“On an unknown path, every step is slow” *
Healing, and becoming an improved version of yourself, is a giant step into the unknown. You see the prototypes in people you admire and who might be your heroes or just the ordinary person next door. You feel the twinge inside when encountering situations that you inherently know are not authentic. You need to let go of your life as you’ve known it and trust in the intangible world of discovery. None of this happens overnight.
Many people have passed through my life that played the role of being guideposts on the path to wholeness. My yoga instructor many years ago who introduced me to the concept of being in my body and not a numbed out puppet going through the motions of a life. From her I learned assertiveness, honesty, power, and the messages my body held of what I had been through and the strength I needed to face the pain. Never as quickly as I’d like, but what I needed always came in time. From the brief time of studying with her I learned there were unknown forces and concepts in the world that I embarked on discovering. Many more people have helped to shape the person I am today.
I have gotten to a place in my life where I am having a difficult time putting on the mask and playing the game. I just don’t have the energy anymore. One of the places I lived while growing up was a huge influence on how I didn’t want to be. I felt like such an outsider as a child as I sat and watched the interactions between the people. Internally I cringed as I saw the competition and false caring. It was about being the best at the expense of another. The knife being shoved in your back as a friend embraces you. The narrow road of what was considered appropriate behavior. I didn’t understand it and literally can’t stomach the behavior anymore. I have changed so much over the years and discovered many new ways of being. The last time I visited I felt sadness for the people for whom so much had remained the same while I went out and learned to fly. What was right for them caged me to the point of screaming to be free.
Though I was screaming on the inside, I have had to grieve the only life I knew. I didn’t know what was to come but I knew I couldn’t stay. I have had to hold both loving people dearly and admitting to myself, your version of the world is not enough for me. I wondered who I thought I was to expect better treatment and a bigger life. Whenever I step into the unknown, I still wonder this. But I knew there was another way to be in the world. I have had to risk losing everything in order to gain an unknown future.
As I am coming out of a few months of being more internal, as the proverbial caterpillar changes within the chrysalis to become the butterfly, I am once again walking into a new unknown. I have less internal worrying questions about what I should be doing and am concentrating on how to be with the moment at hand. A re-reading of The New Earth and The Power of Now have helped with my newest journey into the unknown. People are commenting that I’m more peaceful and there’s a glow about me but, to me, that’s not even the point. I am just being. I am grateful for the person I have discovered along my journey of recovery. I didn’t know where the path would take me as I faced the darkness but I took each step along the way that led me to today. Once again I can acknowledge, I have survived.
*Quote is from 8,789 Words of Wisdom by Barbara Ann Kipfer (2001) Workman Publishing, New York.
Dusana Michaels 