines on my face have disappeared. Here, I Know.
Commitment in relationships is beginning to evolve.
It doesn’t just mean “I promise to stay with you forever.”
That’s not to scare anyone to anyone who hopes for a life-long partnership. That certainly can still happen. But commitment now is something much greater, requires even harder work, and leads to more joy and freedom. (Not freedom to break the guidelines you and your partner have created, but more freedom to be one’s true self). However, if the relationship has runs it course, it does give the permission to move forward without shame or guilt.
The fundamental aspect of the new type of commitment is healing. Relationships inevitably are triggering at some level, especially for those with insecure attachment styles. Our fears about ourselves and love will become revealed. Rather than suppressing emotions, ignoring big talks, staying in unhealthy relationships, and pretending everything is fine as in some relationships of the past, we are asked to confront our shadows and return to our higher selves.
This new commitment asks for us, first and foremost:
When I am triggered and my shadows appear, do I promise to do the inner work to heal myself? (The first commitment is the commitment to Self.)
Second, the commitment asks:
When my partner is triggered, do I promise that to the best of my ability, I will provide a safe and loving space for them to heal? (The second commitment is to your partner.)
Last, when both partners are triggered, it asks:
When we are both triggered, do I promise to stay in it (in connection)? Do I promise to first take care of my own wounds, then return to my partner so we can heal in relationship together? (The third commitment is to each other.)
While some may not choose this higher level of relationship, personally, a break in these commitments is reason enough for me to move on. If I don’t see a partner committed to their own work, or if a partner runs when my darkness is revealed, as painful as it might be, I’m learning that this is a sign to walk away. The commitment to loving my Self is the most important.
Relationships with animals are easier because animals don’t suffer from the human ego. However, relationships with animals still provide great lessons on unconditional love and can be immensely healing.
*I wrote a similar blog post several months ago, but the story came to me again with new words and in a slightly evolved way as I have continued on my journey.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) states, in my own words, that our psyche splits in order to deal with the traumas of life. While I am knowledgeable on IFS, I haven’t done the specific training from the IFS Institute, so I’ll simply refer to this as parts work. With that, another way to explain this theory is that our ego (human self) and spirit self separate from each other. In trauma, this false belief of separation can become so severe that we forget our that our spirit, or higher self, even exists. Furthermore, our ego is no longer just the realization that we are human, but becomes our voice of fear, which further splits into different parts (Chronic Worrier, Inner Critic, Judgey McJuderson, etc.) to help protect our now fragile sense of self.
Breathe. Read that over a few times if you need to. It may take a few reads for the words to become understandable.
Here’s a personal example.
When I was young, maybe 7 or 8, my parents decided to get a divorce. Really, nothing wrong with that (well, maybe accept that we were Catholic). They got married in their 20s and were two very different people. The problem was how it was handled, especially for a sensitive, empathic child.
First, while we were all still living under the same roof, my parents got into a huge argument. For me any my sisters, this was scary, and we all huddled together on our oldest sister’s bed. Then, with one of my parents clearly needing to leave the house, we were told to choose who we wanted to go with. I’m pretty sure I wanted to die in that moment. I think part of me did. I, already scared, could feel both my parents pain. I wanted to please both, make them both happy, and here I was, being forced to leave one of them in more pain. I heard my dad’s pleas that we could go watch Space Jam. I had always been a daddy’s girl. Yet my sisters were both going with my mom. I wanted to be with them.
I can almost still see, or rather feel, the agony painted across my dad’s face as we left the house.
However, experiences are individual. I have also heard a similar told by a man on a podcast I was listening to. For him, this forced choice was empowering. I would say more as to why but I can’t remember his words and don’t want to create false meaning. I just simply know that for me, this unwinnable choice was literaly unbearable. My psyche split, attempting to protect me from pain-or really, the pain I felt in causing others pain (which is something a child believes she can actually do because the developing brain is self-centric), and tried to overcome that by never making the wrong decision again.
Hence, OCD.
(While OCD is most often recognized in people with compulsions, or repetitive acts, the defining point is really the obsessive thoughts. For people who go on to develop compulsions, its simply to soothe the stream of worried thoughts.)
Or rather, anorexia (w/ excessive exercise), which was a coping mechanism for OCD, anxiety, and depression, which were coping mechanisms for the pain and fear within my little body. Or rather, the felt separation from Love.
Furthermore, and I won’t dive into this too deep, but the legal process for divorce and child custody in the 90s (and I believe still does) sucked. I knew exactly what was going on as I sat in the family therapist’s office with my sisters, first with one parent, then the other. I could feel it going better with my mom. I desperately tried to save things during my dad’s turn, trying to illuminate the room with my energy. But it failed. I had failed. I didn’t see my dad cry after my mom was granted majority custody, but I could feel his heart break once again (it’s no wonder why he had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery at 40). The pain was too much for the both of us to carry.
My psyche split into what we call “protector parts”, yet are often cruel and controlling: “Don’t fail.” “Do better.” “Don’t fuck up again Ray.” “Why can’t you be good enough?” Then, when I inevitably failed, either because I was doing something I didn’t actually want to or because some part of me froze in fear (my shooting wrist would actually freeze playing basketball), my only option was to shut down in what we like to call depression.
*While I’ve listed memories that stand out for me, its often much small, sometimes forgotten instances that cause splitting, such as the time a parent forgot to pick us up from practice, or a teacher ignored our wildly raised hand when we desperately wanted tho share. Or, for others who grew up in a religious background, you may have been taught that God, the Divine, was outside of yourself AND should be feared. How’s that for controlling? (My intention here is not to put down any religion.)
*******
Let’s look at this now from a mental health* lens.
While it is now considered normal (thanks to Richard Schwartz and his work around Internal Family Systems) to admit that we all have different parts of ourselves that take on various voices in on our head, we still diagnose the extreme version of this. The extreme version, brought on by severe childhood abuse, is diagnosed as “Dissociative Identity Disorder” (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder). I would caution that diagnosis here may stereotype a person with DID, further separating them from a connection with their community and their higher selves. (Diagnosis is not inherently bad and may point in a direction of how to treat, but often is used as a label that forgets both humanness and causation.). What is crazy** is when we label others as “different” or “ill” because they suffered from extreme abuse, especially when I consider that my own parts have often made me cry. Really, we’ve all just coped with the fears of life as best as we could, and their psyches needed to do even extra work. The only thing that ever heals (not fix…I’m not trying to get rid of any parts, just make them feel safe) is curiosity and compassion.
*The term “mental health” lacks much of what I do as a therapist. Is psycho-emotional-somatic-spiritual too long to say?
*** This is where I think the use of the word crazy is totallyappropriate.
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Returning to Self
I’m not going to dive too deeply into this part at the moment, as this is still very much part of my current journey. What I will say is that it has taken me years of therapy, reading, grad school, and being dedicated to my own inner work that’s allowed me even get here… here, to the part where I can even recognize that my soul, or higher self, is always there quietly and patiently waiting for me to recognize myself. It’s taken years of unwiring, becoming aware of and letting go of old identities that were never really me, and detaching from fictional narratives. Still, my ego is fighting like hell to stay in control, but my spirit if fighting like heaven for me to return to myself. To stand in the power of my own beauty and joy. My own Wholeness and Oneness with all that is.
A Dog and Her Girl 