With New Eyes

Artwork by Akassa

There are a few personalities that I know, that I have spent my life either resisting, judging, or in my best moments, trying to navigate safely, feeling like a fragile ship on the torrents of a raging sea.

So, in these relationships I have avoided, reacted and felt justified in my pain and anger, or tried like hell to become their equal in power, but with limited success.

However, recently it has finally dawned on me, how much energy I have spent trying to control the outcome with these personalities, to single handedly soften the energy into one that feels more comfortable to me. I have never felt anything but drained by this.

For a long while, the concepts of letting go and releasing have been growing within me, and like all concepts, have been deepening into the layers of my being, as more than just pretty tools to find peace.

But recently,the concept of release has taken on mind blowing properties. In moments I seem be getting out of the way enough to let the yearnings of my soul for inner peace take the reins, yearnings of my soul to surrender to trust take precedence--to take releasing to the deeper reaches of an emptiness and nothingness, a place of beginnings, where new is not born from the old, but rises up from its ashes.

I realize that in this new territory, the problem drops away--sometimes to the point where I can't remember what I am releasing. This was scary at first. I thought I was losing my marbles, when I would literally lose track of my problem. I'd quickly backtrack to find it, scurrying up the scaffolding of my mind until I zeroed in on it again. I noticed that when I found it again, I'd feel secure at the problem being there. Familiar.

But I also simultaneously became aware of a place where the problem no longer existed. To release a problem completely hadn't occurred to me. A problem becoming nothing. A mind becoming free from restraints. Just hadn't been on the list of possibility. What had felt possible was to wrangle with the problem for the rest of my life, and make it a more manageable size, little by little.

But to be free of the problem all together? Impossible.

Well, needless to say, this experience of no-problem-hood, even for split seconds has shaken my foundation. In a good way.

And the instability has felt good. Good enough to take with me into these interactions with personalities I find daunting.

And voila. I find myself in situations, instance after instance, letting go, stepping out of the trying. Surrendering to what is there. And having no idea how to do it, what to say, how to be.

No more navigating.

A new way.

Because it occurred to me that I was spinning my wheels trying to tame the waves of the ocean. And only because it was familiar to do so. Like I said, it never did anything but drain my power, and leave me weak.

So this new phase? I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Very curious what I will discover here.

Seems like it is as simple as walking without having to mentally intend to lift one foot in front of the other. Kind of automatic. And yet, there is movement, and yet there is no mental noise. No trying to navigate--just somehow trusting your feet will get you to the destination.

In other words, I'm not doing all the back-breaking work. Getting the mental stuff out of the way, is giving room to interactions that actually feel better with these people, but feel a little unfamiliar and unpredictable--yet better.

I can't explain it, but perhaps it is that dropping deeper into a place, where problems don't rule, opens up new ways to work together? To see one another?

Could it be that they weren't the problem? Could it be that there are no problems? Not even me? Whoa.

I love mystery. I love a life unfolding that tips me upside down into the land of the lost.

This is the place I desire to remain--watching the equivalent of chocolate rivers and gumdrop trees, marshmallow bunnies hopping, and stopping to wink. Everything is new, different, unbelievable. Nothing can be pinned down, and my eyes are wide open. I don't want to miss any of it. This is interesting.