Ummmmm, no.
Well that is how I used to feel. Guarded. Protective. I felt peril if you ever really knew what I thought, felt and wanted. I did not ever want you to know how very much I need.
Someone said the above statement yesterday and it plagued me all day. Dogged my footsteps, followed me through my day. It was like an unwelcome mantra in my head, repeating itself over and over again.
Finally, I just spent some time with it. Allowed it to come into the present of my life and accepted that it was resonating with me for good reason and I should stop pushing it away.
Two years ago last month I started this blog. Two years ago was a turning point for me. It was born out of a desire for you to know me, so that I can know you. It was my commitment to myself to stop hiding my feelings, thoughts, dreams, desires and instead offering them up to whomever might care to read them. It was an extension of my willingness and desire to be authentic. To actually live the skin I am in. To stop trying to dress it up, prettify, distract or alter who I am to suit the situation or person and instead have the courage to just be me, no matter what. Regardless of who is in front of me.
It was a beginning...but when I look back now, I can see the bravado in my writing. I can still see my inability to let you in. I see the projection and protection. I was sharing from the deepest place of my soul that I could access at the time...which I now recognize as pretty superficial.
Regardless I was still desiring to go there, to the depths of my soul and share from that place. I have found that the deepest part of my soul is often not accessible...even to me. The path to it is littered with debris of ego and egoic stories that dance and beckon me off to jaunts like sirens to Odysseus on his quest. I admit, I get distracted a lot...
However, all of this writing began with a true and honest desire to find, clear out and share from the deepest part of my soul. To allow you entrance even when it scares me. To tell the truth about who I am and what I am without having to be tied to your experience of that. It is yours, not mine.
It is a brave thing to allow others in. To be yourself in all situations and to love that person always even when she messes up, is unkind, fails to launch or gets it all wrong...again.
But the thought occurred to me yesterday, why bother? Why share from this place of vulnerability? Why do this thing that is terrifying and gut wrenching? What is the point really? Are others really willing to do the same? Why should this be my mantra when it seems like everyone else gets a cover?
I chewed on this all day. And I think I want to share from this place because if I do not share from the deepest recesses of my heart and mind, I am imprisoned there. I cannot get out and you cannot get in. Sharing from the depths of my soul, is the path toward true connection. Heart connection. Soul connection. And without that, there is no love. There is no like. There is nothing but people habituating addictive patterns of conduct telling ridiculous stories of ego. We lie and lie and lie but really to ourselves. We think we are being real, but really we are just protecting ourselves, in yet another version of ourselves that we believe is more palatable. Better. More likable.
What came to me yesterday is this...
What makes me think that I know what people will like better? What makes me an authority on what others want or like? Haven’t I gotten this wrong forever? Why do I now believe that I somehow will get this right?
Delusional, magical thinking...over and over again.
So if I cannot ever get this right, why does it drive all my behavior? Dressing myself up in things that I think you will like or love when my truest and most honest version of myself is always less pretty than I would like you to see. Could I show up as my authentic self and just have that be ok? Could I love her, just as she is and not insist that she be better? Could I stop the subtle violence against the truest part of me by ceasing to insist that she be better, different?
Sharing from the deepest part of your soul is warrior work. It is brave as fuck and will produce some battle scars for sure. But what I have learned about spiritual battle scars is this: they only hurt for a lifetime...and that is the best news ever because I move at the speed of pain. Always have, always will. If I am too comfortable, I get complacent and my ego takes over and starts telling all these fancy stories that are really a bunch of bullshit. I have to be open to be wounded and that is really what living a spiritual life is all about. It isn’t about being comfortable or safe. It is about stepping out into the dangerous land of authenticity and honesty and love and being who you are anyway. Showing up in your truest form and praying to God (or whatever you believe in) that you survive the exposure. It isn’t about sounding good or looking pretty. It is about exposing the soft, white underbelly without spear or shield. It is about standing there and just having the courage to be who you are...and sharing from that place of vulnerability.
What I know today is that I can’t do it every day or all the time. I wish I could but I can’t. There are going to be times when I am too afraid. My hope is that I can tell you about that. I can be honest in my lying or shielding or protection. I can tell you I am hiding while I am hiding.
Regardless, I will continue to try to share from the deepest places in my soul. I will endeavor to go there. I will try to allow you entrance...but first I have to have the courage to go there myself. And that I have found is a process. It takes time. It takes guts. It takes heart. I have also found that it is a lonely journey. Not everyone you meet on your path will want to join you. There are a lot of surface dwellers that like it there floating in the sun. They feel no need to sink into the blackness the depths provide. And I can relate, I much prefer the warm sunshiney surface too. But I also know that what I allow to the surface can be a mere reflection or it can be a surfacing of a truer me. But first I have to dive, dive, dive to pull up the me that I am a terrified to see...and even more horrified to share.
Diving is hard work. Dragging to the surface, any surface, requires labor and a commitment that lasts your lifetime. It is fine sometimes to float in the sun but for me, I always have to dive at some point because my time on the surface, if I stay too long, makes me lost. And I can only be found after a true and deep dive towards the parts of me I think are too shameful to share. But without the continued willingness to dive, I cannot ever get close to you. And I do, in fact want to be closer to you, and to God. I want to be who I am and always, forever moving towards the me that is divinely created to be. This, I am sure, is the best use of this life...
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