The Tell-Tale Heart



Lately, I am finding writing to be a very therapeutic release for me. Journaling is helping me stay centered in my experience. It is preventing me from distracting myself from what has quickly escalated into one of the most soul-searing passages of my life. In the past, discomfort on this level would have surely sent me packing, but here I sit in the eye of the hurricane. I'm present and currently detesting this experience. I wish I could say I was flowing through this transition with more grace, but that would be akin to polishing up a rotten apple. If I have learned anything through my recovery, it is the importance of radical truth-telling. No one ever said it was going to be easy.

Shadow work is a force to be reckoned with. It is the whip of tough love that snaps us out of our inertia. It wrenches the fabric of complacency, challenging us to weave new meaningful threads into the tapestry of our lives. Some work is done for the sake of the doing, without the reward being readily apparent. Such is the case when you are dancing with the shadow in the pale moonlight.

I have seen ugliness reflected back at me over the past month. I have been called to claim full ownership of some rather murky aspects of my character. This has proven to be some of the most juicy, meaty, intense, provoking soul work I have ever done.

It hit me this morning as I was laying in bed how much forgiveness work I have done around my past. I have reached deep inside of myself to find a place of forgiveness for those who have wounded me. I have forgiven what some say to be the unforgivable. This didn't require a great leap of faith. I believe my philosophy in life has helped me move into this emotional space of readiness.

I have come to accept that truth is not absolute, at least not in the way we relate to truth. There is the little 't' truth which most of us feel inexplicably invested in. This comes from an ego-centered place of falsely assuming our experience to be solely relevant. You know what they say about assuming. This watered-down version of the truth is a complete denial of the truth of others. Little 't' truth is used as the basis of many conflicts. It backs up a hell of a lot of finger-pointing. It's emotionally invested in laying blame... being 'right'... winning the argument. It has no regard for understanding, empathy, or compassion. At its worst it is bull-headed ignorance. It certainly is counter-productive and crowds out all room for healing. Healing can't happen when we are too socked into a myopic view of fear-based self-preservation.

Then you have the big 'T' truth, or what I like to think of as the cosmic order of all things and simultaneously, the cosmic chaos of all things. Chaos is the dark womb that gestates creative change in our lives. We resist chaos because we fear the darkness. The unknown makes us quake in our boots because we have falsely bought into the illusion of control. We have sacrificed our wild natures in favor of homogenization. Then we feel dead inside and bewildered by our state of disconnect and confusion. How can we feel anything but turmoil when we are severed from our intrinsic nature?

Chaos is not exactly the visitor we want to see arriving on our doorstep. It's kind of like the friend who overstays their welcome... fine for a quick "How do you do" and not much more. Usually chaos comes calling when we become static and stuck. When we have lost our way and are veering off course, chaos comes as the great teacher to wake us out of our mindless slumber. Sometimes we grow far too apathetic. We become locked into roles that do not reflect who we truly are. We act out of old outworn belief systems. We view the present through the eyes of the past. This prevents us from experiencing the new reality of the now. We play old tunes on records grooved with scratches that create skips in our experience.

Resistance feeds persistence in such cases. Absolute surrender to the force of change is what is absolutely required. No ifs, ands or buts. We can protest all we want. We can scream until we are blue in the face. We can curse The Fates. Although, I do not recommend this. That's a rather tricky affair. It won't slow the uprooting. It won't stop that earthquake from tearing a path through your living room. It won't soften the blow of the hammer of truth. The more exacting that blow, the greater the call to let go and succumb to the teaching. Resistance is futile unless you're cruising for a more severe clobbering. Some are gluttons for punishment. I'm not one of them.

Through the channel of chaos, we learn lessons about big 'T' truth. We discover that truth is absolute and simultaneously, absolute bullshit because it is so highly subjective and filtered through our individual perceptions. Higher truth shows respect for all views in any conflict. It recognizes that all feelings are valid and to be respected. We can never strip someone of their experience even when it differs greatly from our own or causes us pain. It is when we can rise above our attachment to our version of old stories to encompass understanding of that big 'T' truth that we find healing, peace, and freedom.

One caveat of this process is that we have to weigh our own hearts. Big 'T' truth reflects our inner reality. It peers into the dark corners of our psyche. It shines light on aspects of ourselves we have hidden, tucked away presumably safely under lock and key. It does not do this to be cruel but to help free us from our self-imposed imprisonment. Scrying into that mirror I have seen clearly my inability to forgive myself.

It is much easier for me to find forgiveness in my heart for others. I feel deeply challenged to grant myself the same redemption. Only in the past few days have I begun to scratch the surface of the forgiveness work I need to do with myself. I feel profoundly tested to embrace the darker aspects of my nature. I have bumped up against a wall of shame I didn't even know existed. I have tried to find solace in the fact that I am not alone in the shadow. We all possess the contrast of darkness to our light. Somehow this knowing has not soothed me. Some paths are meant to be tread solitary. There may be others who can relate to our experience, but the journey through the shadow is uniquely our own. No fellow travellers may join us at this inn. This is one area we tend to feel very alone despite knowing that all humans wrestle with their demons. Some rather fancy the struggle and enjoy jello wrestling with their demon friends.

In the past month the all-knowing cosmic mirror has reflected back to me aspects of myself I would prefer to shatter, smash to bits, box up and ship out with no return address. I have seen my grasping... my envy... my bitterness... my rage... my toxicity. It has brought up issues around my sense of worthiness. I am so very hard on myself. I grant myself little breathing room to be human... to make mistakes... to struggle... and yes... to occasionally fall flat on my face and make a colossal ass out of myself. I am not exempt from putting my foot in my mouth or stirring the shit pot, try as I might to avoid these scenarios like the plague. I find it so easy to forgive others of these transgressions, but myself? That's a bitter pill to swallow.

I'm on a mission to come to a place of true forgiveness in my heart. I am fully convinced it is my ticket to peace, healing, and freedom. I will not continue to carry this baggage around for another 14 years. This experience is multi-layered for me. It runs deep... so very, very deep. Much like peeling an onion, I work through one layer only to find another one waiting for me. Every time I hit bottom... and I have hit bottom too many times to count over the past four weeks... I discover that new lows await me. It is in those moments I believe I am mad for opening this Pandora's box and yet, I am compelled like a moth to a flame. Perhaps it is my kamikaze nature to crash and burn. To allow the fire of transformation to rip through my soul consuming all that is false, leaving only essential remains.

I realize in these moments that this is greater than me... this call to heal old wounds and seek peace. It comes from something right in the center of my spirit, like a distant echo across the divide beckoning me home. I have no choice but to answer that call. At times it twists my insides up in knots. I find myself crying mercy and still I persist... feeling... releasing... staring truth in its wild face... shuddering... sobbing... diving down, down, down... all the way to the bottom of this wreckage that has capsized my soul.

This is what I am hungry for. This is the force that drives me. I will no longer live my life from a space of fear. I would rather leap empty-handed into the void. I prefer to brush right up against the unknowable and find my heart waiting there for me... restless and beating. The secrets it will speak with its tell-tale beat I do not know. I only know this is the work to be done. There is no going back no matter how desperately I want to turn tail and run, making a clean break for distant lands... far off places where I can be nameless amongst the masses... where I have no history... where I can simply be. This is the fantasy du jour right now. That, or taking off to join the circus where I can live the life of a nomad. A gypsy soul with no permanent place to call home with only a dream in my heart to keep me warm at night. The yearning for the great escape still beckons in the quiet moments the pain closes in. It reminds me of something Geneen Roth expressed... "Never underestimate the inclination to bolt." I'm sitting in the center of that gem of truth. It's a tough one.

Despite the beautiful mess that has been made of my life in the blink of an eye, I trust in the wisdom of life's grand design. I realize my kicking and screaming protests this intervention, but there is that still calm place inside that knows better. I sometimes need to have a temper tantrum to get to the heart of the matter. It's often these moments we look back on with revelation... connecting the dots between poignant experiences. I have yet to meet a challenge I couldn't lick. I am, after all, the queen of salvation at the eleventh hour.

Call it ignorant bliss, radical trust, divine guidance, or sheer insanity... I call it my only option. I have to believe that the foundation I've built over the past 13 years has been ripped out from under me because my life is in need of a grander design. Something more befitting of the woman I have become. Time for mama to trade in old hats for a shiny new jewel-studded crown.