It’s become less uncomfortable over time, in general. Life. As I’ve become more aware of my unconscious patterns and baggage and belief systems, I’ve been able to engage with them and it’s gotten easier.

Oh, I’m the common denominator here? Yeesh, okay, well I guess I’d better get my shit together then.

Oh… getting my shit together, being a “good girl”, seeking external validation and acceptance doesn’t work? Well, shoot. Okay, I guess I’ll try something else.

How about if I think happy thoughts from this same state of desperate seeking and pain and a deep desire to escape? Happy thoughts happy thoughts happy thoughts (pain) happy thoughts happy thoughts happy thoughts (pain).

Hmm…. How about I latch onto someone with all of the qualities I possess but repress and put them on a pedestal and hope some of that will rub off on me?

Nope. We both just hate me now.

The Buddhists say that desire is the problem. What if I sit in a dark room, on a cushion, and diligently say Om Mane Padme Hum for hours and hours and hours as a form of self flagellation?

That didn’t do it.

What if what if what if what if. What if I lose weight? What if push my body physically in a grasping effort to make myself look like someone that other people will love enough to fill that terrifying aching hole in the center of myself. What if I try to achieve a level of physical purity (no meat, no dairy, no bread, no pasta, no cookies, no cake, no nothing… maybe just fruit. Fruit’s ok, right?). What if I am always alone. What if I am never alone? What if I scream into the night? What if I drink all the drinks? What if I smoke all the smokes? What if I take all the drugs? What if I flirt with the edge, with obliteration by darkness? What if I twirl around and laugh at the sky? What if I pretend that I’m happy? So happy that all of the shadows and wounds and little lost children of my soul that I’m ignoring and pressing down deep just go away?

Oh wait, I almost missed it…. there’s an aching terrifying hole in the center of myself? That’s interesting. I wonder where that came from. What is that feeling… that feeling, that particular aching, longing, searching, hoping, bittersweet, comforting, dark, seductive feeling? It’s all wrapped up in blame and anger and entitlement and beneath that, a deep, deep wound. Where did I first feel that? My first heartbreak? No, it was there, but that wasn’t the first time. The first time I was yelled at as a child? My first conscious awareness that I was wrong, other, not good enough, damaged, broken, ugly, weird? Yes, we’re getting closer now. I was an everything, all unified in myself, happy, being, and then there was a split. Then I fell. And before that, there was the big fall. The separation from all that is. Was I cast out? Or did I come here on purpose? It’s really dangerous here. Why would I come?

Oh… this is all for me. Oh. The obstacles are so that I have the joy of overcoming them. The seeking, searching, pain, falling, getting up, burying my heart inside of another’s flesh, trying to obliterate myself, finding no escape anywhere, is all, actually, for me. It’s a gift. A big massive gift that I don’t think I have room to accept. It’s so big and I have nowhere to put it.

Inside of that hole, maybe? Maybe it fits there? No, the hole is not big enough. I have to blow it open. I have to become empty. I have to pull through the scar tissue and find space, more space. I have to knock down the walls. I have to become naked, a hollow bone. I have to bear it all, so that it can move through me. And now, maybe, now I’m closer. Now that gift can move through me. Life in all of its pain and horror and glory so bright I can barely stand to look it can move through me.

Okay. Okay. Yes, I see now. My job is to keep myself open. To remove the obstacles that I’ve put up to protect me from that astonishing gift, that unfathomable love. My job is to develop resilience, strength, courage, solidarity in my purpose. My job is to sit on a cushion in a dark room and make space to receive. My job is to help my body to be strong and fit and nourished so that it is honored as the sacred chalice that holds all of this brilliant love. My job is to enter into conscious relationship so that I can polish the mirror. So that I can learn where I am still holding on. Where I am still blocked, still searching, still afraid. And when I see in that mirror that I’m again grasping, seeking, wounded, a victim, my job is to return to myself. Make more space. Cut away more scar tissue. Open, let go, receive the gift. Let it obliterate me again. Become brave again. Keep turning towards the light. Not the Love&Light Everything’s So Totally Awesome Light, but the light that reveals all of the shadows. The light that integrates all of the pain. The terrible and glorious light that exposes all things and leaves me naked once again. Keep moving into that light. It is the only place there is to go. The only thing there is to do. My job is to be strong enough to receive the light in its full shattering glory.

The discomfort comes when I resist, and turn away, and languish in the in-between space. When I see the path, but fear the challenge. But I am getting better at being in this place. It is taking less time for me to remember to turn towards the light. I remember more often to do the work to keep myself empty and able to receive. I am more able to exist in the paradox. I can hold more. It’s become less uncomfortable over time, in general. Life.