the yin and yang of the well
I need a therapist…
This is the thought that comes to my mind as I sit here on Boxing Day, listening to the cicadas and hearing the day come alive after a little too much merriment of what I thought was celebrating Christmas.
Yesterday was a tough day, all I had wished and hoped for was here, yet I felt I had fallen back into that dark well of despair and self loathing. I said no to social events, maybe I should have gone. Instead all I wanted to do was curl up and cuddle myself, the waves of loneliness and the looming tide of longing washed over me.
There was a point yesterday, I felt myself wanting to end it all again. Why was I here, why did I choose to stay, what am I doing here again? What is my purpose if not to push my way through this grief? to be of service? to turn my pain into teachings? Why do I still feel so much grief? how do I lift myself up? How can I turn this into practice for those I love?
The only answer that came to me as I sat above the beach on my little dune I call home at sunrise this morning was tenderness.
To show tenderness to myself and allow my body to feel what it is feeling.
To allow my emotions to be met by tenderness.
I cried, tears of relief, tears of sorrow, tears of pain.
I cried loving tears for me, I cried for my children, I cried for my family. I cried to the ocean, I cried for me.
I cried and felt my body release. I felt relief.
To know that the moment shall pass.
As I sit here writing these words with my cold coffee and my phone beeping.
I can do this. I can rise again.
Type the messages was the thought this morning. Send Christmas cheer. I wrote message after message to those near and dear to me. Not for validation or response, but I wanted to let those people in my life know that I love them, that they mean so much to me. That their support and love means so much to me. More than once I had the thought pop in, will this be the last thing they read from me? What if this is the last thing they read from me? I wrote anyway and brushed the darkness of those thoughts aside. I feel better writing messages of thanks and of love. Writing all of this here and now I feel better.
Why? gratitude, love and action.
Because I am getting it all out in a safe place. I am able to express myself without shutting down or silencing my voice. I don’t have fear, or insecurities come in when I’m writing.
Writing for me is my therapist.
Writing to me is my salvation.
It is my surrender and my softening.
Listening to the world move around outside of my quaint little unit in Cronulla with the heat starting to rise on a sunny day, the birds, the traffic, the movement and colour, the sound of crashing waves, allows a background noise that is familiar. As the words continue to pour out of me I feel my breathing start to soften, I feel the energy of my words also start to soften, I feel the light come in more and more with each word.
Writing brings peace to my world. I begin to notice more of my world around me when I write. I notice the beauty and the calls, I notice the sparkle in the day when I write. I am looking for divine inspiration in every moment, and I feel it.
I am connected when I write.
So now, I write. This is healing. Words are healing. My healing comes through my writing.
To write about the darkest part of myself where I have feared to be, what I have kept secret from others and myself. This feeling right now like the most liberating thing I could possibly do. I’m looking for an ounce of fear in doing so and there is none. Curious as I now know that even in the recent past such thoughts would have shut me down for days. And this feeling is new and incredible. For now, I know I am ready to completely remove the mask that I wear as a form of protection, of fitting in, of being too much or too little, of being different or the same.
So, for you my love, I will talk about the darkness I hold within so that you may see your own way out, or you may understand what someone near and dear to you is going through and how you can be there in love for them.
Take a breath now, and release. Some may find comfort in this, some may understand, some may be finding words to put to what they are feeling for the first time. For when we are in the depths of our own pit, our own well of misery or pain, it can feel 10ft underground or a hundred. It feels dark and lonely and sometimes the people who you expect to help are the ones throwing rocks down at you or cutting the rope. Others may be standing at the top giving advice or shouting down directions though it is always us that knows how far down we are, how dark and lonely it can feel. It may be well worn and known to you, every bump, even brick, the feeling of it familiar. We may be not able to see the light, or the opening, or it is completely dark. When we have spent any time in this well we know the force that keeps us there. It is like an invisible wave of energy that keeps you in there.
This vision of the well I am down is familiar to me. I have been here many times before. For many years, and one thing I have learned is that putting visuals to it helps me a lot. See it in your mind's eye. Are you in the pit, the well, a cave? what does it look like to you, what does it feel like? Are there smells or sounds? If you were to close your eyes now, describe it in detail. Take a breath and see it open up more and more. Where are you when you are in your darkness? Describe it, visualise it, speak it.
This helps in a way I never imagined before. What this does is create in your mind a picture reference point where you always have a point of knowing that it is fixed, not ever-expanding or growing or infinite. There must be a base to it. Create one if it’s not there. Make a base, walls. When I stand at the base of my well, I can look up and I focus on the light. And if there is no light, I focus on where it would be and I ask it to come. I ask the light to come and grow bigger. I focus on my light growing and growing. I see it glowing brighter. And it may only be a small opening, though I focus on the light growing brighter with each breath I take. Then, I make out each stone, each foothold, is there a ladder this time or not? A rope? With this, the adventurer, the explorer side of me steps in. I see myself finding one foothold and then another. I see myself slowly, slowly climbing out. This can sometimes take minutes, hours, days. Where am I now? I ask to be shown in my mind what are the things that will help me with each foothold. Maybe I hear something - get outside, go for a surf, message this person, maybe I see what I am to eat, how am I taking care of myself, write, write, write, and this is what is giving me each foothold this time.
Sometimes I feel it’s silence I crave, other times it’s music. It changes what I need to find my way out, and each time I’m out, the next time it's less scary and I know I can do it.
The well will always be there, it's just each time now I see it. I let my body feel all the feels and then I know when it's time to get out. The thing about the well is that no-one can help you out except you. That’s the thing others don’t understand. Sure you may be prescribed drugs or self medicate and for a time you forget about the well. Though unless you face it, name it, and claim it, it will always have the claim over you.
When I feel myself falling back down into this well, I recognise it. I feel into it, I stay with it. I question what has put me here, what is here to look at, what new thing has popped up for me stirring the muck from the past. I take care of myself. I see what I can be thankful for right now. I focus on that light.
My usual response has always been when I feel I am here is to shut off from the world, I close doors and ranks and hermit myself like that tarot card was made for me.
Something new happened for me today and it was big. Monumental. I wrote messages of love and thanks for the past year to the ones I love and care for. This was a huge step. And there is one reason I feel I was taken to this new place. I watched a brilliant documentary by Jonah Hill on his psychiatrist Phillip Stutz and he talked about when you feel out of control, or that you are in a situation feeling like you have no control, you are always able to work on your life force. He describes it like a pyramid - where the bottom layer is the body, the middle layer is people and the top layer is you.
What this means is that even when everything feels on top of you and you are in the well, you still have things in your control.
You always have the option of working on your life force energy. A source of energy greater than our physical being, that is always surrounding us if we choose to recognise it.
How we do this is by looking at these three elements -
When we look at the body - this is about movement, sleep, hydration, diet. My mental health is incredible when I take care of this element. When I miss sleep or cocoon, eat poorly, I feel it in my mind. So I rest, I eat well, I move my body, get up and go outside, go for a walk, a surf, even if it is the last thing I feel like doing. I take myself down the beach and just stare at the ocean and remember how small I am. This helps too.
People: the second layer is your connection to community and one thing he said which I loved was even reaching out to one person, as one person can represent the whole world. When we connect to others in our lives, when we reach out, we are bringing community to us. We are able to just be. Reach out to that one person. It may be the person who makes you coffee, talk to a stranger, engage in someone. It could just be what you and they are needing that day.
I have a bench I sit on by the beach, there are other benches there and people walk their dogs along the path here. If I feel like I need to talk to someone I take my coffee and go and sit on this bench. I pat dogs as they walk past, I smile at babies, I talk to strangers about the surf, the weather, anything. I am a part of something. I let my light shine and grow brighter by sitting outside, looking at the ocean and petting dogs while I talk about the weather. Friends know to find me here, So quite often I see people I know.
The third and top layer is self: this is where we can tend for our heart, our mind. This is where the practice of journaling, of meditation and spending time in silence with ourselves to learn about our trigger points, our loves in life, what we desire, what we will stand for and not. Moments in reflection allow for our inner world to find peace and calm. Journalling allows a safe space to express our feelings and emotions without judgement. It also gives voice to our heart. This is why I keep coming back to writing - for me it is an open expression of my soul.
When I lovingly look at these three aspects, things start to change for me in a big way. Things seem calmer, clearer and I feel like I am back in control of my well.
Very few people in my life know of my struggles and my internal pain, what I have been through or what I am still going through. Not one person knows my complete story, only me.
“I am my own secret, a secret kept by me” (mike white)
Why is this so? Is everyone like this?
As I write this I know all of my story will come out. And before where there was dread and fear, now I only feel lighter at the thought of it. It is liberation, it is freedom, and if what I write helps one person to know they are not alone, then I have achieved success. If one person is able to understand more the struggles of what their loved one is experiencing, then I have achieved all I wanted to do.
Your path is your path, your journey is yours to walk, though I want you to know, you are never alone.
The last thing I want to add to this is that time is a great healer. I sit here as I write this, a mere three weeks after the download about the well and our darkness or shadow. I was in that well, and once I was out, I saw the well at my feet. You are never sure how long it will take to feel better, though if you are willing and able to take action things can move quickly, and the smallest action can make huge changes.
I knew I wanted to get away after New Years, I had this pull to get away and head up the coast on my yearly pilgrimage to surf and camp in my van and catch up with friends and family. But how? I sold my van before leaving to Mexico, I had a friend offer his van, and then pull out and then a second offer but that fell through also.
I reached out to the owner who bought my van and offered to rent her. I have all intentions of buying my van back and I know that we will be back together one day, I was so excited to reconnect with her and hit the road. My van (Karen is her name) and I were back together. As I packed and got ready for the trip, I could feel my freedom being brought to me more and more.
The trip was smooth sailing and plenty of freedom, plenty of surfing and being in and around nature, cooking and nurturing myself, writing and letting go, releasing, healing and it was just what my heart, my soul, my mind needed. And then I had a journal entry towards the end of the trip. A lot of what I write in my journal is free writing - where I channeled spirit, and my guides to write through me. It is a combination of first person and response, to me and from me. This is the journal entry that opened the completion piece for this chapter - before I realised it wasn’t finished.
Sun 8th Jan
She’s a strong little bugger, that heart o’ mine.
Where I thought there would be pain and loss is only sweet freedom at seeing what really is, not what I dream there is.
Allow god to be god and flow with the rivers of your knowing and prose.
The words not need spoken as the spell is broken.
Sent back with love, yours to you and mine to me, I only have love for you and wish you well.
Forever freedom is found in the complete love I have for me.
You are no longer needed or wanted to agitate the waters of my heart.
She is a deep well, still, cool, calm.
She is full, she is happy.
The well of my love held in my heart is for those who wish to see her, to see their reflection in her still surface and choose to step in.
With this writing, I was saying goodbye energetically to a person and that I didn’t know what was to come. My heart was tired and needed to speak out and she did, with love.
What struck me writing this as I was writing it was that this was the yang side to the yin of the darkness, emotion, shadow, the empty well.
Here I was, on the other side of this trip for me, being shown by spirit my well full, clear, calm and the still waters were overflowing with love for self.
So, what to do when we step out of the well? When we stand above it and see this hole within us? We can be stable with the knowing of its place within our heart though when we start to move and grow, when we start to do the things that bring joy to our soul, when we step into our souls expression, we start to fill this well, fill it with the cool still water of self love. We do the things that set our hearts on fire, we do things that we love to do, in solitude, in silence, with the people we love and care for, the simple watching the sunrise, the connection to nature, to music, to activities that bring a smile to us, the meeting of new friends, the expanding of our connections, reconnecting with loved ones or things we have loved in the past and then before we know it, our well is filled. We see the stillness of our filled well and know from this place we are full and complete with self love. Spirit guided me to take that trip. I followed my intuition and there I was, without even realising it, filling my own well with what I truly love to do.
And again, the visualisations are crucial to understanding where you are, no blame, shame or self judgement, just an observance of what is the visual of your self love, with the well.
When our well is full, we respond differently, react differently, it is easier to be in the energy of love. We have clarity over our life and what brings us joy or happiness. The well will always be there, though in any moment we can see where it is in regard to empty/full, we can see what we need to do to bring it back to capacity. Everything is within our control in regard to our mind state, if we are able to see it is.
