I recognize it now. The way I deflate, take a step back and wish for physical non-existence. I disappear, shut down, throw on my invisibility cloak and dissolve. If I don’t feel, if I don’t breathe, if I become quiet and still, you don’t see me. And in that nothingness … well, nothing exists.
No pain, no fear, no worthlessness, no anger, no sadness, no disappointment, no … well, no-thing.
But if I am being real, there is also no possibility for peace, for contentment, for love, for joy, for even a simple expression of aliveness.
I was rejected by you. And although I “should” stand tall in how I feel about myself (and how I act as myself), my go-to norm was all the different. I became lifeless. No words, no ideas, nothing to say, nothing to not say. No expression of wrongdoing. No expression of anger, or of sadness. No expression of the disappointment of all that would no longer. All signs of life just shut down. And simply put, no energy was bubbling up within me.
I clearly see my patterning now, my codependence–and its so much more subtle then those text book examples.
What you think about me, what you feel about me, and whether you wish for us to interact or not, that actually means nothing about me. I give it meaning. And my pattern toward your rejection was one of slipping away, of depression, of lifelessness, of non-existence – why should I exist, I clearly am not worthy. I am not good enough–for you, for my visions of our love, for my fantasies of how our lives and limbs should intertwine and be.
Deflate – I don’t even want to use that word. Because it is so lifeless, so shameful . . . I give my power away, my aliveness away, my existence away, because you didn’t choose me? When I write it out, it feels so messed up–yet it is so engrained in my physical, emotional AND mental patterns. So much so that I didn’t even realize it, until it happened for the millionth and one time. And this time, as I felt it in a very subtle way, I finally saw it.
All of these messages for me are subtle. Only if I get really still and open to watch and listen really patiently, is it starting to become clear. I’m learning to recognize my physical body’s response to closing off, shutting down and being ruled by fear. It is deflating. Deflating and disappearing so that I don’t have to feel the pain, this uncomfortableness, this disappointment and fear. Because how can I feel it, if I don’t exist? And anything even not existing is easier, better and more tolerable than this pain.
Wrong.
To claim my existence, sets me free. I feel the pain. I watch the pain well up within me and as I allow it, then it shifts. As I let the energy flow and emit out of me, I feel my power. As I feel, watch and live through this process, I step into my aliveness, and this sets me free.
Continuing to let my energy flow, in a stable connection to the core of who I am, reclaims my power. Stepping forward with a solid, meditative connection to my truth, in my wakefulness, brings me into aliveness.
This now sets my heart free and encourages the energy to keep flowing as opposed to getting buried and stuck within me. I now live. Flowing and free, in awe of how I’ve stumbled into being submersed in the truth of this higher reality of love that encompasses me.
