A few days ago I happened upon on old journal. I have a few of those around, as I am often gifted and gift myself with notebooks. Some of them like this one have only seen a few pages of use. In amongst the expanse of empty pages, I found a reminder of something I had forgotten. It was a scrawled collection of bulleted notes from a conversation I'd had with an intuitive over 4 years ago. It took me a few moments to place the entry, dated only by the month but contextualized by the references to events and concerns that had filled my life at that time. They were scribbled in haste in the rush to capture her words and my anticipation of hearing some clarifying insights from the ether after a heartbreaking and painful period.
I am fascinated at how these missives have reappeared to me now, and wonder what wisdom they may have to offer me 4 years later. Life has certainly been eventful since then in both beautiful and deeply unsettling ways. Although life is primarily good and I am grateful for all of it, there are still layers of grief my body is still working to metabolize.
The intuitive had offered up a series of images, because that is how things came to her. As I re-read them, my eyes fell on these words:
'...swim in the direction of the bubbles, when we are turned upside down going in the direction of inertia. Relax...counter-intuitive but wise. Figure out which way is up. Don't follow the same pattern...'
She pictured me underwater, my bearings lost, the aerated surface distant and unseen from the depths of a dark pool (ocean?). She tells me to be still, relax, wait and let the bubbles rise then swim in that direction. I ponder now the source of these little balls of air - my own breath? The movements of some other creature? The inevitability of life rising up from somewhere deep below me?
At the time, and at a few times since I have felt thus disoriented by life, by events, by the actions and inactions of those I care about and am influenced by. Turned around underwater. For a while now it has also felt like a piece of me, the Dreamer, has been holding it's breath, not wanting to move, needing to hide itself away for a time. That part has felt battered and has needed time to heal - to protect myself against the possibility of further injury.
In recent years I have sometimes measured my own worth through the absence of others, and that is not a way to live. My greatest and deepest desires have felt pummelled into a thin dust at my feet, in some part, but not utterly by my own hand, and I am not sure what to make of that. The desires I have are to be met, to see and be seen, to hold and be held in a shared light. This is 'what I was made for' to steal some words from another once much loved but absent soul. It could be that there is a power in saying it, for expressing this deeper and universal calling for belonging and connection. Maybe I am exposing this part of my soft underbelly and risking, as I sometimes do, to be pitied or feared or shamed. Maybe that is a risk worth taking, because it is healing and beautiful to write these words.
Over a year ago I took a call. Prior to that my life had felt like a bit of an emotional maelstrom for a number of months, a constant clamour of need from without. I felt pushed when all I wanted was to hide away for a while, to wrap myself and the people and events of my life in a cocoon-like pause. A few moments to breathe, take stock, and allow the bubbles to rise. But the universe was having none of that and was delivering a further push, an unwelcome pressure I was not equipped to deal with well. More than that it was poking me on sacred ground, a trusted territory I had never imagined could be tampered with.
On that day, it felt like just another concussive blow to my heart and nervous system. Instead of pausing or allowing myself time to consider a fully formed response, I reverted to a practiced default - my inertia move. On the phone I was full of grace, no doubt responding in just the perfect way, offering non-dualistic acceptance, support, affirmation. What I was not able to do was to speak the truth of my unreadiness, instead voicing the internal setting which goes something like this:
"It's ok. I can handle this. Don't worry about me."
In those moments on the phone, underneath the apparent grace and simple truth of my words, I remember most clearly the upwelling of a voice in my head saying 'you've got to be effing kidding me.' I had been so exhausted already, why was I being asked to withstand more?
Maybe because that is what I constantly ask of myself, and felt shame and unworthiness for even having a more nuanced response.
Ironically, it is the unspoken truth that tends to follow up with a vengeance on the coattails of such things, sometimes messily. By subsuming that second voice, an equal and opposite reaction was triggered. Like whiplash, it caught me (and others) off guard. I have less of an earthy stoicism than I would like to think. I feel attachment and pain, tend towards expressiveness when hurting and need time to process and talk and feel my way through things - I am learning to allow for that. Perhaps I can be forgiven and understood by others for these things as well, though that is not something within my control.
In the weeks that followed I and others suffered the fall out of my own conflicted responses. The inertia of the situation seemed to me unstoppable, freight-train like, made worse by my initial acquiescence. To onlookers, I probably seemed insane. In the course of a few days I had an epiphanic change of heart, and communicated this with honesty, pure intention and with what felt to me like a deep vulnerability. I was rebuffed and felt exposed, at fault, regretful, scared, as well as conflicted and disloyal in sharing my truth. I imagine I was perceived as manipulative, fickle and inconsistent. Unkind and insensitive.
I have a coffee cup that a dear friend gave me - it is thickly made and earthy and is etched with the words "I am strong" on the base. I have, over the years and throughout my childhood, internalized this message - I think I can own the fact that at my best I have a powerful and willowy resilience. I am not (too) afraid of conflict and prefer it when difficulties are openly and compassionately engaged, knowing it can lead to transformation, redemption and magic. However, one of the more problematic strands of this weave is a deep rooted desire to not be a bother, not to get in the way. There is sometimes an altruism in that - a desire to see the people I love happy and a deep trust in the way things unfold. But there is also no doubt that this stoicism is tied up in a sense of unworthiness. I also can, when pressed, have trouble imagining a way for apparently conflicting needs to be met. So I remove my own, turning them inward. And I have a short fuse for suppressed emotions.Historically I know how all this is connected to having been the least in need of my family constellation - the youngest but the most ok, able to withstand not only the winds of absence, neglect and abuse, but also to rise and deepen despite of it. Maybe even because of it, using the fertile soil of adversity as fodder for growth. On the dark side, it may be because I am strong that I will initially defer my own needs. I know I can survive, but ultimately life should be about more than survival.
There are bubbles going up...somewhere. I need to trust that. To rest in this stillness despite the cacophonous demands of the human world for movement. The perceived pressures and expectations of my age, my status, my 'failures' in relationships. I need to hold, not my breath, but my own hands to stop them from clawing their way to the next false surface of this vast and dark ocean. In the scribbled words from the barely-used notebook I found this week, I need to do my best to be still and let the universe meet me half way.
**Post-script: My writing often emerges as a reflective tool, a healing process, a way into the next phase. It is the crack in the seam that bubbles with life when there is no opening for real dialogue. Thus, it is subjective and reflective of my own experience.
