I spent years ruminating and analyzing, being deeply entrenched in the depths of my mind, incessantly swirling in chaotic ramblings and questionings, only fueling more confusion, more distorted thoughts, more shame and guilt, and more disconnection with my body. I am a natural scholar and seeker of knowledge, but I learned that constantly seeking outside of myself, without dropping into my own body, yields knowledge that is nothing more than loose strands of generic information that tether us to the mind and disconnect us from our lives.
A true sense of knowing is only possible by translating the intellectual knowing and conceptual understanding into a tangible sense of truth in the body. Embodiment is the only way to truly experience life; and rekindling your instincts and intuition will show us the way.
On my journey this would mean sitting with myself, connecting with my body, actually feeling the chards of the most uncomfortable shame that pierced my being and veiled my life force energy. To lovingly hold myself even at the pinnacle of discomfort as I open myself to the truth of what I sense and feel inside of me.
Pulling myself out of the safehouse of the mind which does nothing more than cause me to bypass. But this journey was about staying the path, bypassing nothing, feeling everything, unbecoming what isn’t me, and opening to the truth of all that is. After all, enlightenment and evolution aren’t about becoming better; it’s about unbecoming all that isn’t your truth. It’s the dismantling of your falsities so you can step into the truth of who you really are.
Knowledge can only become wisdom through felt experiences. We have been conditioned to avoid anything that could bruise our ego or make it squirm. Bypassing what is unpleasant may feel good in the moment, but the long-term consequences of living a disembodied life masked by a false persona is choosing to suffer a long, slow, insidious and painful death . . . the death of the soul.
Instead of choosing to be a helpless, sacrificial, and defenseless bystander who was nothing more than a casualty of life’s circumstances, and a receptacle for the incessant energetic intrusions of others, I had to choose to be a fervent participant; taking action to make things happen for me.
I always had a choice: I could escape when things got uncomfortable as I had done for years; retreating into a mystical fantasyland in which I could cowardly hide behind the superficial knowledge from books and courses and workshops, running around searching for “truth” outside of myself, burning all the sage, lighting all the candles, cleansing all the crystals, posing in all the asanas, taking all the supplements and receiving all the treatments to numb the pain, stifle my feelings and smother my voice for the sake of being polite; smile for the camera, post the pictures on social media with the hashtag “#evolved AF”, and lay my head on the pillow of fluffy love and light each night, hiding behind it all and calling that all a spiritual awakening.
Or I could choose, once and for all, to remove the mask, to go to the places that scared me in my body and allow the truth to surface; to sense it, to feel it, to breathe in to it, to sit with it like an unexpected visit from a long-lost friend; to get curious about the sensations, knowing that curiosity and fear cannot co-exist in the body, to learn how to speak and move when urged to do so from within, to lean in to the discomfort and feel it in every cell and tissue of my body; to show the world with daring humility the authenticity of my messy and muddled complicated existence, thereby exposing my truths in the light for all to see, to courageously show up in the honesty of raw feeling and being, and allow myself to flourish with unbridled passion coursing through my veins.
Now Connected with the beauty of my truth, I emancipate myself from the domestication that blinded and encaged me for far too long, and I am rewilded–sovereign in nature, untamed In heart, and a true creator who breathes life into her vision with her deepest desires and most authentic truths.
I am in the driver’s seat with a clear roadmap, a solid focused itinerary, and an embodied destiny.
