changeling

True change is within;

leave the outside as it is. 
~His Holiness The Dalai Lama

i took a journey into the darkness of myself and found it to be one of those places of great pain but also of great lessons in letting go and finding acceptance in myself...sometimes the greatest sojourn to take is to those places within...to look with compassion and yet without hiding anything from your inspection...we have all done things we dont like to look at...i have done much to deny myself love while at the same time starving for it....what torture to sit at a feast and not eat....why?...to ask why was the first step onto the path of my healing...but only the first...the harder steps came with great suffering yet with an overriding love from Spirit...

i faced the risk of death by own hands a few times recently...one night was very difficult...i sat alone in my apartment with the keys in my hand ready to drive and find a place away from others to end my life...instead i prayed...in exhaustion finally i fell asleep...i had a comforting dream...the unseen kindly bringing a dream of the stars and the trees and a treehouse i was going to in my mind for awhile...it kept me alive another day...there was another time i had to go over to someones house and stay with them so i wasnt alone... 

i braved going to a gathering of women and afterwards felt so incredibly alone and in pain...this was a close call too...but i held on...i have those i love and i do not want to hurt them by ending my life...they have been my manna from heaven...the thoughts of them and their goodness coming through when my suffering was the greatest... 

i made myself do the small things of simply brushing my teeth and getting dressed...i then did bigger things of going out and being around others...isolation is my first desire but the worst thing i can do to myself...so i would go out...i let myself forget the stress and pressures of my life and would enjoy a few hours of being around others...

alone i would pray and meditate...i would cry and feel the hurt when it was safe to do so...i would consciously release my pain even as it would fill back up in my mind....i would explore the pain...asking it questions...understanding it...having compassion for myself at last...seeing myself as i see others...with respect and love and of great worth...i felt my own pain and suffering in a different way...

i began claiming my own healing...i accepted the idea i could heal myself...and i began to do the work of healing myself...reading books, youtube surfing self help, praying, meditating, caretaking myself as i would another...finding the roots of my sorrow...

then it came to me...

it isnt that i want to die...i want the suffering to end...and so the question i placed at the center of my own healing altar has been  "what is causing me to suffer?"...and this is when the click happened...the key was turned in the lock of my own heart...at the root of my own desire to die was the answer...and when i found the root system this was when i began to create a living ritual of death...death of old thinking, old habits, old self punishing ways...i dont have to kill myself off...i kill the roots of my depression off...the invasive foreign "entity" growing in me...the unhappiness activated in me when i was young...spreading like kudzu through the tree of my life...this curse...

a big understanding of my own cycles of suffering has occurred...i have growing seasons of this depression...i have fed it and it has grown...i have allowed it to be there...i have kept it alive...it is not an enemy or a friend...it is just a thing that was placed into me when i was young...a seed of thought from my parents...the seed of "you will never be loved"...and all this time i have let that seed grow into this vine choking my life out of me...

so here are the important questions for you if you suffer from this unique depression...what has taken root in me? what is causing me to suffer? and what ritual can i create and practice for myself to remove the thoughts that feed depression? or come up with your own set of questions...your own visuals...

you still get to kill something...just not yourself...mine is a negative aspect of ego which keeps growing back...and why does it grow back?...because i have not dealt with the root cause...until now...and it isnt a quick process...i have to watch myself and see when i begin to feed the well rooted vine of self hate...i have to keep removing it all together...i am not all the way well but i have this amazing chance to feel how i should have felt when i was a child and was pure in love...i have this chance and i am working very hard daily to remove all this self hate, self punishment, self exile...to remove the thoughts put in me long ago and to allow myself to feel loved by others and by the infinite love that is...

i keep thinking i have killed off the roots and yet a thought comes which shows me it is still there in me...but now i have a chance...i need to let myself have the energy to do the work...i need to be conscious of this self work...and i am...i feel close...i feel like i may experience this lifting away of all the tangled vine of suffering and the roots of my curse...i am giving it my best efforts...i am hopeful...i am not going to claim victory yet like i have before...not knowing it was still in me...but i do now...i know the last of the roots are there...i can feel them...and i will remove them as well...