For as long as I can remember, I was living on autopilot. I went through life absorbing people, experiences, situations…
A Cycle of Unquenchable Lack
The hugeness of life’s experience makes us feel so small at times. oftentimes than not, it feels too much to cope with. When we are in this realization, we often want to grab on to something solid, manageable, tangible. we want to control something, anything.
So – we medicate, sweat it out, distract ourselves; with other people, external substances, wild experiences… switch on tv, grab our phones, go shopping, read, anything to flee. Forget. Hide. Ignore. Distract. Run. Go after things outside ourselves thinking they/it/he/she will satisfy our desires.
What we are really seeking is the state we will be in; hoping we will be “full”, seemingly complete, at rest, even for just a moment.
But those moments are fleeting. The burning desire comes creeping back and the seeking starts again. The system reboots and we go after the next high, the next hit, experience, moment that will seemingly quench our seeking for fulfillment.
Like rats in a wheel, our pursuit is self-defeating. We want to be able to understand, make sense of our experience, our life… hence we seek what we can get a hold of and try to go back to normal, to what we know.
Anything but face the void. Yet this void is the doorway to the fulfillment.
Living with Resistance
For most of my late 20s, I lived with a void in my stomach. I would have great days, bad days, exciting adventures, depressing situations…but most of the time, I was missing something.
Although I did everything I was supposed to to live a ‘happy’ life; I was not happy nor fulfilled. In the months that preceded my breaking point, I experienced so much resistance. I got into a habit of missing my flights, skipping plans, losing things… My substance use became unbearably frequent. I medicated, avoided real talk, ghosted people, ghosted myself. Things got worse. At the age of 27, I developed acne for the first time. My body was screaming but I did not listen. My left knee, which I had torn skiing earlier that year, also started hurting more. My surgery was overdue. The worst of them all was the chaos my brain was in and the insomnia that followed at night. I medicated to switch off and often woke up to violent nightmares.
Was it my toxic relationship? Was it the buried emotions? Was it the inconsistency in my days? or all the above… Whatever the reason(s), it was driving me nuts.
I knew deep down that change was around the corner.
If I was not going to act, the universe was going to intervene for me.
And it did.
The Breaking Point
I started to prepare for the tsunami that was coming my way. I started detoxing from substances, regulated my sleep, wrote in my journal and meditated every morning…I also moved to a new city after a friend hit me up out of the blue as her roommate was leaving the country.
Little by little I was preparing my psyche and body for the change that I felt coming deep in my gut.
At the root of it all, was my toxic relationship with my ex partner. Before starting any change, I had to break free. In our last argument, I knew it in my bones it was over.
The unknown seemed scary, but the call was stronger.
What I had feared and resisted for so long was there waiting around the corner. I had avoided this breakup for so long thinking I would not cope with loneliness, only to find out later on that I had never experienced being lonely as I did during the relationship.
When you hit rock bottom, one thing is sure, you have nothing to lose anymore.
Something inside me broke. In that breaking, something was awakened.
Life seeks wholeness, yet we crave halfness, we accept half of the experience to avoid the discomfort. The other half just wants to be seen, to be met where it is, how it is. The more we bury it, the more intensely we feel its burning in our tummies. The more we bury our uncomfortable emotions, the deeper the wound becomes. We cling to the known evil, too afraid to choose the unknown good.
All Life is trying to do is: Crack us open. Force us to go after the unknown, face the discomfort, allow it, love it. Our pain, our sorrows, our fears; they just want to be seen for what they are. We are burning for ourselves, friends. Our soul longs to go Home: our own eternal love.
The loud echoes of the chorus of your soul are not yelling because they’re angry; they are loud because you are accessing a channel of wisdom and knowledge that is hungry to be heard: The pent-up energy of alignment and possibility. It is the untapped potential of your heart, your purpose, and what is excited to flow through you. It is the dam of the divine breaking and ready to create alongside you.
I had to leave the familiar surroundings of what I defined as ‘my’ life. I could not go back to not knowing. Adventure lied ahead. But with it, came grief, loss, fear, ego death, pain, letting go and shedding of old growth.
I felt like a caterpillar knowing that what lay ahead was freedom. A butterfly wanted to emerge from the cocoon of my old life; the shedding of the old to make space for the new.
Time in the wilderness
The potential for a more fulfilling life was the objective. I said yes to life. I yearned for more. I decided to lean into this change, into the unknown and face the fear of the ‘solo’ life. It felt as if I was swinging on a trapeze; with one hand firmly held on the rung of my current life, and my other hand hanging in the abyss.
Author and recovering alcoholic Sarah Hepola on slow change: “Change is not a bolt of lightning that arrives with a zap. It is a bridge built brick by brick, every day, with sweat and humility and slips. It is hard work, and slow work, but it can be thrilling to watch it take shape.”
Life did not get easier. It got worse before things started to clear up.
I experienced even more resistance; but it did not matter, because this time around, with it came mind blowing synchronicity. It was not all bad.
I started shedding old habits and making space for new ones.
Miraculous things would happen to me. Old friends came back into my life, out of the unknown. They were the kind of friends I needed at that point in time. Those that I needed to go out, disconnect and have a good time with. Some came into my life to talk about consciousness, while others helped me talk openly about my spiritual experiences. My circle was widening in the exact ways I needed it.
The universe continued to speak to me, through ladybugs, rainbows in the sky, random meet ups, books, podcasts…and I was open to receiving.
This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.
― Terence McKenna
When we say yes to life, we are elevated to higher levels of consciousness.
The human experience becomes a way for us to speak to our higher self. The Void becomes the space for God: Eternal love. Our thirst becomes quenchable.
We feel full; and never alone.
And Heaven truly becomes a place on Earth.
