Photo Credit:m-unsplash
November
Thinking of the year mostly gone past.
Thinking of the year to come.
Cold, damp air
Clouds, gray
The usual burnout from a long eleven months
where most days felt like groundhog day
My legs are weak,
My body is tired.
My soul is tired.
From trust that has been broken.
Bureaucracies set in their ways
Promises that I haven’t seen fulfilled yet
Emotions I still cannot feel
Fatigue that doesn’t lift
Addictions I still can’t give up
Apologies that will never come
Support that never arrives how I need it
Understanding that is never there
Lack and void that seems can never be filled
(which later turns into two)
about these different voices I hear.
These different parts.
What they look like.
How my subconscious and conscious create them.
To let you know that you are not alone in your struggles.
NOT AT ALL.
I hear a voice that says
“PUSH!”
This is Mario
Digging holes by hand in a mine
Non-stop
Day after day
Or sometimes he is pulling boxes
Thought boxes
Idea boxes
Out of a wall in a factory
and setting them onto a conveyor belt
Back-to-back-to-back
“Keep going, keep running, keep pushing.
Do more. Do more. Try harder. Try harder. Do more.
Sign up for another training, but make it bigger this time,
to push you through another year
of learning, doing, thinking, planning, organizing, analyzing.”
I hear another voice…
Soft, but gentle, steady.
“Do you want to take a break Mario?
You could go and sit outside on a bench
even for just a few minutes
enjoy some sunshine?”
I’ve heard it tell me this every year
for many years,
but something about it is different this time.
Deeper this time.
Like it is talking to all of me.
Saying
“Stop.
Rest.
You can’t go on like this any longer,
Take a break.
It’s time to let go.
Rest.”
I try to take a step back and sit
and watch these different voices.
Sometimes I can observe them,
but sometimes they just take over.
As I get closer to the idea of actually slowing down for real,
the voices get Louder and STRonger and ChAoTiC.
Sometimes they even argue with each other.
I watch them talk and shout and panic.
“LISTEN TO ME!”
And they look like endless loops of roads,
racetracks,
the cars looping around in circles,
but never being able to complete.
Never being able to cross the finish line
Just going and going and going
and going
and
NOISE
It can be deafening.
By Thursday I feel like I am having a mini mental breakdown.
I talk to a friend and she says
“It’s okay to have mental breakdowns.
We all do
cuz,
life can be a lot
and we’re just trying to figure it all out
and no one’s given the guidebook to life.”
I try to step back again and listen…
There’s the voice that shouts
“RUN AWAY!
Go now.
Leave everything.
Start someplace new.
never look back.
They won’t miss you.
They won’t chase you.
They don’t give a damn about you.
Leave everybody.
RUN AWAY FROM THIS PAIN!
But then that other
wise, balanced voice says
“That’s just a voice,
that’s not really you.
Maybe you would be able to avoid things
for another year or two or three
if you run away from it all.
But that’s not the answer.
You know that.
And the stress of starting all over
will just overwhelm
an already overwhelmed system
even more.”
I try to listen…
There is a voice that’s so drained,
it can only whisper
“Collapse.”
This could be the little boy
trapped
in the valley
beside the snowy mountains
bleak landscape
dark
shadows
emptiness
alone
abandoned
huddled into a cave
in a hole carved down into the rocky floor
“Just give up.
Just sink.
Sink
Sink
Down
Down
Down.
Sink like a stone into the black void.
The dark ocean waters.
Let it swallow you up.
everything and everybody,
and don’t try to come out anymore.
They won’t miss you.
They don’t need you.
You’re on your own.
You’re all alone.
You don’t have a purpose here anymore.”
But that same grounded, gentle voice says
“You’re not alone.
I’m here with you.
I love you.
Show me anything you want to show me.
I WANT to see it.
Express yourself to me.
Where do you need support?
Can I give you a hug?
Can I rest my hand on your heart?
Your head?
Your shoulder?”
Or if I am not deep into visualizing this exiled part
it might say
“This is not the answer either
and you understand that.
You can’t stay collapsed forever
and you don’t want to stay that way forever.
And you can’t pay your bills
if you’re lying on the floor curled into a ball.”
A complex web
A blend of different characters
Different roles
One big mob boss
His two advisers
The Green Goblin from Spider-Man
Another exile
A young part of me
Trapped in a closet in a bedroom
Chained to the floor…
“Stop trying to do better.
Who cares?
Does it even matter?
There is nothing left for you anymore.
So then I allow the voice that says
“Rest.”
to have a little space.
What does that even mean?
Then I realize I haven’t really rested in over 30 years.
Not really.
Not from a place of safety,
Of real connection.
That almost everything done in my life has been out of obligation or guilt or responsibility or shame or fear or avoidance or escape or denial.
What does that even mean?
to rest? How?
How would I do it?
What would I say no to?
Who would I say no to?
What would I quit? What would I stop?
What boundaries would I need to set?
And so I keep observing
and I see the part that wants to analyze this all
and make sense of it all
and understand it all right now.
“RIGHT NOW!
I need to know.
I need to get it.
I need to help other people get it.
I need to see all these parts and all their stories and they need to change and need to shift.
NOW
I don’t have time to wait
because it’s confusing and it’s scary and it’s new and it feels like too much and it’s uncertain.”
And then there’s a newer voice
that I’m just starting to hear more clearly…
Anger
RAGE
It usually tags alongside me.
This floating flame.
Like some kind of sidekick.
Looking at all the other parts
All the other voices.
All their rules,
their structure
their jobs
their roles
At what it can only see to be failures.
It wants to burn it all down
“Torch it all now!
We don’t need them.
Kill them all.
Come on, all ready!
Let me at ’em!
I don’t have time to be patient!”
And then the other voice
Just there
Standing
Solid
Stable
Relaxed
Strong
The patient guide
Just watching the flame
“Ahh
I see you.
I hear you.
Tell me more.
Help me understand.”
I tell another friend that it felt like
I had a little mental breakdown this week.
She says that
In a way,
you did.
Parts of your mind, your psyche
are breaking down.
Reorganizing
Restructuring
She says I might swing from one extreme to the other
From “Full steam ahead.”
to “Stopping dead in my tracks”
until I find a middle ground
somewhere in between
that meets my needs.
She helps me ask these parts as a whole some questions,
and I try to guide them.
To help them see
that it is ok to go slow
and not rush into things.
Whatever decision I make
that it’s alright to be slow,
and whatever I give up or don’t give up,
it seems it might take time to understand
the how and when and what and why…
Sometimes the pain becomes too much
and it comes to the surface
and you realize you can’t run away from it anymore.
There is no distance that is far enough to escape from it.
There is no addiction, short of turning your brain to mush,
that is deep enough or dark enough to suppress it anymore.
You don’t have the strength or the energy or the desire
mentally
emotionally
physically
spiritually
to run away from it anymore
or to push it down anymore
or to cover it over anymore.
And you come to see that
you’ve built up enough capacity now
You can start
to feel the pain
and be with the pain
You can allow it to be there
You can let it express itself
And move through you
It’s becoming easier.
So try to listen.
Try to start to tune in.
And you might hear the voice that says
it’s time…
Maybe it’s time now,
Maybe this is the season
to stop DOING
to stop PUSHING THROUGH IT
to stop RUNNING AWAY
to stop COLLAPSING
to stop SELF-DESTRUCTING
to stop FIGHTING
to stop ANALYZING
to stop WANTING TO BURN IT ALL DOWN.
to just STOP.
to give things up,
to
“REST.”
Although you don’t know where that will take you
or what that even means,
Maybe that is what you have to do.
Maybe all that remains
is to go towards the pain,
and to EXPLORE it,
to BEFRIEND it
and to UNDERSTAND it.
GREET it at your door.
WELCOME it into your home.
Give it a HUG.
Sit with it and pour it a cup of tea.
ALLOW IT.
FULLY.
COMPLETELY.
To go into the DARKNESS
To go into the HEAVINESS
and the ugliness and the messiness
and the seemingly chaotic maze of it all
and sit there and let all the parts talk.
You just sit there.
You just lie there
and listen
and observe
and witness
and be there with them all through all of it.
All of these voices,
all of these parts that you’ve left behind
or you’ve abandoned
or you’ve turned your back on
or that are on their own.
You have to see them all and be with them all.
You will cry.
You will sob.
You will get angry.
You will rage.
You will feel the deep pull of shame in your belly
as it pulls you into a fetal position.
You will feel confused.
You will feel alone.
You will feel disgusted.
You might feel overwhelmed.
You might feel that you’re going crazy.
You’ll probably decide to quit
and then you’ll decide to start again.
You might tell yourself
you don’t know if you can
do any more of this,
when it feels like
what you thought would only be a bucket
starts to turn into a whole ocean.
When what you thought would be a few months
turns into fifteen years.
And you might have to feel through all of this
over
and over
and over
and over
and over
and over
again…
But drop by drop
Bit by bit
Inch by inch
Layer by layer
You will get closer and closer
to rest…
It is now.
Now is the best time.
Your season of ACCEPTING.
Your season of WELCOMING.
Your season of BEFRIENDING.
Your season of BEING WITH THE PAIN.
Now is your winter of ALLOWING.
Now is your winter of REST.
