Like most people, I bought into the script of how to behave and act and conform and fit in and all the Stuff we are spoon fed without checking for ourselves at any level. It was all so I could think I was lovable in the outside world and that I mattered. I heard the sirens and kept staying, kept thinking everything would all somehow magically work out. Quietly and consistently ignoring my wise intuition and shoving any unresolved emotions or experiences deep within.
There was no space allowed. Rest was not allowed. Not knowing and uncertainty was not allowed. Raw wild vulnerability was not allowed. I was constantly exhausted with maintaining and trying to control and do what was expected and and and. I felt pain and discomfort so intensely and frequently that it became a norm rather than an exception. I was rarely at rest in my being and tried to drown out the jangly feeling and tightness and dis ease. I was so stressed all the time, I distracted myself constantly so I couldn’t hear the wise truth within begging me to stop.
So my nervous system took me OUT. No messing, Hard on the breaks Screeching to a STOP with the fires burning and the rubber stinking!
What was an amazing gift was that after my ex set me free, he sent me a message with a picture of himself having a panic attack. It was Very difficult and shocking to witness but it was truthful of that moment for him. I had been using photography as a self witnessing tool for a little while so I started taking my own images of myself in the place of total annihilation over the weeks and months that followed. What’s worse, was that I Shared them on social media, this place where most share socially sanitised/ comfortable images!
I had SO many people send private messages with their Own stories of chaos and destruction but they Just couldn’t admit it publicly or share it. I get it, it’s not socially palatable to share such truths sometimes. But Still, I Had to. I Had to be the Most real I could be as Everything was stripped away and there was absolutely nothing to hold on to.
It’s been a period of time now and its been a time to pause and reflect. I am experiencing a Lot of creativity so I added colour to the self portraits and this radically changed my experience of what I saw. There are SO many flavours in the rainbow so don’t limit me to Only the happy box when there is Infinite possibility out there – absolutely Everything is allowed.
I don’t see a broken one. I don’t see a victim. I don’t see a person with certain symptoms or medical labels. I don’t see ANYTHING wrong. I witness Divinity, in it’s savage, stripped down, raw and very deep vulnerability. I see that which never changes. I see the vastness in the holding of everything that emerges and moves. I see the deep allowing for all that there is. I see such resilience to keep going with all that there is. I see Strength and complete Beauty, Even in this wild chaos and I am Humbled to my knees at witnessing this one. This one that could SO easily Hide and Still, there She is…