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| Drawing by Kalil Cohen, CC BY-NC-SA |
Many years before I started this process it felt like I was dying every single day. Every moment was a struggle, a conflict between my soul's truths and the world I was surrounded by. Eventually this faded back a bit to where I felt like I wanted to die most of the time, but it didn't feel like I actually was dying in the present moment. This was due to addressing certain major issues in between me and my true Self, including transitioning my gender and articulating and beginning to live my radical politics. For a while this felt okay, like a resting place in which I felt comfortable. Then my life began to fall apart around me again as my soul yearned for something more - for a more full expression of my true Self in the world. This is when I began this blog, began a new process of intentionally rewiring my brain. The underlying goal was to alleviate that feeling of wanting to die every single day, and for a while it worked. I felt more centered, more grounded, more connected to my emotions and my body. I had a greater understanding of my issues from childhood, of my triggers and areas for growth, a growing acceptance of my flaws and pain. This gave me respite, courage, faith, and deepened my commitment to becoming my true Self, to continue peeling back the layers of self-protection and hiding in between my soul and my current reality.
I turned to face the truth of my deepest grief, greatest rage, and looming fears, and that's when all hell broke loose. Here were the issues I had been running from for 30 years, the struggles that haunted me from birth, the reasons I had kept my emotions repressed for so long, had denied contact between my body and conscious mind. Suddenly, it feels once again like I am dying every day. It feels like the grief is too great to bear, like the rage is infinite and uncontrollable, like all my fears are coming true in front of me. I kept myself in tight control because I feared intense pain for which I would be unprepared. Now, as I loosen my grip, this is exactly what I'm experiencing. The deepest pain I've ever felt, and no certainty to cling to, no belief system that can make it alright. I am dying right now - my old self is dying as I write this, as I reveal this truth to you. Part of me believes this is happening because I am ready for this false self to die, and that it is making room for my true Self to be born in its place. Sometimes that explanation makes sense and brings me some measure of comfort. Simultaneously, that birthing process feels remote and unimaginable, possibly a chimera that will never materialize. I may in fact just be dying, never to be reborn, never to find roots or an anchor or solace from this pain. I know that I will probably never again have the illusion of control as a means of creating safety for myself. Can I feel safe some other way? Can I feel my own truth and my connection to the Oneness of the Universe so deeply that I am safe simply because I am connected? Can I survive this death process long enough to get to the other side? I do not know. At times I feel certain that I can and will - that I am experiencing this extreme deconstruction process because I am ready to be transformed. Other times I feel desperate and panicked, wondering if it'd be better to just die right now and get it over with rather than endure the slow and excruciating death rattles that I'm currently experiencing. Rather than death and rebirth, this part of the process feels like death, death, death and (hopefully) rebirth.
First of all, great drawing! Love it.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you are/have been processing a lot of pain and emotions. It's brave of you to face it head on and write it out. Your writing feels patient, thoughtful and like it comes from a deeply honest place. What you wrote reminded me of a myth I've heard about how every single cell in our body, except brain cells, dies and is replaced with a new cell over a 7 year period. That's a nice thought, but it turns out that it's mostly a myth, as cells from different tissues die and are regenerated at different rates and some never regenerate. Cardiomyocyte heart cells for example are replaced at a rate of 1% every year, so less than half of those cells are replaced in an average lifetime. But I still love the thought that some cells are regenerated and the metaphor that something inside us, a cell, a notion, pain, dies everyday and the next day is born as something new.