Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Transformation Walk

My mind is racing, and my heart is burning. I am grateful that the distress I feel is only low-grade, and isn't moving into the realm of anxiety. Feeling uncomfortable has become business as usual in my life for now, and I am even getting used to that. Even though I see it and recognize it, I am not free of it. My belly is filled with yearning, aching, swirling. And if you asked me to put words to it, asking what is the matter? I probably couldn't answer you in a straightforward, easy way. I come to words, language, writing to attempt to grasp the ungraspable. I feel the futility of it most days right now, and yet I feel the desire within me, unwavering. I will show up at this page, right here, right now. I will fish for words, impressions, imagery, linear and nonlinear, clear and abstract. I will do this for as long as it calls to me.

Most days right now are filled with ordinary living. I get up, cook, shower, walk, breathe, read. My life looks ordinary. But beneath the surface of my living, change is occurring at a pace that is dizzying to me. I wish I could find the words to describe what is happening within me. I wish that I could understand it more myself. But I also feel that it is beyond my understanding right now. It is out of my control completely, in the way that my cells continue to be born and die every second without my knowing, without my input, and without my participation. There is a cosmic process, a mystical order to some things, and while I may feel them, observe them, and find fleeting words to describe them, I may not ever truly understand them. This is not new - I have always known it. But what is different now is that I am not still trying with all my being to understand, to be able to put rational, logical mind-based understanding on things that are utterly beyond the capacity of the human mind. I am mostly okay with not knowing. I am listening very, very closely for guidance as I walk along this path that is my life, my transformation. But mostly, I am simply allowing it to unfold.

What I understand right now is that for my whole life I have been trying to control things. I have been trying to be something in particular, though the particulars have changed. I have been trying to be the best version of Angela that I can be. I have found that isolation and solitude have really helped that process. I have found that my mind has idealized my world, and myself. I have found that my own limited thinking has caused me a lot of pain. I have found that my own criticism of myself has been almost unbearable, the criticism that has come from outside of me has reinforced my own criticism. I have felt unworthy of living here on this Earth. I have felt like I must be something other than human, infallible, perfect. I have succeeded, too, in many ways. I have been the best student, the smartest, the brightest, the best flutist, better than anyone around me, I have been the hardest worker, the most creative, the most prolific, the deepest, the most spiritual, the most well read, the world traveller, the most successful. I have lived up to my own demands for at least a short time in each of these things. But they have been destroying me slowly. And I am no longer willing to continue.

I have recently come to discover that I have never experienced true intimacy and safety and acceptance within a primary relationship. I have experienced significant instability and judgment in my life from an early age, and in some way, that became the ground that I learned to consider normal. I came to expect that those who claim to love me will also criticize me, and cause me to question myself. I came to expect that those who claim to love me will also cross my boundaries, push me, and cause me harm. I have allowed this to continue for years and years, and have considered myself to be at fault when I am no longer able to take it, and collapse in a state of heartbreak and despair. I have expected that those who claim to love me will only love the image of me, the object I present myself to be, what I am able to give to them. I have expected that they will not really want to hear what is burning in my soul, that they will not be able to lean in close and listen to my heart's dreams, that they will not have the time to sit with me as I mourn pain and loss. And each and every time, I have been right. I have been met by exactly what I expect.

My walls have been torn down by this time of breakdown. The images I once held about myself have been shattered. The things I thought I knew about myself, and about others, and about life have all blown away. The resistance to feeling all that is within me has been washed away. The beliefs I once held about myself and my path have all come into question. The voice of control and idealism that has led my life this far has been caught in the snare. I have lived with so much violence inside of myself. I have created so much war within my own being. And now, I am very, very tired. My whole being has been taken apart, and I have been walking through this fire of purification for months and months. This process is no longer under my control. It is not within my timeline. It is not even within my understanding. All I can do is show up each day and breathe and listen. And I see now, more than ever, that solitude is no longer an option. I have never been alone, and I am not alone now. The fierce independence with which I once walked through my days doesn't even seem real to me now. The walls that once kept me separate from the world around me, from those fellow humans around me - they have been utterly destroyed.

I have learned to pray. I asked to learn to pray on July 3, 2009. I have learned to pray.

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Inside a hostel in Cusco, Peru