Me in the Mirror

I have been sick over the passed week with Bronchitis. It hasn't just been affecting me physically. At first I was getting some really great spiritual breakthroughs but then I started to feel just "out of it". I felt paranoid and like something terrible was going to happen to me. I've never felt this way with sickness before. I felt similar to it last year but that's the only other comparison I have. I connected with a part of me that was faithless, scared and hurt. It was a part of me that didn't want to live that way but thought there truly wasn't anything else and didn't want to get my hopes up because then just the harder I fall - the more pieces that are broken. It is like living in a great void, where the world is collapsing in around you and on top of you. What scared me the most out of anything else was suffering. The knowledge that I would feel more of that - that I would experience more of it.
I've been meditating on this the last few days instead of running from it. I wanted to understand why I felt this way and what was truly going on with me. How was it possible I could be so in love with my life and yet have this part of me? It didn't make sense to me but it was very real for me.

Last night, I began to cry. Which I knew I didn't need to since I was sick. But I couldn't help myself and I just couldn't stop. I felt so much pain and it ran so deeply. I have felt this pain many times and that doesn't make it easier, it can actually make it that much more maddening. I wanted the suffering to end, I wanted this torture to end. I thought of the fact that one day I'd have to say goodbye to my parents...one day I'd lose them - that there would always be this sort of pain waiting for me. I couldn't stop crying or feeling this piercing pain.

But I catch myself in the reflection....Tears running down my face, my face scrunched up since I was sobbing - red and like I'd never seen myself before. I've never really just looked at myself in the mirror when crying...I mean, I'm sure most people don't. But I didn't let myself look away, this time.

Short back story: During my intuitive course that I'm taking by Charis Brown, I connect with a plant. One day I didn't want to connect with my plant because I was sad. I wanted to cry and I didn't want to send that energy into the plant. I connected with the plant anyway and it didn't want me to pull away from it like I was infected with some dangerous energy. Instead it said clearly in my mind, "Let me see your face clearly as you cry. Let me see you sad." And when I did the plant just sat with me as a plant is so good at doing. It sent me warmth and love, just sitting with me and my pain. For so long I have believed that I needed to be over this pain, already. I have believed that there is no place for it and God have I wanted to be over it. I have certainly tried. But this posed the question that maybe I should try less to make it go away and instead to just sit with it...no matter how long it takes or how deep it is.**

The memory of the plant telling me to just let me look into my eyes while I cried came back to me. So I did this with myself. I looked into my eyes as I cried. And voila! I connected with myself. Through the mirror, I connected with myself like I would connect with another person. I could see the pain in those eyes. I no longer had these thoughts running through my head of how to shut if off but, "I never knew this is kind of pain you had inside of you." I felt compassion for myself, SO much compassion for myself and it was like until connected with myself on that level at that moment had I not realized the kind of torment I was going through. And that I was doing all I could to be strong but there truly was a place of pain within me. I was hurt. How much more simple could it be?

So I went to the bathroom mirror and continued to look into my eyes, I reached my hand out to the mirror and sobbed, "Sorry, sorry." Sorry for not truly seeing me or sorry for the pain? Pick either. I kept crying and I looked away from the mirror. I wanted to stop crying so I didn't make myself worse off on the sickness level. But my spirit pulled me back to the mirror and said, "I need you to see yourself. I need you to look yourself in the eyes this time and see what you are going through." And so I did look into my red eyes. "I know the pain you feel. I know because I am you. I know that you sometimes wish you could just go ahead and die and I know you don't even let yourself admit this to yourself. I know you want it to be over, the pain. I can't promise you that the pain will go away or that there won't be more. I wish I could and I know it isn't fair but I can't. There is so much about life that I don't understand. But I do know there are so many amazing things. I have seen love, the most miraculous kind. I have met the most beautiful people ever and I have experienced joy, adventure, magic...I can see just how beautiful this life is. I know that. I also know there is a lot of pain. And I can't change that, I'm sorry."
And then my spirit held me there because I was about to pull away. But my spirit needed me to face this, needed me to see this for what it was. "But, Elizabeth, you can't escape this. There is no doorway out. There is no doorway out from this suffering because this suffering is your heart." And then it hit me, the sobbing in my chest began to change..."When you wanted to die, you weren't trying to run from life or the circumstances or other people who could hurt you. You wanted to escape yourself. You didn't want to exist anymore, you didn't want this suffering anymore." And the tears were still there in my eyes but I knew I was right. I knew all along this had been my heart and I felt love my heart and I felt the knowledge that I simply didn't want to exist anymore...in any sort of way. And in not in the right order, I told myself that if I ever needed to love someone or to help someone it was me. That my heart needed my love...needed my care and my compassion. That if I wanted to know what true love was, this suffering was part of it. This suffering in my heart...could I love this heart that makes me feel this? Could I dare to see this is me hurting? Could I dare to see this is me needing my own care and compassion and tenderness and sweetness that I've always wanted to give to others and to this world. How can I possibly love anyone or anything without my love? And for the first I felt like I had somehow...really become friends with myself. "You're brave, Elizabeth. And I think you do everything you can to do your very best and you always fight with all you have." I saw how wonderful I was to myself. "I'm glad that you chose to keep existing. Even if it is just for another moment. For this moment, I am glad you are still here." And I was, I was truly glad in that moment to exist. With all my pain and all my fears and hope and joys...I was glad to exist.

No promises - the path may still have a lot of pain and fears. But something precious was given to me last night, my own friendship with myself became very real to me last night. I saw my own suffering clearly, I saw that the only escape I've ever wanted is to escape myself - to stop existing and that to "quit" is simply to quit on myself and that maybe just maybe this life has always been about loving me and nothing else truly since we are all connected and everything is connected - that is the great journey...the great love, I saw clearly that I admired myself and that I did see my own strength and desire to do my very best, and then I saw with the depths of myself that I love myself. That I love myself and that I don't want to stop existing. I saw myself as worth it all...all the suffering and the fear...it's a part of me. "My heart isn't evil, it's just hurting...and maybe neither are my fears - maybe it's just a way of trying to protect me."

And I just felt left with this feeling of love and acceptance for myself. I know that there may be some really big mountains to climb and maybe not in such a terrible way but even if it is...It's me. And just like a person would never stop loving their child even with the idea that their child's life could cause them a lot of suffering...I never want to stop loving myself. I really do like myself, after all. I really do care about myself, after all. And I want to be there, through out this life. Through the pain and the adventures. Through the scary and the fun times. I think I'd like to exist for another day. :]

For another day, I am grateful to wake up and to truly feel grateful to be here...to be grateful for my life and for my existence. Even in the face of all the suffering and fears, there is a gentleness blossoming in me. Could this be a new friendship with myself beginning? :] I walk tentative steps with it. But I am so thankful for that gift, last night.

I thank-you, Universe. For me to have received this gift at any stage or time in existence whether in this life or the next was truly special. It feels like a part of me was stitched back together.