March 16, 2023

Hello! I’m so glad you’re here and you’ve found my little corner of the internet! 

Here are some thoughts I was having for this moment:

It’s funny that I put myself through periods of difficulty with fasts, cleanses, sensory deprivation, silent retreats, etc in order to gain more insight, release old patterns, beliefs, and pain bodies, and become better and stronger and a more whole version of myself, but then when the world naturally gives periods of mental, emotional, or physical difficulty to me, I immediately want to shrink away. There’s something about intense practices such as cleanses, fasts, and sensory deprivation that really feels good. There’s something about the pain and struggle itself that you know is just full of healing and brings about a period of catharsis. And yet when life throws this at you, it feels overwhelming, like “I can’t get through this”, although we’ve proven this to be a false belief over and over again. How many times did I get through things that I thought were impossible to get over? Infinite number of times.  And how many times have I come out better for it? Almost every time.

Perhaps it’s because we have a choice when we enter an intense spiritual cleanse or practice or perhaps it’s because we know what we’re getting ourselves into and we let our support systems know what’s coming up in order for them to help us during our practice. Plus the end of the practice is very clearly defined. There’s usually a start and end date. But when difficulties happen spontaneously in our lives, we feel a lack of control and support and we feel so alone. We feel like there is no end to the pain. The truth is that we never had real control and we have the same amount of control we always did. And, generally speaking, we have just as many resources and support systems when it happens to us spontaneously too…and the “end” is always near. It is just around the corner, even if it feels like a lifetime to get to.

I’ve come to realize that my pain doesn’t last forever unless somehow I believe it will or for some reason I want it to. In some ways I find myself pushing away and avoiding pain and yet when it’s here and I can feel it taking over, (and I just want to cry and scream), I know that this experience will not last forever. And, as weird as it sounds, it actually feels really good to feel the pain. Isn’t that wild?! While I am in pain and hurting I am also enjoying this experience of humanity and existence; what it means to be alive. There’s some thing about the pain that is quite pleasing; it is the fuel, the inspiration, the rebirth. It is the healing needed.

I have experienced so much joy pleasure, love, happiness, support in addition to loss, confusion, feeling stuck, self hatred and loathing, body dysmorphia, loneliness, anger, frustration, and betrayal. I’m so grateful to each emotion for this experience of humanity. Because it is these experiences, the constant rollercoaster of emotions that inspired me to go beyond what’s on the surface, the outermost visible “box” of despair, identity, and pain and into the expanse of human experience. It is because of my deep connection and witnessing of my, especially painful, feelings that I can dive into the depths of love, pleasure, personal power, and metaphysical magic. It is only because of these intense, thunder and lightening, volcanic, tidal-waves of painful emotions and phases of life that drive me to go beyond them– and to saturate myself more into them at the same time. To be in the midst of pain and distress and to witness it without the attachment to outcome, length of time, and suffering at the same time, because we can have pain without the suffering. We don’t have to have the anguish of suffering from the pain; we can just experience the pain.

I think it’s also important to recognize that we do have support. We just have to go out and find it. During one of my darkest nights (I.e dark night of the soul) I sought out support from so many forces. I found that my old support systems disappeared, fell away and just were never real, and I needed to start fresh. I made the effort to find the programs, the therapists, the healers, the friends and soul tribe who could hold me in safe and sacred space when I am melting and losing my grip. Many people could not do it but the few that could still can and we will be a sacred tribe for as long as we’re meant to. I once pulled an oracle card that said, “What you seek, seeks you”. The people, the systems, the support that you seek are also looking for you.