it's coming up often this week. freshly out of a bout of a it myself, i am hearing the malaise of several of my beloved friends. feelings of self-sabotage. the shame that comes with the greediness of insecurity. the dark clouds that suck the soul and send us deeper under the rock. vitality lost and that sense that we are selfishly robbing the world of our gifts, our service, our compassion. or, worse yet, that we have nothing that great to offer anyway. the boredom with ourselves, our stories, the loops and tangles that repeat.

honestly, i'm not that interested in people who don't confess to their shadows. so i am nothing but proud of these women for being willing to admit that they are wearing "the heavy gray coat" (as one so perfectly put it). and the more and more clear i become, the more i am aware that the choice in these times is in our consciousness. in discerning illusion from the truth. and in being kind to ourselves for as long as it takes to tell one from the other. (the kindness part is hardest of all)

stripped of the shame and feelings of being a pathetic loser, the funk is a doorway. and that doorway just might lead to transcendence.

and so what if we have to sit with the blah a thousand times until we are so OVER ourselves that we actually walk through.

what if that is just fine and exactly the way it is supposed to be?

the women i love who are expressing these murky self-doubting spells are dynamic, powerful, brilliant and all that. they make me feel worth it just to share a room with them. and so, as i step out into the sunshine today, i guess all i really want to do is send a little message their way that i hereby grant permission to stay in it as long as you like. wrap it around you, serve it tea, tell it dirty jokes, sob with it, tell it to fuck off. be loud with it, silent in it, embrace it and let it go.

but while you are there, do take a little look around and see that you are so much more than this moment. just pay attention. offer some loving care to yourself in a way that makes you feel valuable. whatever that is. i know you know.

and remember, i'll be right here, waiting beside the rock, for whenever you are ready to come out.

take your time.

it's ok.

really.

(and when i climb back under, and i most certainly will, you can go ahead and remind me of all this)

so i censor. we all do to some degree. and especially with a blog, because, well, i’m aware of the diverse audience that is reading this. i see my stats, i guess at who’s here. i don’t want to offend anyone. it’s not that i’ve ever lied, or been inauthentic. it’s just that i’ve kept this place soft. mostly kind. vulnerable. perhaps compartmentalized. while i use words like angst and frustration occasionally,  i haven’t  really let on to the unflattering behaviours that accompany these feelings. or the colorful language. the indulgences. the sarcasm. the drama. even the funny.  the underlying layers of real.

maybe you do not want to see these things. maybe if i started dropping f-bombs all over the place, you wouldn’t come back. (maybe you’d like me more). what if i admitted that sometimes i am just unapologetically self-absorbed? that sometimes i want so desperately to know myself separate from all that mirrors me (just as much as i want to know myself in all the beauty and connectedness). i crave alone. solitude. division. sometimes i feel over-identified with partner, children, community. i just want to know who i am, stripped away of all that surrounds me.

and, at the same time, i can watch hours of dexter and big love in a futile attempt to forget these things.

same goes for eating chocolate. and staring at walls.

there are doorways that are built for the sole purpose of keeping things out. they’re massive and built on assumptions. with motes and scary reptiles. and sometimes it seems that the only way to open them is with pure force. i’m just not sure if the force i am looking for is within or without me. whether i want to rip the fucking thing down brick by brick until i bleed, or if i am longing for someone or some experience strong enough to bust a hole right through it. or, probably truer still, i alternate wanting both. and, at the same time, it is not lost on me that the whole game is built on illusion .

all i know for sure, is that if i truly want to come more completely into an integrated, entitled, worthy, respectable, growed-up version of myself, the traveling seeker of beauty and connection,  i need to ask of myself what i ask of other. and that is to be nothing short of whole. i’m not really interested in just the soft and the pretty. i want to know the throw-down grit, too. where humanity meets blinding light. and wicked jokes sit beside eloquent proverbs. 

and so the obvious is that i best be offering up what it is i ask for. 

less strategy, more reveal.

greater risk and, hopefully, greater reward.