458: Morphers Anonymous; What is ‘Self’

I am wondering if the female with Asperger’s Syndrome could also encompass a loss-of-identity-of-self element.

I have always had a hard time understanding my own interests, likes, wants, and needs. My desires become obscured and distorted based on my current love-interest. This could be a love of a person, as in friendship and/or romance.

I seem to morph in and out of existence based on my current lifestyle and interest. I can hold onto certain elements of self, primarily my special interests since childhood, e.g., writing, drawing, poetry, nature, animals, music, but other interests and ‘trademarks’ of my personality readily change without much effort and without me even knowing based on my interaction with another person.

Somethings that hold true and steadfast for my character and sense of self include:

Honesty
Integrity
Great Love and Passion
Processing
Lack of Manipulation
Lack of Game Playing
Intellectual in depth Processing
Tenderness
Kindness
Sensitivity
Intense Introspection
A Child-Like Heart and Spirit
Innocence
Hope
Trusting
Sharing
Giving
The Desire to Serve
The Desire to Make a Difference

The parts of my life that alter when I have an interest in another:

Spending less time on a past special interest or activity.
Focusing on new relationship, sometimes with nothing else seeming to matter, except pleasing the other person by becoming akin to their likes and interest.
Vast amounts of emotional energy spent on the person, in comparison to the amount previously spent on self or another.
Partaking in future planning regarding the person.
Over-analyzing and focusing on aspects of my appearance, habits, behaviors, and goals; effectually comparing myself to the other, and wondering in what ways my self could better reflect the other person.
Revamping of what I choose for entertainment, recreation, and sometimes food/drink, clothing, etc.
Taking on the likes and interests of the other person, including book, music, and movie genres, entertainment, social events and various activities.
Taking on mannerisms, dialect, ways of speech, or other unique characteristics of the person.
Taking on belief systems, philosophies and/or personality traits of the person.

This is usually not done at a conscious-level. Typically, I am blinded to my own behavior, justifying what I am doing with some mind-conditioning or logical sequencing, such as rationalization or total denial. This morphing differs in codependency, as I remain intact in my self-esteem and sense of worth. I do not enable. I have clear boundaries of what I will not tolerate or allow in my comfort zone. I maintain a sense of joy in my own life and accomplishments. But it is similar in codependency in my want to over-give, transform based on another, and my tendency to obsess, fantasize, and make the person more important in reality than he or she truly is. In some ways the person becomes like my god or sun, and I the dependent mortal or planet.

Even with all my growth and self-reflection, I still get caught in the pull-push state of wanting to be myself in completion and wanting to figure out how to be what another wants me to be. Even with this strong awareness, this morphing of who I am transpires without warning or clear indication, until I am in the transient state of a chameleon of my personhood.

This morphing is a common part of the female with Asperger’s condition; the female with Aspergers molds her own behaviors and mannerisms in a way that she believes will satisfy the need of her beloved.

The downfall in this behavior is foremost: losing self-identity.

The other issue at hand is the female with ASD cannot ever meet another’s expectations in completion, because the wants and needs of another individual (aka her ‘best friend’) are in constant transition.

It is important to note that this act of morphing is instinctual in nature to many females with ASD. She is seemingly programmed in the brain to morph based on attraction or interest in another human being.

I repeatedly try to transform my own ways and behaviors to meet the needs of another, without even realizing I am partaking in this behavior. Once I catch myself in this chameleon action, I pull back and wonder why I have once again fallen into the trap of losing self. From here I question the sense of self in all aspects, and become boggled by the concept of simply being.

During the morphing phase, I live my life through the eyes of one person. I see myself being watched by this someone at a distance. I see myself adapting, conforming, and molding in an attempt to fit some faraway expectation or goal, I have subconsciously created. I watch my own self through the eyes of someone else. I match my movements, choices, and even sometimes my thought processes to what I think this individual expects or desires from me. I do this without much awareness or analysis, much like a robot following a pre-instructed and installed program. There isn’t much thought to what I am doing or why I am doing it, beyond doing.

Usually this perspective, the way I interpret myself being ‘seen,’ and how I respond in word, thought, and action, shifts every year or so, depending on the duration of a relationship. Everything I do, I imagine and I believe is seen through the eyes of a human being beyond myself (boyfriend, lover, husband, best friend, boss). My movements, my words, my way of being, revolve around this someone beyond myself.

It is like constantly having an overseer observing me. I question would he/she behave like this? I ask, “Is this bringing me closer to his/her liking?” It isn’t as much a need for approval as wanting to match myself to this other. Interestingly, at the same time this morphing is transpiring, I still maintain my own self-esteem and self-love. I like who I am. I want to be me. But I somehow get lost in the process of befriending this high-interest person.

High-interest in the keyword and key point.

Without the high-interest, I am not drawn into the morphing and adjusting of self. With high-interest, my brain attaches, much like it does with a special hobby or activity, and I become a scientist dissecting the person, as if the person were a project. My brain’s natural ability to dissect, take apart, and rearrange pieces of a whole into a new whole takes over. I become a detective of self and other; again, not typically at a conscious level; though I have some awareness of what I am doing, a cloak to my full reality remains. This cloaking action resembles some sort of protective mechanism and functions the same way as in my high-interest projects, (aka: fixations). I cannot seem to pull myself out, or properly analyze and confront my own behavior, until the passionate interest has subsided; the stopping point/tilting point usually being a new special interest. I go from one to the other, a child on the monkey bars of a playground, not letting go of the one in hand, until the next in hand is firmly grasped.

Through this way of being, I lose track of who I am. Yet, I wonder if I ever was to begin with.

If I take time to process this sense of being, and the ‘whys’ of the way I respond in passion to another, I become confused in thoughts of ‘what is being?’ and ‘what is self?’ I have no idea of who I am, beyond space and matter, and a reflection of the universe. I am ever-changing and transitioning substance. I adhere to the string-theory, to ancient philosophies and belief systems—that of being nothing but the combined perception of others. In truth, I know a thousand others would have a thousand interpretations of this self I am, and in a year’s passing even these opinions would all transition. I am never stagnant, and awaken a new person not daily, but minute by minute. I have no general sense of self or of being. I am that I am. In essence I am nothing.

Perhaps because of the ‘no self’ theory, I transform without intention when fixated on another. Perhaps, like some spiritual teachers have professed, I am merely taking on the characteristics reflected in the person I am observing because I am only, and will always only be, a reflection. Perhaps, I am wired in a way, spiritually or biologically, in which I am not a solid form made to stay stagnant and unwavering; or perhaps I am more keenly alert and aware of the changes and transformations inside of me, to a point that the changes distract from me recognizing a fully forming personhood.

Regardless of my hypothesis, I get trapped in the cyclical repetition of morphing.

In the last season of inquiry, I have reached a new threshold, in which I have questioned: What do I want in another person? What makes me happy? What are my true needs?

The only answer I hear is: love

Beyond unconditional love and acceptance, (and beyond Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs), I don’t understand needs.
Any needs, to me, seem obscure and border on self-based, ego-needs. Who am I to claim a need without at the same time delegating to another how I wish him/her to be or respond (change) in order to please and satisfy me? And what is it inside of myself that is not complete and satisfied in which I need another to fulfill me?

With these thoughts, I become entangled in trying to contemplate the very basic nature of self needs and self-identity.

454: Sometimes I am so very real

I believe this collection of random thoughts I have had over the past two weeks emphasizes both the tenderness and complexities of my heart-mind. Much love to you ~ Sam

Sometimes I am so very real in a world of falsehoods that I am mistaken as fake.

Listening to another’s words is telling. A truth seeps through. Inside the words there is restriction, beyond the words, too. Any self-based motivation and intention is detected. The ego’s ploys and plots. I can feel them. The way the one tries to place his image on another to validate his own truth of existence. The way another tries to categorize an experience through cloaking a person in his own garments. It feels heavy to me, to be around someone who is attached to his own sense of self, his own sense of what is right. I feel attacked with daggers. Penetrated with judgment. It is not that my own identity is so fragile and in need of repair from the demons of the world; it is because my soul is tender to the ways of people blinded by their thoughts of superiority. I see others as equivalent to self, as equal. And so many times another wants to define me as more or less. Both disrupt my energy flow and energy purpose. Both make me momentarily stagnant, slipped inside the seams of another’s perspective, and bent into the shape of their doing. This isn’t a defect or something I need to alter. This is. And I sit here wondering where these people go, so lost into themselves, that they can not find the truth of us.

I do not share my story to receive empathy. I do not share my journey with any intention at all, beyond love. And even this intention, I release. For love exists fully in freedom. I place no expectations on my readers, and no expectations on my self. My hope is abandoned, in the sense I choose not to hope for outcome based on my words. I don’t steer, nor do I drive my voice. I simply speak my truth. I am that I am, and whatever flows out of me, I bless with my authenticity and with our shared light. I do not seek approval or acceptance. No longer do those traps entice me. I seek only to shine as a representation of your own beauty. And in doing so I am placed ten-fold above my own interior pain. I am lifted beyond the seemingly endless singular journey and returned to the arms of All. You, me, we: traveling as one united.

Sometimes I want to pour myself out, like spillage from a sac. Plop myself right out there in completion. Everything from the biggest secrets to the biggest fears. And just say: Here I am. Take me or leave me. But if you’re going to leave, do it now. So you don’t take the good parts of me with you.

For me, the challenges with religious doctrine or any spiritual doctrine, is that more times than not a person will pull out a singular element of his interpreted truth from the literature, perhaps a quote or a philosophical idea, without having studied the whole: the works in completion in original voice and language, the history of the interpretations, the effects of man’s interpretation, and the effects of man’s darker virtues, those of greed, power, and control. In my current view, pulling out one singular element from a vast and complex teaching that has been made more complex through man’s influences and tainting, and claiming a singular truth, is the same as taking a body part off of a human to explain a being; in other words, I would not cut off my ankle, place it on the table, and say: Here I am. Here is my truth.

A true friend inspires you to shine your own light, expects that you prove nothing, and loves you in any condition. She neither takes away from who you are, or adds to your existence, but neutrally supports you with her own self-acceptance and self-love.

Too often I have been admired, and mistaken this admiration for love. Too often the admiration fades, and what is left is this empty shell of another’s perception of me. I long to be loved for me, but seem to get lost inside the busy-ways in which others build me up. It is lonely falling from a place that never was to a new place that is even less a reality. Back to this hole of somewhere, the gap in which people bury their disappointments.

It isn’t your opinions that bother me, or even your continual judgment and evaluation of who I am as a person. I don’t mind if you disagree with me, or that you believe you can fix and control me. I don’t even care if you find my ways repulsive and unsightly. I care that you don’t love yourself enough to see that you are already whole and complete, and instead take your illusion of a broken self and try to pound ‘broken’ into me.

Often I absorb the energy of someone that is around me. For example if she is angry and bitter, I feel this. If I am around the energy for a certain time interval, usually more than an hour, I begin to reflect back to that person what she wants and expects to see. I, in essence, shift, becoming an image of the other’s projection. If the person is in a state of contentment and bliss, free of judgment, and full of unconditional love, I can spend countless hours in the one’s company. If she is tormented by fear, which is often the case, I become wrapped up in her fear myself, transforming into something I do not find comforting. As hard as I try to maintain my sense of self, I slip into the evaluation energy field another has of her own self. I become who the other perceives me to be. I have heard other spiritual teachers speak of this phenomena. What amazes me is that no matter how much love I give out to another ‘seeing’ me, she will eventually make me into her truth, regardless of my love. I am beginning to understand more and more why silence in the presence of others is sometimes not only beneficial but necessary.

Some of my most far-reaching works were driven by an intense and utter sense of isolation, separation, and desperation. I cried out from the dark of my soul in a state of pure innocence and agonizing pain. Here, in these dark nights, the light came. The light of you. Many blessings.

No one, absolutely no one, is trying to escape. We are all trying to get back in. Back in touch. Back in bliss. Back to the place where we are whole and entirely connected. We aren’t stagnant beings trapped in a prison. We are pulsating light attempting to penetrate from the outside in, longing to return to the core of love.

Just because I appear to be at a loss right now, somehow fallen and maybe looking to you broken, doesn’t mean I won’t be back on my feet in a few minutes, entirely renewed and ready to start again. I recover quickly. Reentry into this world has become my habit.

My honesty runs deep. I am not just layers of honesty; I think I am built with bricks of it. Each comment I make is weighed for truth, and in turn each word out of another’s mouth is felt for accuracy. Not my way or their way. Not right or wrong. But whether or not the words spoken resonate with the underlying energy. If what is expressed coincides with the empathic pull I feel. Even the facial expressions, the body movements, the tone of voice—I wonder as observer of self and other—is this a truth? A true reflection of the state of being? I dig deeper and wonder what truth is; and thusly, the simplest actions for others, become rapid moving complexities to me. The sound of a ‘hello,’ the movement of a head shaking, the words ‘I love you.’ The daily norms aren’t easy for me. So much rests beneath everything. And yet everyone seems to be skating on the surface.

It is hard for me to be in balance. I want to. I try to. I study how to. I look in books. I look at others. I watch and observe. But it appears I wasn’t built the same way as the rest. It seems I move in extremes. I am either overly passionate and obsessed or I am shut off entirely. I am either running full speed ahead or dodging what is coming at me. I don’t know how to be the other way, the way people seem to be. I am a mess or I am pristine. I have all the answers or I have none. I am on cloud nine or I am in hell. And it isn’t anything that brings me out of balance, not a mood swing, not a chemical, not a drug.. it is this place, this world, the confusion it brings: the energy, the questions, the bombardment of rules that aren’t rules. All this makes me cling to one thing and then another in hopes of answer. The clinging elevates me to a place of momentary security. The obsessions trap me away from reality. But then the reality comes and I am swung back down to who I am in a place so unfamiliar. It is a constant game of pendulum dodging. I am at the bottom somewhere with the pendulum above. I hold on and swing, right to left, left to right. Hope to fear. Fear to hope. And then sometimes, I just give up, let go, and fall into a dark place of not wanting to hold on anymore.

I woke up raw this morning, bristle brush to the inner parts. Scraped, with my protective tarnish all but removed. It’s hard to find equilibrium when certain events are altered. When what I’d thought would be does not transpire. I find myself repeating teachings of letting go and trusting, living in the present, and having faith in the process. Only this lesson seems to be on a annoying feedback loop, some old record I can’t turn off. I am tired of trusting. I am tired of trying to let go. I just want to find that state of being where even the voices from the record are silenced. Where there aren’t any droning reminders and no need to pacify the feeble self I perceive. It’s a grand frustration when all the answers are there, are given, are ready for taking, but my body and mind seem to be frozen in a distant state of deafness.

I don’t understand why I fixate on another person. I am not what would be labeled co-dependent. I am not needy. I am not desperate. But certain people trigger a dire hunger in me, as if I found a lost piece of my own self. I wonder if at some spiritual level I recognize the person, if I know outside the limits of time what has already transpired. Perhaps my sensitivity stretches beyond this moment, and shows me in dream and waking-state my other part; and then, the earthbound self I am cannot handle this sensation without succumbing to passion. Perhaps I am recognizing where I used to be, whom I used to be, or what I am to become.

I hunger for a love I know not. A deep penetrating, enveloping love that never leaves and never enters. That blooms from within over and over, eternal in its giving. Depletion exists not, nor does retreat. Only constant renewal and rejuvenation. When I taste this love, from within the space of no space, in the light’s birthing and rebirthing, I am home. When I do not, I am perpetually lost and wondering where I was before I forgot.

The worst for me is loops.. looping.. spinning.. the cyclic thoughts that overtake me that feel much more biological/fight-flight than logical. I can be fine one moment, one hour, one large portion of the day, and then something triggers me, e.g., a strong emotion, an attachment, a hope, a disappointment, or various degrees of stimuli. And Boom! I am smack in the middle of some lost land, where I cannot catch my breath or my sanity. I am falling and wondering if I will ever touch down again, if ever I will ground myself in factual evidence and reassurance. The same thoughts move round and round me, a merry-go-round in my head. And I am not only dropping at high speed, but sinking inside too; shrinking in fact, become some diminished self: less worthy, less me. It takes all my strength to keep from drowning, all my reserves and energy. Then I am momentarily in a state of limbo that seems to last eternity, where time is stopped, and my whole existence preoccupied with whatever it is that is consuming me. It feels as if I swallowed something of substance, but then in turn it grew and began to devour me. I wish then I’d never taken hold of whatever it was: a person, place, thought, dream. I wish then I was someone different, someone more prepared for this world.

Sometimes I over explain myself and give a lot of details because I know from experience people are swift to form their own judgments and opinions about me the moment a word escapes my mouth. In many situations, I instantly feel misunderstood, before a complete sentence is even formed. I interrupt for the same reason. I can feel the person steering away from what I have tried to say. Words, they limit me. I feel and sense too much to explain in a paragraph, or even in an entire book. Mine is an endless stream of thoughts, and to speak for only a second, I am already lost to the world. There is an isolation that follows spoken communication and a reminder that peace is found in silence. An isolation in which I realize my way of communicating is often unheard by the masses, and only collected by the delicate few. Still, I rejoice in the few, in their endless compassion and love. Here I find my refuge and my true voice.

At this moment I agree that thoughts can lead to manifestations in life. I believe this because of the mystery of moving atoms and the mystery of water molecules, in how they respond to stimuli—the observer. Sometimes people will tell other people to think positive and to not fear. This is not beneficial. It only further perpetuates the conquest of fear. When anyone tells another how to be or how to find the way, he is implying he knows more than the receiver. The resulting energy exchange, the product of ‘telling,’ negates any power a message might have carried. The most benefit is gained when someone is loved unconditionally, when another shines his light in love with no expectation that the other person be any certain way or respond in any certain way. There is a confusion in the world, a deep confusion, in which people think they have the answers and are here to share the answers. The truth is we are the answer. Within us is the light. When someone feels the impulse to penetrate another with her truth, this is not love. This is fear disguised. This is believing that one has a secret the other does not possess. We have become a ‘How To’ generation, built with a million upon a million keys of separate generated ‘answers.’ Everyone is so busy telling everyone else what to do, that they forget to listen to their own heart. When others begin to open up their own soul, we will be a much quieter world.

I am awake in the sense I know myself. In knowing myself I know others. In knowing the all, I recognize the constant change and transitioning of life in everything and everyone. Yet, I exist in a world where people worship stagnation, confinement, and the boxing up of attributes. I understand nothing is as it seems, but all about me people try to declare what is and what is not. I used to listen to their echoes and believe. Now I listen to my own heart, and know.

My vulnerability and openness is not a reflection of my strength or weakness. I am not a degree of something or another someone sets upon me. Up on one scale of attributes, and down on another. I am whole and complete. Even in my perceived ‘low’ points and ‘failings,’ I am enough. I am that which is beyond this physical being, this limiting ego-state. I am that which is already entirely love and light. If one chooses to place upon me a definition of his or her truth, then this truth is also who the person believes his or her self to be. In choosing to see me as only light and love, never stagnant, and continually transforming, the other chooses to see self the same. What I am is what you are.

I will love you no matter what you say or do. I will forgive you no matter what you say or do. But this does not mean I will let you back into the circle where I keep my heart. If you hurt me, I close. A part of me surrenders from our relationship. And to trust again, seems infeasible. Yes, I will cherish you. Yes, I will support you. But to be connected again, may be an impossibility.

There is a difference between loving unconditionally and allowing anyone into your sacred space of self. It is not hypocritical to announce you love unconditionally but to still choose to limit access to certain people in your life. In fact, it is essential to have boundaries and self protect. In order to maintain unconditional love, one must love herself first and release self-judgment and self-expectations. In the process of self-love, one must maintain a freedom to nurture and uphold the self and balance this act with applying the wisdom to protect the self. In choosing to let go of certain individuals and to establish physical and spiritual distance, I am not announcing a degree of separation; instead, I am pronouncing a continuation of the honoring of my holy light and purpose. I won’t allow the capacity of a singular to diminish my light and counteract my energy resources and my ability to serve and love others. In truth, sometimes one must be set aside from the proximity of self, still held in light and love, still held in hope, but no longer set in a spectrum of space that can essentially snuff my light. Better that I focus on the circumference of the radiating love of all then on defending myself from one who is negating my efforts.

He came in with his opinions, and rearranged my life, sifting through what was right and wrong, and in need of alteration. I was dusted off, pulled out of my place of comfort, and turned upside down. Made to believe this title of faults were the end all, the cause of turmoil and disruption. Luckily, he couldn’t reach my heart, the cornerstone of my existence, my truth and my steadfast peace. For even in my disarray and utter sadness, singled-out on a weary shelf of ‘wrong’ and in need of ‘fixing,’ my heart cried out ‘false.’ And she sang, you are beautiful for always.

We (many people with Aspergers and others who are sensitive to the falsehoods) see through the illusion, even if we don’t know what we are seeing through. We feel this falsehood at our core and recognize it as poison and not real. We often don’t know why, but we do. When we are around like people who bring us comfort, it is because they resonate with our core. If our core is authentic, we resonate with authentic people; if our core is fear-based authentic, we resonate with fear-based-authentic; if our core is non-authentic fear-based we resonate with that. Regardless of a neurological condition or any type of label. Like attracts like

Sometimes I would prefer to meet someone in my perceived moments of ‘weakness,’ instead of my perceived moments of ‘strength.’ In that way, I am not set on a pedestal, and then watched until I falter. More so, I would prefer to connect with another who sees me as neither weak nor strong in any condition, but merely whole. There is a profound emptiness that flows through when one establishes one as something or another, labels experience as theirs with an unreasonable ownership, reckons they know and can figure out another soul. They can’t, unless they know their own soul. And even then, two get lost in the endlessness of no boundaries. I am neither longing to be admired for my strength nor longing to be forgiven for my weakness. I don’t exist in a stagnant state. I only exist as love and light. And all else is falsehood appearing real. I love you in your completeness, not for your moments.

I am supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. And awesome. And a bunch of other cool words. But if you are seeking perfection, you better find that in your self first.

It isn’t your opinions that bother me, or even your continual judgment and evaluation of who I am as a person. I don’t mind if you disagree with me, or that you believe you can fix and control me. I don’t even care if you find my ways repulsive and unsightly. I care that you don’t love yourself enough to see that you are already whole and complete, and instead take your illusion of a broken self and try to pound ‘broken’ into me.

I have this ongoing list of how I am supposed to be alongside an ongoing voice of how no one really knows how anything or anyone is supposed to be because everything is self-created, perceived, and rejected and/or accepted.

I don’t do well when someone I meet excites me. I am like a dog set free for the first time at a dog park. I frolic and pounce, over-sniff and over-lick. And then when I am back in the doghouse, I wonder what came over me.

452: Scarlet White

The agony is torture, pure fire to the soul—the way such solitude is split into ravenous venom, devouring me as leash to the chain, choking the breath of life.

I am that I am. And then I am not. Lost again in some unfathomable labyrinth of thought.

Where and why eludes and leaves a trail of dust dried blood. Help, I scream from somewhere else. Inaudible and out of direction. No path left. No place to go. But inward, where I already dive deeper in the vine of self.

Is it not this place again? The familiar place of no sunrise and no sunset. Where the cold dribbles down the walls of caves, and placates the answers with sweet soft denial. Is it not this somewhere found in the furrowed causeway of my mind’s nimble foresight? My meanderings all leading back to here. Some forgotten spot of eternity missed.

I am a vagrant, a vagabond, a ghost traveler to my own shadow. Unable to distinguish between in and out, what is penetrating and what is piercing, what is poking to release its plundering poison and what is slicing to divide where I begin.

I am invaded by darkness, the soul long forgotten in the night, the enemy out to demolish the light. I am what is not in the way I move without motion and touch without rhythm, stagnant in an air of dismal lies. Here I stand in the place I was, only the place no longer is. Here I stand in the place I was, only I no longer exist.

Wobbling is my fortitude. Swaying, ignited by the dreams unwound, the sword plunged further into the stream of mystery spat open. Coughing up the remnants of who had been. Torn down into oblivion, obliterated and left as carrion to the greedy hunger of naught.

They find me, these naysayers, and call out to the lost sheep I am, with doings undone in their torturous view. I am but what they wish, set asunder below them, and made to bleed about as the rabbit sunken in the snare of despair. My white coat diminished by the scarlet fever set upon me.

Who am I but this child undone, left in the valley of rivers, and blown into the sea of forgiveness? Chiseled and chiseled, as if stone were the heart of me. Made to blend in with misery, to melt in the doorway of pain. Charred to the bone with the starch black of misery.

And here, still, he comes. With his arrow strung across the shoulder of time. His answer seized in the windstorm. Here, still, he is. This gentle grace of knowing naught and knowing all in the splinter of thyme. He enters me as clear day. The light upon my forehead new. The pressing spot of hope spun open into the rebirthing. Come, my lady, he declares, pronouncing me the victorious one, the homecoming of his awaiting. Come, my lady, he mends, his words the golden thread of healing.

And I follow, as blind lady lost in his rapture, spread open by the seams to his glorious name. Come, I do, and trace out my destiny in his waters, dancing in the stream of desert turned dream. At last in the home of home. No longer chased down by the dark ones seeking to erase what has been brought to them as buried treasure uncharted. No longer stalked by the nightingale’s ghostly brother, who pecks out a song of bitter vengeance.

In only this way I am free. In only this way. When the darkness sets upon my soul and the bleeding ceases to flow without follow, and the voice comes, from the seeping of my chaliced tears. Only then I am home. Only then, in the making of self whole.

446: Morning has Broken

A caring friend sent me an affirmation yesterday, as I am facing some health challenges and uncertainties.

An interesting thing has happened during this process of unknown. After about three weeks of literally freaking out—panic attacks, high blood pressure, rushing to the ER—I have grown weary of worrying about my ailments and future. I have grown plain tired of trying to figure things out, solve, and fret. And in so reaching exhaustion, I have found inner peace.

My body is seemingly out of control, doing all kinds of spastic things. I have some inklings of what might be happening, but for the most part I am in the dark. I’ve had plenty of time to reflect and digest this process, as I have been unable to partake in little physical activity, do to lack of energy and physical limitations, including pain that is further induced when I stand or sit upright.

Through this I have gained further compassion for those of us suffering with chronic illness and conditions. I do say suffering, as ailments truly inflict the mind, body and spirit. There is definitely a suffering period. Though, the suffering doesn’t have to remain, at least not in the mind and spirit, and sometimes, with those two freed, the physical body can breathe easier, in turn.

I saw a poster yesterday about freedom being found in the moment we accept things as they are. I have found this to be true. It is far easier, and far less work, to let go and go with the flow of whatever is happening to me, then to be in constant battle of wanting something to be different than it is. In accepting I am where I am and things are as they are, I free up energy to ultimately heal and regenerate to a state of equilibrium.

I accept I am where I am. Where I am might not be what society dictates as ‘ideal.’ Where I am might not be representative of what my mind has latched onto as ‘ideal.’ Where I am might not be what others would claim as comfortable or easy. But that does not mean I cannot be where I am in total freedom and submission to the process. That does not mean that I cannot claim this experience as ideal; for in the act of choosing this process to be ideal, I am simultaneously recognizing that cause and circumstance do not hold the power to dictate my own inner peace.

I can be exactly where I am, experiencing exactly what I am experiencing, and find this comfort and ease. I proclaim it so.

I choose not to live in the past mourning the activities I was once able to do. Nor do I choose imaginings of what could be or what I could be losing. In actuality I am losing nothing. In embracing this change and transition, I am gaining everything. I am gaining opportunity, open-heart, and open-mind. I am surrendering to what will be. I am surrendering to being.

I just am. I am right here. I am reformed again and again, continually transformed from one ‘thing’ to another. I am the same water molecule in the stream, the ocean, the cloud, the air. No matter the manifestation of my physical form: I am the same. I am movement. I am existence. I am part of the collective ocean. There is no way to detect where a wave begins or ends. The wave is the ocean. I am a manifestation of the whole. And in being a part of the whole, I am already in completion.

I find solace in the fact that I have been through challenge after challenge and always chosen to shine brighter. I acknowledge my divine inner strength.
I have been reformed continually. This isn’t something I have chosen or sought after, but something that is my existence.

Nothing has ever been easy. Nothing has ever been simple, either. But who is to define easy and simple? It’s all, like the rest, a matter of perspective—sensory input, society, environment, biological make up, scaffolding off conclusions, energetic influences, and so on. Events are not good nor bad. What is happening to my body is nothing to be feared. And in truth, nothing is happening to my body. My physical form, as a collective whole, much like the pond, is working in unity to regain balance and function at optimal level.

My body is not my enemy. What is happening to me is not my enemy. The unknown is not my enemy, either. As life is a constant unknown. Any truth I think I have about the next moment is illusion. And any truths I have gathered from the past, illusion two-fold.

I have peace in the fact that I have truly lived. In reviewing feasible ‘future’ avenues of my life course, I can see that if per chance this is the so called ‘end’ of life or ‘end’ of full-mobility, that indeed I have already led a very authentic, love-filled life. I have no regrets. I have left nothing undone. I have been true to my calling, true to my self, and true to my soul. I have embraced life fully, and continue to do so.

I have been to doctors and healers. It seems when one mystery remains unsolved and turns dormant, another mystery appears. I seem to take on ailment after ailment, each wearing a different mask and speaking with a different voice. They are my teachers. I see this. Even as they are illusion, manifested purely by my body re-shifting and seeking equilibrium; I can see these manmade conditions as a force that reveals parts of self. I can choose to make this experience for the betterment of my soul. I can choose again and again to be a student.

I can choose to make every experience anything I wish.

There is true power here.

Wherein I might have very limited access to dictate how my body reacts at this singular moment, I have full opportunity to choose how my spirit reacts. I have true ability to decide to use any of my perceived suffering as a benefit for the all. I can embrace the rest that are suffering and hold them with me, and we together can move as the wave. We together can be the ocean. Much less afraid, and much more joined in hope. Encircled in union, here is where I find the deepest solace of soul.

As I break upon the shore, so you break, endless beauty, rising and falling, again and again.

In Peace ~
Sam

My Healing Mantra

I open my spirit fully in the understanding that all people associated with my healing process are able to assist me. I open my spirit fully in the understanding that I, in my being a part of the collective whole, am able to be at a state of equilibrium and balance of body, mind, and spirit. I recognize that I am experiencing life in fullness and that everything is unfolding as an integral part of the natural flow of nature. I acknowledge the wisdom of nature and the wisdom of my body. I recognize that all possibilities are ever present in this incredible universe. I accept that the spiritual laws of the universe support and love me unconditionally. I accept that all prayers are perfect in their expression and accept all beneficial energy, thoughts and prayers provided to me from loved ones. I am not distracted by the illusion so named fear. I claim my complete healing at this moment and extend this proclamation and understanding to all other beings in need of complete healing. I give thanks to this and to the ALL of us.

(Thank you Pat. F for inspiring me with your light.)

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(A photo taken about a year ago, that I believe shows an element of vulnerability and uncertainty.)

440: Angel Tears

There is an invisibleness that comes with being me. It is unfamiliar and familiar at the same time, each time rising in me somewhat reformed, yet, still the same.

I am that I am, and then I am not. I am this woman, and I am this man-woman combined beneath. I am the sun and the land, the air that I take in, and the waste I eliminate, through various means: my breath, my being, the cocoon I will once be.

As in time rewinding and returning me to the state of unreason, where logic is dismissed and gently slides out the regions of the dissipating mind. And here I shall be the cocoon erased, the beginning point and the end, as one, withered-not in my shell of fragility exposed, but open to the region beyond the space that once played host to the shadowed cage of self.

I see this. I know this. I see that there is not time, there is not space, there is nothing but what the imaginary state of being creates. And in this I wobble some, in this reckoning of something I cannot feasibly grasp, but that still continues to trickle through my outstretched fingers—as water to the thirsty—absorbed, understood, drifting and disappearing again.

I am what I am, and yet I am not. And for any man to see this, to really see this, is to feel lost and isolated at the start, and still very much alive in a world of spinning chaos. To see this, is to behold all the answers and construct all the abstract causeways, and in the same seeing to know that all paths lead to none other than the original place of standing.

I am this grand inventor seeping of potentiality and ideas, with no place to release, less I return to the place of exact thought again—the chasing of tail, spinner of tales, in one. I am circular in my meanderings, forced by my uninterrupted inhibition to want to glide out of this discomfort onto the ice of discovery, only to discover the waters have broken open, and I am once more drowning in a place of illusion, unfounded in appearance and ruptured of all substantial reality.

It is eruption, in the sense I can detect the elements of my own self fading into obliviousness of juxtaposed thoughts. How I be such an explosive touch of truth, and still bathe in denial of the actualities.

I am. I am. I am. I try to decipher these words, and they feel like nuggets, gold nuggets, in my mouth. I chew and they are pebbles. I cough and they spurt out into the world in which I know nothing of. I am here and I am not, and from where I be, I watch as the doorman and the moving pictures transport within and without, following the opening and closing of the door. No leader, only the revolving avenue exposed, erased, exposed, erased…stepping through a labyrinth of uncertainty, and certain dismissal of what is.

How to live in such a constant state of recognition, and to believe in anything as subtle as hope, eludes the part that hides. And, still, she waits, this fire-driven wand of desire, pleading and placating to the eternity to expand, as the womb rewound, to suck her in, some warship turned peaceful, the latches speared open forever, her essence returned to the source that dropped her so sparingly to the tumbling tremors of disemboweled earth.

I crumble here in my universe forgotten, in a land that is not mine, is not home, is not where I am meant to be. How I sink in the soils of stench, forging through the forest of the misshapen shadows in search of familiar. My wings, soiled, by the ash of my own tears, drowning in the grey-stone of my weary heart. I am not made for this land of make-believe, where the games rip apart at the tender souls. I am not made for this game at all. And still I am here, in this broken place, searching for the answers, through the kaleidoscope of illusion torn through.