I live my life through the words I write
You know me better
than I know myself.
After years of therapy and self-inquiry
I like to believe
I know myself fairly well
but you call attention to
hyperfixations
ruminations
personality shifts
and detrimental perspectives
as though their obviousness
mimics the sun in the sky
while overcast clouds surround me.
How do you do it?
Remove temptation;
create space to re-focus.
The best time is now.
I cannot assume
the judgements I cast upon others
are replicated
upon me by other people.
I judge others harshly
in anticipation
they too will judge me harshly
so I can prepare self-defenses
in advance.
But it is possible
that other people’s judgements of me
are different,
lesser than,
or even non-existent.
Imagine if they were non-existent;
the expended energy wasted
in anxiety.
For how long
have I been living on autopilot?
Living the same cycles
over and over again
without critical analysis
of my intentions, purposes,
beliefs,
values?
Was it a method of survival,
sticking close to what I knew
and could trust,
when so much beyond
felt out of control,
despairing?
Was it an avoidance of vulnerability,
of coming face to face
with my deeper self
and acknowledging the change I wanted,
dreamed of,
but did not dare manifest?
Now, with space,
the questions and reflections pour into me
like a hot cup of coffee
filling the mug,
reaching the brim
and overflowing.
I can avoid them no longer
as a pool of coffee collects around the cup
and I am not one
to let coffee go to waste.
Observe how parts of you
shift,
ascend and recede like the tide,
introducing a new side of you
to yourself
every day.
Passions peak and wane
to our pleasure or dismay.
Try not to make meaning
of the waves,
for when at last you do,
they will already be gone,
leaving you in the still, shallow water
gently caressing your ankles.
I started a new page in the notebook
with a title at the top:
‘What are some things that I feel CONFIDENT in about myself?’
I started a page on the left,
assuming I would need the spread of both left and right pages
like an open book,
to display my confident knowings
for surely, once I started listing,
pages would fill before my eyes.
My list consists of four bullet points,
consuming a quarter of one page.
The rest of the page-spread remains blank.
I cannot think of more to add.
Adding this to the docket of items
to discuss
at my next therapy session.
As the saying goes,
the past is the past
but at the same time
past can come into the present
if further examination
will help you to process
what did or did not
happen
and who you are now
for it.
When you share an intention with someone else, usually, that carries with it an added layer of accountability. Now, not only have you given a voice to the thoughts traveling around inside your head, but the voice has landed upon the ears of other people. It’s not just you anymore.
But what do you do, when you want to change your mind?
You’re no longer the only person that knows. Other people know. What will they think of you, knowing that while you seemed so sure, so prepared just a little while ago, now you’ve retreated back to the timid and apprehensive version of yourself that believes they can handle the journey up this mountain on their own?
They might make you out to be a fraud. They might believe you are too scared to face whatever you think you need to face. They might think less of you, they might consider themselves to be superior to you. They may call you weak, or arrogant, or in over your head.
Or, they might just understand what you’re going through.
Only the people who have traveled a similar path can understand the terror, the uncertainty, the vulnerability, the bravery that comes with sharing your needs with someone other than yourself. It requires a new kind of strength.
Admitting that you need to talk to someone, admitting that you have reached a new point where you feel more fear than excitement for your future, admitting that you don’t know where to go on your own, admitting that you need help – these don’t make you any less than. In fact, they make you more than. Feeling uncertainty about your decision after you’ve ‘taken your stance’ is normal.
Use your knowing of others’ awareness of your current experience not as a rope tying you to an anchor, but as a rope connecting you to a lifeboat; available to you when you need some additional support.
You will be OK. You have a fleet of lifeboats ready and waiting to carry you to safety.
The animal I was least expecting
came walking toward me
along the path in the clearing
slow, but strong,
large, but gentle.
It was a rhinoceros
so surprised was I
that I tried to re-enter my conscious mind
to think of a different animal,
to create it into being
in what was supposed to be my subconscious.
Before I had the chance to receive the message
I wanted to turn it away,
trade it in for something else,
something prettier, more feminine,
more socially accepted.
Instead,
my subconscious prevailed,
reassuring me that this animal before me
came to me with a purpose
I would learn
if I gave it space to speak, and be.
The rhinoceros stood before me.
He did not speak,
but instead just stood there,
silent, observing,
a calm presence he provided.
I began by looking up at him
from my position on the ground.
He stood tall above me,
lowering his head
I stood up to stand beside him,
still he did not speak.
I felt heat radiate from his body,
how his skin felt soft and ruthless
all at one time.
I watched him turn his head toward me
connected his eyes with mine.
He spoke through energy what could
not be spoken through words:
Be bold like me.
Be solid like me, in who you are.
Be gentle as your nature.
Remember, you have weapons
to use when you need them.
Be strong in all of you,
not only in the weapon.
He reunited me with my inner energy, my inner core,
to be solid and confident in who I am,
to take up space in my power,
to be rare, unique, off the beaten path of common perception,
to be gentle, in mannerisms and beneath my tough exterior,
to remember my inherent strength,
to stand tall in my being
and my innate ability to stand up for myself.
I am a force to be reckoned with
and I, of all people, should never forget that.
He stood there beside me, still, but breathing,
passing me all the wisdom I needed through
the air we exchanged together.
My hand reached out to connect
with the tough, thick, wrinkled, leather-like
texture of his skin
and I hear him exhale.
Perhaps not the most visually appealing
in comparison to the animals who hold more femininity
and beauty in their mythology,
but he came to me,
he was the first I saw
and the only animal who came naturally
to me in that moment,
subconsciously.
He needed to find me
and he did.
He carried a message
like no other animal could.
He was meant for me,
and I for him.
Spruce trees fill the front yard of my small-town home. Standing dozens of feet tall, they tower over the speckles of bushes and hedges growing close to the ground, but in communion with neighbouring trees who, too, extend tall and looming into the sky. One is blue, the others ‘normal’, or so I’m told. I can see tones of gray-blue in the one they call the ‘blue’ spruce, and perhaps green holds a more dominant position in the color palate of the others.
Regardless of their colours, they grow, they behave, they act in similar ways, as how the world would expect members of a tree family to be. Here, in the spring, once the snow melts away, the ground stands covered in cones and needles. Not that the snow had much opportunity to stand in its own self-assurance, for the needles see to it that the snow quickly and silently melts away wherever they choose to fall, and land. Sneaky are these trees. The cones and needles dirtied the snow like clumps of dirt and sprays of sand all winter long, that is, until they unleashed their power and spell-casted the snow to disappear, almost overnight.
I wonder if I could make something disappear overnight.
Out into the yard I go, nowhere to step but on cones and needles. I cannot see a single blade of grass left free to stand alone. For hours I rake, gathering into piles the cones and needles and clumps of dead grass that could not withstand the ruthlessness of the falling all around them.
The trees know how to let go of what they no longer need. How to let go of what no longer serves them. All winter they engaged in this process, including seasons before, though more subtly, dropping useless cones and needles to the ground. The trees do not need them any longer; why would they let them go otherwise? I assume they let them go for practical purposes, and not based on emotionality. I assume trees to be straightforward beings.
For hours I rake, wondering of the lives of each cone and needle slowly gathering in amongst the prongs of the rake and joining together in a pile. The trees seem to have fully embraced the act of letting go. Glancing up, dozens of feet above me to the very tops of the trees and into the piercing white light of the sun, I see more cones still, hanging on to the branches by their tips. Eventually, they will join others on the ground. For now, they keep hanging on.
The piles grow larger and larger behind my rake, with collections scattered across the lawn. I appreciate just how much new space the trees have created for themselves. I imagine how free they must feel, to sense this space for new opportunities, for new growth.
Glancing up once more to where clusters of cones remain huddled together, I see how those branches droop heavily; lower than the others with no cones to be seen. Bending under the weight of holding on, the tree assumes responsibility for what the cones cannot carry. The cones do not care, for they do not have to hold up their own weight. But the tree does, and continues to do so, sporadically up the tree trunk the farther my eyes travel.
As my eyes travel, I see freedom, I see weightlessness, I see excitement; I see space for the future in the branches swaying with ease. I see heaviness, I see crowdedness, I see comfort in familiarity; I see the past weighing down the present in those branches encumbered by cones.
I see the same, in me.
I see the spaces in my body where I hang on to that which I believe I cannot live without. The memories that pull me back into my past and hold me hostage there. The people I used to know, the people who made me who I am. The people I used to be. The could-haves, the would-haves, and oh, the should-haves. Opportunities lost, chances never taken, words never said aloud to those who needed to hear them most. Voices echoing in my head, telling me what to do; voices that are not my own. Expectations and wishes, pressures and dreams that remain in the same place in which they were born, static.
I also see the spaces in my body where I have, slowly, made space by letting go. I feel the calmness, the weightlessness, the joy in my heart of being at home raking cones and needles on a Thursday morning. I see images of people I have left behind so I could move onward. I see the moments where I chose to dance to the beat of my own heart when people told me I would be best to dance to music they have deemed to be safe and familiar. I see and hear the voices, and the narratives I have committed to re-write and re-record to better suit my ever-evolving nature. I see the constant of change, the necessity of change, and the beauty and demanding presence of uncertainty.
If I were to let go of the cones frantically hanging on to me, digging in their needles tight and strong, I wonder how many would fall. I wonder what would happen to them, once they hit the ground.
I wonder who I could become.
Dawning Words 