When you are going through something terrifyingly life-changing...there's a lot of things that are hard to explain to someone who isn't going through that. For starters, it IS as scary as it looks and when you ask, "How does she deal with it." the answer is, "you don't always deal with it." But you can't escape it - there is no choice to turn a blind eye to what is going on. The other is that any friendships that stick around are probably one this biggest contributing factors to you getting better. It would be easier to say that we're just strong on our own but even the strongest person doubts themselves when everything they've ever known about themselves is crumbling around them. It would be nice to say that the people we look up to, strong people never feel sorry for themselves or become lost in depression + anxiety but the truth is...it does happen when faced with huge life-changes. The truth isn't always pretty and it can be scary to look at but it's the truth and it's important that people know what really happens.
Those friendships that do stay - well, they teach you A LOT about friendship that you didn't even know before. You may have had a Hallmark idea about friendship before but once you see even your closest friends and family not know how to be around you and some of the most unlikely people step up to the plate...your ideas shift.
The good thing about these kind of changes is they do for you what you couldn't or really wouldn't have done on your own. They cut away ALL the bullshit that never really mattered and in fact was awful for you, all along. The things that before you thought, "Maybe I should speak up more. Maybe I shouldn't do this or that. Maybe I should just be a little bit happier with life and stop always worrying." Well, it becomes something you have to do to survive. And when everything superficial is cut away - you are faced with the bare truth about yourself and about everyone else. Many of the people you love who'd say they would be there just won't and it's not because they don't care about you but the fear is stronger. Again, the truth isn't often pretty - when you take away all the pretty cosmetics we use to cover up scary things like pain and stuff that you just can't deal with - so, SO much revelation can come into your life.
You stop lying to yourself, for one. You stop lying that you like being treated in certain ways because really you don't but you just wanted intimacy and you thought it was the only way you'd get it. You're suddenly able to face the other "not so pretty" truths about yourself and others that before you danced around because you were afraid. You HAVE to come to terms with the fact that life is special and you don't want to waste it away on fears.
A friend is someone who is there for you when you in utter shit. I'm sorry, that's my definition for myself. They're the one's who are going to be there for you when you are at your lowest low. They're going to stick their arm into your slimy darkness, grab you by the collar and pull you back into the light. No other time have I ever felt like I truly *needed* someone. When you're having to face bullshit truth and your naked to the world because you can't pretend to be anything other than what you are - that is when you are completely vulnerable. Just like a new born baby - your fate depends on the mercy of others. Some people get it bad. Some people wind up in nursing homes with families who forget to visit and nurses who are quite apathetic. Sometimes people are left in hospitals with people who don't know their story and there's nothing they can do about it. Think positive? That's easier said than done when everything you have to comfort you is gone - even what you liked about yourself. When you have no control, no say so over your life and no love coming in. Who of us can say we'd be any better? But anyone can talk - it's those who are willing to speak about their experiences bravely without sugar-coating it that give us truth. Friendships are great things even when you can take care of yourself but you see their truest value when you don't have anything to offer in return except your complete sincere gratitude in that moment. If you don't help - the government will probably step in but the truth is they are rarely as loving, knowing and compassionate as your friend desperately needs. These voices often go unheard because they have no way to speak for themselves...We forget those in great suffering. It's scary and it isn't pretty. It's SO much damn easier to turn away. God knows, those going through it often try their hardest to do the same and they would if they could...they'd run as far away from it as possible. But it's not going to happen when you have cancer or your going through a spiritual transformation or a heart surgery or you can't live on your own anymore and you're moved to a nursing home.
Friends heal. They brought me out of the darkness. It is in others that we see ourselves...They can mirror to you the love that you are to them. "To be is to be perceived. And so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds that go on apportioning themselves throughout all time." Sonmi-451 [Cloud Atlas] They can remind you why living here is worthwhile. We don't want to face the fact that we need each other until we can't NOT face that fact. Stripped bare, there is so much that becomes clear. Those people who do stay, though. They become angels. They are literally a healing force in your life - you begin to laugh again and you do see that you've been making improvements on your own. You start to see that you HAVE been strong. Even when you thought you couldn't go any further, you did. Maybe you pathetically crawled on but you moved onward. Really, your self-pity and doubt is just part of the process. It's part of the truth.
Friends remind you of who you are. They remind you how to smile, how to laugh and how to let go of the fear. This is how you heal. The bond that is created with these friends are life-long. You experience an unconditional love for them. You, yourself, are changed by their friendship and you begin to learn to love unconditionally, to show up when it's hard and to see what's really important as a friend.
Sometimes people just need someone to listen. Sometimes people just need someone to accept them. Sometimes people just need a reminder of their beauty when they are weak and pathetic and can't see it in the mirror because their eyes are bloodshot and maybe they've just had to shave off all their hair from chemo. Sometimes we need to remember why life is beautiful. Is beauty perfection? Is beauty the make-up we cake on our faces or how heroic we act? Ideals fall away when faced with the truth. Is there something deeper that will sustain you when your ideals for yourself are gone? I can't answer those questions for you and if you still don't know than it's a journey you must walk out. For me - the answer has already been given.
I've been one of those people going through a change I wouldn't have ever been prepared for. It isn't pretty. I didn't behave heroically the entire time - though I wanted to. Though I fought hard to keep a pretty face. But I broke under the pressure and a strong girl who had always been someone others could lean on was suddenly nothing like they remembered. "It's like you weren't here." They looked at me but my eyes seemed vacant. I was there, though. I heard every word and felt every stare - if not ten times than how I used to hear & feel. I couldn't laugh. I didn't know how to. When you get to that state you remember what humiliation feels like - you know, when you trip in front of the whole class and everyone kind of chuckles or you're on that job interview and you keep messing up what you're trying to say? It kind of feels like that but in nuclear bomb form - where everything that made you confident about yourself is literally obliterated.
People start looking away. It happens. No one wants to say that we just flat out ignore those suffering but I won't forget the way it shifted. The more I stopped resembling who they knew before - the more their eyes wouldn't meet mine. The more I became treated not like a stranger but someone to avoid. It was scary to them, it was fucking weird...I can only imagine how they were feeling but what I was feeling I can promise you was a million times worse. I actually don't hold it against them. At first I did. How the hell could the people I loved not look me in the eye?! But then I remembered what it was like to be in everyday life and to be so numbed out to everything that you forget what does truly matter. Like, you have this vague sense that some day you'll do something heroic and that'll be when all of this becomes worthwhile. But this situation now is really scary and you don't know how to deal with it so you just won't.
Something that this situation showed me is that we literally don't know how to deal with a lot of shit and yet we do anyway. Especially new experiences. You are forced to accept not knowing. You don't know how you are going to deal or if you're going to make it out alive - okay...so how the hell do you deal with that? One step in front of the other, usually. Take another breath and another...and another. Some of the things you use are from things you've learned over the years and some of the things you just make up as you go. Sometimes things don't work and fail miserably and then sometimes it does and God, when you succeed in a state like that - it's absolute pure gold! Talk about building confidence - that's when you really build confidence. Even with friends supporting you and yes you need them - it will always, always be just as important that you walk the walk. They cannot do that for you. No one else can ever walk the journey out for you. They can shine a light but you have to face the demons. And when you do, even upon failures, you will walk away with true confidence. Not arrogant illusory stuff. Because you know you weren't heroic the entire time - you'll distinctly remember all your cowardice, selfish and sad thoughts and behaviors. If you're lucky, you may even begin to see them through out all of your life. You may begin to see the actions of others for what they are. It may make you sad...people you looked up to won't look so big and hero-y to you anymore. Not as pretty as before. You'll see where they a scared shitless. You'll see where everyone...everyone you've ever known or who has ever lived is simply doing the best they can with what they have. They are also making a good bit up as they go. We take from what we know but in truth - you really can't know to the depth that we want to. We want a truth that we know to be infallible beyond anything else. And yet - everything can become shaky...you can hold onto a truth like a life-jacket but at the end of the day there is still something making you doubt. It's not that it isn't true - it's that YOU don't believe for sure that it's true. You have to make it up as you go.
We pretend that we understand it all but there is still so, so much that we don't understand. You begin to see this smug arrogance that we all sport around for what it is when you go through something like that; it's fear. It's sweet and simple fear wearing a pretty ballgown. Arrogance is the refusal to face something you find too frightening so instead you delve yourself into something that makes you feel better about yourself. The human race knows only the tiniest fraction and the universe is vaster than we can even comprehend. When I went through my transformation - I saw that I'd only seen the tip of the tip of the ice-berg of life. There is a new found confidence in me but there is also a deep, awe-struck humility. What do I fear now? I fear losing myself to arrogance - not being willing to face the truth. Burying myself in ideals and things that look pretty but are dust in the wind when put up against anything real.
When you're really hurting - you don't want a friend who will drop you on a whim or not be willing to see your heart because of their own fears...We can always make excuses for ourselves and for others and forgiveness is part of what keeps us going yet it's through great suffering that you can see the pointlessness of continuing to deny the truth. Denying the truth won't change it. You may turn your gaze away from your fellow man or even yourself because you aren't going through something terrifyingly life-changing but it doesn't change what you're doing. Always, always you are choosing your fear. And we'll all do that sometimes because it's fucking scary living life when you feel alone and think you should know what to do but don't. And forgiveness, unconditional love is needed for us because we're not perfect like we're made to believe we're supposed to be. We're messy, we're pathetic sometimes, we make mistakes and we don't always look amazing...sometimes we're mean and un-thoughtful and turn our backs on each other. Sometimes we're apathetic or any number of things. All these things can be covered up with make-up or turned a blind eye to but they are THERE. Nothing is going to change that. It'll be there until we're willing to look at it. And I know what it's like to be avoided - it's horrible to be treated invisible when you're not. We're not just pretty. If anything, we're not that. We're anything but pretty. We're brilliant, we're wild wild, we're fierce, we're fucking fighters and lovers and destroyers and chaotic order. Pretty is petty. We're beautiful - in a soul diving deep way. The lines on our skin are the stories of every moment. Even the obsession to be pretty is another fear - will I be accepted? Will I fit in? We want acceptance because we know we need it. We need it because we fucking need each other. We need each other like we need air, like we need water, like we need to eat. We need each other's love, acceptance and support.
Everyone has a fear in the back of their mind that they are somehow the odd one out. That somehow everyone else understands something about life that they just never got. We all feel somehow inadequate. We all somehow don't feel enough...perfect.
What a joke!! We ALL feel like we're the secret one who just doesn't understand life on some level like all these other people who seem to be doing better or have things more figured out. Obviously they do - they have that car or they don't seem as nervous as I feel...ect. But's it's a sad joke because it's something that everyone is feeling. We have an idea that perfection is becoming better than who you are now. It's reaching some state of heightened knowingness or unwavering confidence and strength. It looks like our superheroes who never fail and look really great while they're not failing.
But what if perfection is something completely different? Truthfully, I can't give you this realization through words - I can scream it from the mountain tops until my voice box begins to bleed. God, I fucking wanted to once I realized this for myself. But my experience taught me something kind of hard to accept, you won't see it if you don't want to. You can look away. You can read these words and then tune them out of your mind. I can't make you brave. I can shine a light but you've gotta' walk the journey.
So, about perfection...It's in every moment. It's in the gross dark painful stuff and it's in those smiles from a lover that make your stomach flip. It's in the silence when it's just you and you. It's the sunsets and it's the rain. Because everything, with it's chaos and it order - it molds us, it makes us. Though we choose how to perceive any of it - it is us...all of life is a mirror of us. Nature only keeps moving forward, understanding and moving forward. We're never stagnant - we keep moving forward and changing whether we choose to embrace the change or just ignore that we're getting older. The truth is perfection isn't something to be achieved, it's something to perceive. Voila! All you've ever been wanting and craving for is there. You're already perfect. This isn't more hallmark ooey gooey stuff. Though it might make you feel that way and there's nothing wrong with that. Unless you read it and roll your eyes or it just makes you feel nice but doesn't really get down in your soul and make you FEEL. Stop trying to be perfect. You already are.
You have all you need and there are millions of people here - even though a lot of people won't support you - there are some REAL people who will. Fighters and lovers who would never turn their back on you when you really need them. You have more strength in you than you may know - you don't live up to the expectations of never being afraid or messing up but that's there for a reason. We mess up to learn, we mess up to grow. We feel shitty to truly understand things. I wouldn't be as real and authentic and genuinely a kinder, more loving friend and more dedicated to living soulfully if I hadn't gone through life's ringer and been bashed around a good bit. It wouldn't have been the same - it carved me like a hot fire and a molding iron. It burned away what didn't matter. There is place for darkness, for ugliness. But there is a big place for deep, deep love that is revolutionary. Love that is STRONG. Love that is BRAVE. Love that knows because you choose to know.
All encompassing truth, we can only begin to guess at that and it's a worthy cause but we do have an inner truth. You know how you know you just love your mom and even if aliens told you it love is just a hormone and moms really don't matter that much - you'd still love your mom? Well, that's an inner truth - you know because you know. When I refer to things being stripped away and facing truths - that's more of what I'm referring to. Even if there are facts - WE don't always choose to believe them. We're not purely logical creatures and we don't live just from a factual state of perspective. We each have perspectives which change what truth is which is why we have to discover what our own truth is. There are some common truths we can find when we are willing to be honest with ourselves. Because, from what I've seen, we all are really not so different from each other - inside - as we thought we might be.
For those who want ascension, higher knowledge and sense of connection to the truest true - this is what I have to say - are you once again feeling that you are not good enough? Do these gurus feel like ideals to you instead? Like a super hero? Because they KNOW something you don't know?
Maybe, just maybe, we came from that guru state and chose to live here. What if neither state is better than the other. Imagine always knowing everything - imagine how little room for creativity and growth there could be. There is a fearlessness that enters someone when they know everything - it's a bravery by default. Maybe we came here so that we could experience bravery in action. We could experience choosing to be brave. Choosing to love. We could experience both the fear AND the courage. Both a sense of inner knowing and sense of not knowing. To me, that sounds great!! That sounds amazingly epic. To me that reveals that we really are the true badasses. It makes super hero's look wimpy in comparison. Look at what we face day in and day out - what we TRULY face when we are honest with ourselves. We are strong - we are brave. Not because we put on a strong face or brave face but because we actually are. We keep moving forward. To me, just by you being here you're pretty damn brave. Especially if you could choose to live in guru-hood to come to a state where you "forget" everything. You forget your connection and all the things that truly matter and where our fates really are in our own hands but we often are too frightened by the not knowing to do something.
I compare it to getting on stage. Did you know that one of the biggest fears is stage-fright? We're all pretty scared of getting up in front of people and making an ass of ourselves, right? Maybe, deeper than that we're all afraid of getting up on stage and CHOOSING SOMETHING TO SAY. What if we mess up? What if we don't say the right thing?
Right before I get on stage I feel so nervous - my heart is pounding in my chest and things are screaming at me that I can turn around. Yet, the moment I walk on stage - this heat washes over me and something in me changes. I feel confident though I don't always know exactly what I am going to say. Everyone is watching and I am glad. I feel like I have a chance to share something, anything. I am seen. I've been on TV before and when the interviewee asked us a question - everyone looked down at me...So I spoke. I could've frozen up because I didn't know what to say anymore than anyone else but instead I just spoke. I smiled and I said what sounded the best to me - I made an educated guess. It turns out that it was exactly what we were talking about and on point but at the time while I was talking I didn't know that. I took a chance at not knowing.
Like that stage - many of us are terrified of stepping up and choosing to do something our way. What if we say it wrong or what if it doesn't come out right? But really, we're just afraid of the choice and the truth that we don't know. We'll do something when we do know - when we do have that certainty. But what if you never do? And you avoid living your entire life. That. That is fucking heartbreaking to me. So what can I do? There are so many things! Ah! I don't even know where to start. Well slow down, then. Take a few deep breaths and just...easy does it. Reach out to someone. You can always start there. Especially to those people that are avoided but really need help. Trust me, even something small won't go in vain. It may not be able to sustain that person but it's a flicker of hope. And they need hope, they need all the hope they can get like precious water.
We're not alone in this whether we believe it or not. There are SO many people who are brave and are living bravely. Forgiveness waits at the door of all of us who will open ourselves to it. Of course we've been scared - we all just haven't seen the truth. I only saw glimpses of it before until I was forced to face it.
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