The Depths
You do the work, you heal, and then you do it over and over again and again; it can feel exhausting. Sometimes it feels like the deeper I go into the depths of myself, the harder it all gets. I liken it to the ocean. The deeper you go, it gets dark, there is extreme pressure, it is cold and there are some freaking weird fish down there! But the deeper you go, the more you learn and discover. You become involved in the vastness and the ALLNESS of life. The good with the bad. We get to experience it ALL!
In the book, When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd, she says, “ The transition is difficult because it involves a real breakdown of our old spiritual and psychic structures- the old masks and personas that have served us well in the past but that no longer fit. When order crumbles, mystery rises”. Could I be in this mystery phase where the order of what I thought life should be, is crumbling and bringing up the mystery of this deep inner ocean?
Probably.
I find myself toggling between wanting to explore the depths of my inner ocean and wanting to stay on the surface where everything is light and beautiful. I can’t keep myself on the surface knowing that there is so much more; so much mystery to be discovered and to be curious about. I must explore!
And as life has taught me, with every exploration, there is SO much learning and so much growth. And then I find myself thinking, why do I have to keep growing? I have done so much self work, and yet, it feels like life wants me to keep growing and exploring.. So then I think to myself, how can I keep doing this deep exploration and not let it exhaust me? The first word that comes up is “observation”.
When I can sit and observe the allness of life; the “good” and the “bad” simply as the observer in the ocean, I don’t get so emotionally involved in it. And if I find myself getting caught up in the emotion, I can separate myself or disidentify from the emotion. A part of me is feeling angry, exhausted, confused, etc. but I am not these things. I am not anger. I have anger, but I am not anger itself. There is so much freedom in separating myself from the emotion. It gives me space to then become the observer of my thoughts and emotions, and then that emotion no longer has the ability to hijack my system.
I am realizing now that this is part of the reason why I love scuba diving so much... I can simply become the observer of all that is happening around me. I am a guest in this space and get to watch all of the ocean creatures interact with each other. It is beautiful and so are my emotions.
