It is pretty much agreed that we live in an age of ‘instant gratification’. We can press a button and have something delivered the next day. We can shop on the high-street and find most things that we ‘need’. We can swipe left or right and get an instant ‘hook up’ for sex. We can buy, barter, make, steal, find most things. Yet, I wonder how much brings real deep satisfaction. All these ‘things’, this ‘stuff’, for me simply fills a hole or holes.
Holes, in my heart, my life that I feel I have. An illusion I am not ‘WHOLE’. Holes that require filling. I have a glorious apartment filled with ‘stuff’, I have visited beautiful places have delicious memories of passion filled encounters, devoured, relished and over indulged on incredible food, wine and other sensual pleasures. I run projects, I do much in my community and have a great capacity to see the big picture and create much for many. YET, there are a few things that I know I deeply, deeply desire.
Connection
Peace
Love
Safety
These things cannot be ‘bought’ or bartered. Well, maybe we can for a short time have ‘connection’ through the genius of technology, through sex, through buying something, drinking or eating or smoking something, through a quick meeting with a friend a stranger, but that soul to soul, face to face conversation that fills the heart, soul and mind with a sense of belonging, understanding, playfulness, curiosity, love and deep nourishment. No, this is something that takes time. It takes effort, it takes a commitment to want to actually develop a ‘relationship’ of some form with an individual, group, a place in nature. It takes a humbleness and bravery, an honesty and transparency that leaves us potentially feeling vulnerable, exposed and at risk of ‘loss’. It requires time spent listening. Listening deeply. A listening that when you have been in the presence of it you realise what you have been missing all your life.
A listening that is so visceral, so present, so curious, alive and honest that you want to initially run a million miles away and hide – hide beneath the nearest piece of rock, to close the door and dim the light. A listening that sees you, hears you and accepts you.
It breaks you open; it hits your heart in a way that leaves you gasping for breath in the aliveness and sacredness that comes with it. The presence of someone listening to this level to witnessing you is a gift. One of the greatest and most humbling gifts I have ever received.
This type of listening – opens up the capacity to be truly seen. My golly, in me it evokes a story perhaps of ‘what will they truly see’, it isn’t safe. I question ‘how can I hide the parts of myself that I endeavour to hide from the world, perhaps more importantly hide from myself’? I remember my ex-partner who I loved and respected deeply giving me a homeopathic remedy ‘Calc Carb’ and I literally through a tantrum 10 minutes later. No seeming reason why when we were talking about ‘what to do with work’. An actual tantrum in our lounge where I stated quite aggressively, meaning it in every cell of my being. ‘I’d rather be dead than seen’. The thought of being truly present in life, to others, (which was crazy as my ex-partner is very psychic and able to read all of me and see things in myself and of myself I couldn’t, that I was blind to due to trauma, wounds and personal stories and self-limitation) was indeed so deeply painful I couldn’t bear the thought of it. Yes, for later writings there is the influence of ancestral and past life trauma about being persecuted but we are here now, in this lifetime and it is a time of calling for us all to stand up and be seen. As painful as that maybe. So, I continue….
The idea of being visible for people to see me and my ‘shadow’, the parts of me that life to hide away, to pretend they were not there was horrifying. Mostly, because I didn’t realise what I was hiding. On reflection I realise it was a terror of being present fully in myself and my life and therefore being present to them and our connection. We could of course think of Marianne Williamson’s famous poem ‘it isn’t our darkness; it is our light which we are afraid of’ which I agree with. Yet, there for me really has been this deep fear of my shadow being illuminated so visibly, more on this another time.
There is a beauty and illumination that comes from this awareness of self. Of listening to ourselves, of being curious about ourselves, not in a narcissistic way (and yes, we ALL have an element of this) but in a way that listens to ourselves, listens deeply to the wounded parts that are vying for attention and acting out, sabotaging things in our lives, relationships, listens, knows and respects our core values in life and lives by them.
Yet, how do we do this? How do we navigate our way through the stories, the actual physical pain of waking up to ourselves, our wounds, our lives? How do we begin to really ‘show up’? It takes a desire and a calling, a strong willing heart to do the work. It is so easy to numb out to settle, to avoid. In my life it has been and continues to be deeply painful to fully awaken – in my case anyway.
Some may have illuminating experiences through changing their thought patterns, and if honest, I wish I could do this. I wish I could simply be happy with saying a mantra to myself and therefore numbing my body. I am not able to do this – my body, my vehicle, my home in this life calls, screams to me too much, it holds the stories and patterns. It invites, it demands, that I listen. For me the journey to WHOLENESS to fill the ‘illusion’ of HOLES in my life is a combination, of body awareness, self-care, thoughts and connection.
As I navigate more fully HOME to myself to WHOLENESS, I continue to ask how can I be more compassionate to myself? How can I parent those parts of me that are wounded, in pain and wanting to hide? What are the gifts that they bring to me right now? What do they need in order to feel safe?
As I navigate my journey, I invite you to take a curious and gentle, a tentative look at where you are filling HOLES, because you want to be WHOLE…
In love and grace, Sarah