It’s a year and more after what Sarah can only rightly call her disintegration.
She'd been floating around for some months in what she'd initially, jokingly, called her "voluntary dissociation". She'd chosen to step back from those pesky feelings eventually. She'd switched herself off and shut herself down.
A conscious decision that had become impossible to return from.
Drifting. Detached. Going through the motions. Casually observing. No longer participating. Feeling little. Not even the good stuff anymore. It all seemed surreal. Entirely pointless. Sometimes amusing. Frequently really sad.
The illusion of real. Of normal. Of control.
Of life and the pointless, endless striving. The compulsively avoided fear. The greed because of it. The selfishness because of it. The cowardice, dishonesty and pretense, because of it.
She couldn’t play the game anymore. She couldn’t return to using anymore either, or to a now discarded Higher Power that might handle things and make sure everything would be okay. And she could no longer pretend that this wasn’t happening and that things were not what they were.
Disillusioned with humanity and the world in full.
This was who she was now.
She wondered if she'd gone to far.
Dug too deep. Seen too much, too fast without enough guidance and support to help her assimilate the learning. It had been full on. An onslaught really. She'd always been extreme and she'd gone to extremes to walk through the experience and out the other side.
Thing is. She wasn’t out the other side.
She was stuck somewhere in between.
Clear headed. Sober. Sane. Awake. Coherent. Occasionally content. Once in while even what might be called happy. But also miserable, a lot. Lonely at times. Disappointed. Emotionally dead the rest of the time. Or so detached that it felt like it anyway.
"What's the difference between dissociation and detachment?" she wondered.
It was some kind of relief whatever the case. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to fix it. So apathy as well, because what a mess we humans have made of things and nobody seems to really care. Or is able to anymore when surviving is the new living. Of the dream.
The illusion kind of dream.
Not the other kind.
Sarah's newfound detachment (or was it dissociation?) made this sudden clarity of vision more bearable.
But she missed her sense of wonder.
She missed...
herself.
She wondered if she'd traumatized herself so badly that she wouldn’t be able to feel much or connect ever again. Even if she tried.
The process was that shocking. The truth was that shocking. Or maybe she'd just been really, really naive. She knew she had been, but maybe hadn't realised exactly how much her chronic naivety had cost her. Until now. The pain. The struggle. The wasted years. The lost years. She could see it all clearly now as well. And it filled her with regret. And sorrow.
A year or more of this. Precious time.
Tick tock.
Then some effort again.
To regroup and rediscover some, now elusive, joy and wonder. To come back from all this. Focused. Intentional and serious. More research. More practice. More action. More recovery. Some results. It worked. Then it didn’t. Then it did. And then it didn’t. Backwards and forwards. More of the dance. "How long does grieving take?" she wondered.
How long does it take to, finally…
let go?
So much time alone.
A great deal of silence. Self imposed solitude. Everything gone. Often including the desire to even try anymore. She was tired. Of trying. Of failing. Of losing. Of getting back up. So she just stopped for a while eventually.
She just stopped.
But it still wasn’t happening. The understanding. The learning. The whatever she needed to feel okay again. She was afraid that it never would be okay again. That she would never be okay again. It'd been so long now.
So long and so lonely.
She returned to reading to pass the time. An old poetry book was dug out. Recently remembered because a favourite poem kept repeating itself in her mind. Known, for years, by heart. Forgotten for as long. Until now.
“After great pain a formal feeling comes”. Emily Dickenson
Sarah whispered the words to herself at night. Over and over again. Allowing the mindless repetition to soothe her. And this did provide some comfort. The Chill. The Stupor. This was the part of the process she was in. Ongoing though. And she was afraid now. But the final line of the poem.
“Then the letting go.”
And so...
Sarah began...
to wait.
While she waited, Sarah read a book she'd been carrying around for some years.
A book she'd never had the time to read because she'd been so busy living. So busy trying to live. When she opened it, at last, she knew it was the right time to read it within the first few pages.
She read it slowly, savouring every word. It was a short book but she wanted it to go on forever. The reply of the hero, to the merchant’s question of what skills he had to offer in exchange for payment, made her smile inwardly. Quietly.
“I can think, I can wait, I can fast.” Herman Hess - Siddhartha
Sarah had learned to think. And she had learned to fast.
Now, it seemed, she was learning to wait.
She came to the chapter “By the River,” and something began to settle inside her soul.
Something began to gently shift. Into surrender.
Not the kind of surrender where you give up your personal power because you don’t trust yourself anymore. And not the kind where you hand your will over because you’re incapable of making decent choices for yourself yet. The kind of surrender because you're still afraid of yourself.
Not that kind of surrender.
The kind of surrender where you choose to allow what is…
to be what is.
To let things be.
Sarah began to really understand, for the first time in her life, that surrender didn't mean defeat. Surrendering wasn't mandatory. It wasn't even necessary.
It was simply a choice.
A choice to stop fighting reality. To not strive to change things. Or people. Or maybe even herself. A choice, instead, to simply accept what was. Even if she didn’t much like it. So Sarah began to learn to sit. To wait. To let go. To let things be.
Authentically now.
But still… her mind fluctuated between her painful past and an unknowable future.
Angry. Sad. Resentful.
Hopeful. Happy. Afraid.
Maybe this is “normal,” she thought. "Why shouldn’t it be? All of these emotions. Sometimes at the same time. When did this become surprising or odd? To feel all of these things."
And so, Sarah began to sit with these feelings too and to wait some more.
Until they passed.
A random conversation in a surprise encounter made her realise that things had changed, despite her feeling so very stuck.
Maybe her isolation had prevented her from seeing the whole picture again. We need each other to recover. We need others in order to see ourselves more clearly.
Sarah understood this now.
She stepped back into the world despite her new fear and reticence of people. More people were met. More information was exchanged. More connections ignited. More learning because of this. More understanding. More integration. More balance. More acceptance. More peace.
This happened so very slowly. How many months more?
Yet still… Sarah didn’t know what she was supposed to do or be to “fix” things. How to be herself again. To feel herself again. Or perhaps, she thought...
she never would and she wasn’t supposed to anyway.
Then who? And what? And how?
Sarah still didn’t get it. She still wasn’t happy or comfortable. She was worried. She wasn’t “there” yet. A year and a half of this? How could she not have figured this out yet? How could she not have moved on, when everybody else seemed to be getting on with their lives without thought?
Some more months went by and Sarah was still working hard on letting go and moving forward.
She was wasting time. She was taking too long. This was taking too damned long. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was where she was supposed to be and this was all there was now. It hardly seemed worth it. Losing so much.
For this.
Emptiness.
A different encounter with a new someone, who shared some philosophy with her. A new friend. A new word.
“Liminal.”
This word struck a chord deep within her. This word explained exactly what Sarah had been struggling to understand for well over a year. The philosophy brought her more comfort. It offered her more insight. Some inspiration. Some hope, even.
This single word brought to her an understanding of the experience that she'd been, so desperately, trying to make some sense of for so very long. The experience that she had been, so desperately, trying to avoid. Again.
With this small new bit of understanding, imparted by a single word, Sarah settled down to wait.
Comfortably this time.
Slowly, she began to enjoy the in-between and its infinite possibilities.
She began to embrace the uncertainty as unlimited potential. To appreciate the process as the gift that it was. As the transition that it had to be. As uncomfortable as she'd thought it had been. With awareness and patience. With no action other than to entirely allow it. With no intention but to be in it, in full...
she began to find joy in it simply for what it was.
And a funny thing happened as soon as she did this.
As soon as Sarah had really learned to wait properly...
her life began to move forward again.
I pulled up and edited (again) this bit of a book I'm (sometimes) trying to write. I jokingly call it "The Book That May Never Be Written", but the working title is "The Accidental Theory" (TAT).
I made you guys a video as well but hey... it's been uploading for two hours now so I don't think it's gonna happen for this one. It's not you. It's me. And ridonculously slow internet, being ridden by far too many people at the place I'm at for the next bit.
I don't suffer from slow internet rage anymore though. That's progress.
The original post was on Medium. Written in 2021. But I've abandoned Medium now because... well... Hive of course.
I think this new edit may be better. Because you guys make me better.
Day by day.
The excerpt above, is the part about (dis)illusionment, and how shocking it can be when this happens, during a journey into so called "enlightenment". The moment when the illusion, of whatever "reality" we've chosen to believe in, is stripped away.
I think the "enlightenment" we seek is, really, just seeing the darkness as well. Seeing everything suddenly cast into the light, that is. Seeing it all. Clearly. As it is. Enlightenment isn't some special secret knowledge. It's not some kind of divine wisdom either.
Becoming "enlightened" was a process of illuminating the darkness and the shadows, for me. The things I couldn't yet see. In myself and others. In the world around me as well. It was by doing this that I was able, at last, to see some kind of "Truth".
I suppose the less fear a person has then... the more they are able to "see". Perhaps that's why I was given the opportunity to walk through my fears, one by one, when I'd expressed my curiosity to find out more about life, love and the universe.
Who knows.
Sometimes people seem to think the goal of "enlightenment" is to feel peaceful and happy all of the time. I know I did. I thought that if I avoided "negativity" and had enough knowledge and practice... I would find peace.
I found the polar opposite to be true.
My "enlightenment" was brutal and terrifying in many ways... until I'd integrated my new understanding of things. And it was quite a long, pretty scary process.
I didn't have a consistent guide or teacher to help me make sense of my experience though.
(edited to thank
for sharing his knowledge with me ever so patiently when I asked him relevant questions in 2020)
I think that was my biggest struggle. I didn't know, at the time, what was actually happening to me...
after the "truth" was revealed.
I thought I'd be happy when I had my answers, after my (almost thirty) years of "seeking". I wasn't. I was traumatized and shocked when my denial about many, many things was unexpectedly torn away.
They say be careful what you wish for...
because you always get it.
After some years of integration I can, finally, say (perhaps) it was worth it.
Again.
Who could know this for sure?
Eternal Seeker
Hardened Dreamer
Mother
Warrior
Determined Dancer
and Stargazer
still...
Beyond fear is freedom
And there is nothing to be afraid of.
To Life, with Love... and always for Truth!
Nicky Dee
Video thumbnail created with Arty Bot and edited using GIMP. Video my own.