Rainbow: A message

My eyes are tired, stained with the exhaustion that comes with heartbreaking grief.

Today has been spent in mourning. I grieve for everything that could be, but is not.

Isn’t that what grief in and of itself is?

My soul nostalgically pines for a time when life was easier. When perhaps the people close to me were everything I needed them to be. A time where I felt I was in control.

I long for an idealized past that never existed but in illusion. And while it is arguable that because my past wasn’t what I thought it was, it never existed, my mind still pines in longing; cognitive dissonance.

The mind doesn’t know the difference between that which is imagined, and that which is actually happening. Because of this, a person whose past is remembered incorrectly has just as real of a hold on them as that which really happened to them. Our individual experience has just as much merit as reality itself because the reality we construct is the only reality we know.

Today I allowed myself to cry tears of grief of the life my family could have had, with my mom. The life if my dad had actually given a shit about hurting other people. How different could things really have been? My mind loves to tell stories of what could have been.

It’s amazing to think of how many lives would be changed for the better if we felt free to be who we are without being persecuted. Never underestimate the power of small acts of kindness, a hispanic lady spoke in Spanish at my church this week. How true that is.

I find it sad that there are fathers who feel they can leave entire families abandoned simply because that seems to be the societal expectation we have for fathers. I find it sad and scary that there are people who can bully other people to tears and feel no remorse. It perplexes me how many people perpetuate cycles of abuse because they are convinced that there is no other way to live.

I have read many books and articles on topics dealing with strained relationships, and I understand how the behaviors themselves, and how a lack of empathy, makes many toxic relationship dynamics possible… And yet still, I feel like there is only so much i can allow myself to understand before I start to get lost myself.

There comes a point, where the past must be left behind. There comes a point, where thinking about the past becomes just as much of a prison as an abusive present.

I feel today, as though I have survived a storm. My life, like when a storm ends, is left shimmering and more beautiful than it was before, even though it seemed the rain would never stop pummeling the surface. The landscape of my inner world is washed clean through the storm’s harsh torrents.

My soul, once thirsty, is quenched. And I am left to walk about the world anew.

Every storm leaves the world slightly different than before. Everything shines with a sort of gratitude, and the world itself bathes in a bluish hue, as the sun rolls in and birds celebrate with song.

It is no coincidence that a rainbow appears after the storm. In the inner landscape, the rainbow represents the self as an integrated whole; a self of all different colors of emotion. Once we have allowed ourselves to integrate every color of emotion, we have created a rainbow within ourselves, surviving storms not by becoming fractured but by instead becoming united in the process.

By heeding the call of the rainbow, we fully integrate all facets and colors that make us who we are as multidimensional beings.

From the reds of anger, to the oranges of desire, to the yellows of pure expression and meeting our needs, the greens of unconditional love and acceptance, to the blues of giving a voice to the silent, the purples that see things clearly, and the pinks which give rise to conscious action.

We identify with ourselves like snapshots of these colors and yet we are not any of these colors alone. We, as humans, are a rainbow of emotion; a kaleidoscope of divine human experience, thoughts, feelings.

Like all forms of grief, we must find a way to let the parts of ourselves afraid of expressing anger, afraid of desire, afraid of meeting our needs, afraid of trusting others, afraid of speaking our minds, afraid of taking a long hard look at our lives, afraid of moving towards love itself; we must find a way to create a safe space for these different selves to exist within us.

Ultimately, we must find a way to no longer be afraid of ourselves.

I understand the rainbow is a beautiful description of our purpose as fractured souls seeking to become whole again. If we are to carry on like the seasons themselves, if we are to survive the various storms that cause us to rethink ourselves, and recreate ourselves, we must become a rainbow unto ourselves.

Nobody creates in the exact same way; and nobody has a story like yours. We are all in a unique human experience, and your own story might very well be the key that unlocks the door of someone else’s prison.

It may seem like a small thing but truly uncovering yourself, daring to become, is both the biggest and smallest step you can take in the direction of your own growth.

And we are all destined for growth; it’s about time we stopped resisting our own growth. Growth is, after all, our destiny.

The Formula

Hello everyone!

You may find this post a bit of a deviation from what I usually write. After suffering severe trauma from when my dad told me to kill myself, I wrote this piece; probably a few short days after it happened. In it, I seek to understand the genuine workings of the mind of a narcissist, psychopath, or sociopath.

In this, I travel out of body to do deep healing work. I have done this many times before before knowing what I was doing... Spiritual teacher Teal Swan refers to this as 'the octopus technique.' You can check out her youtube video about the technique if you are interested in trying it out for yourself!

It is quite a long read but did serve as a sort of therapy at the time. I do hope you enjoy this short writing piece.

* * *

In my mind, I see all possibilities. All possible roads, and potential outcomes. I see where I am presently as if I am myself long before this happened, long before I became the girl who is now writing this… it’s difficult to put words to, but I feel almost as if I had looked into my own life long before I became who I am today, and decided that where I am presently is the exact direction I wanted to go.

My past, future, and present, exist in the realm of consciousness, free to interact and intersect in ways that the third dimension’s constraints of time and space simply couldn’t allow. Here, I can see my life from the space of detached observation. Here, I see things happen to the girl on the other side, watching her moving and making decisions. Watching her laugh and cry, feeling her think as if the thoughts themselves become physical. I cannot judge her from this place, because in sixth dimension consciousness there is no separation, only complete understanding.

She has gotten hurt, badly. Everything hurts. Life is painful.

Dad never loved anyone, especially not himself. He spends his time battling the part of him that hates everything about his life. He is terrified of this. The only people who never love anyone are horrible people, he tells himself. There must be something wrong with him if this is how he truly feels. He knows that diving into the eye of the storm may very well kill him. So he runs. As he runs, the storm follows. And follows. It swallows everything from his life. Everything that he thinks is real; His friends and lovers, his possessions. Even his perfected image he tried to hard to preserve through meticulous social formulas created in his own mind, high probability to succeed. “I cannot be this storm,” he says to himself. He blames other people in his life, and one by one, they fade like time itself.

He tells himself that he does everything right, and he should get everything that he wants. And yet, he isn’t there. He is stuck in the fantasy of what should be. And because this fantasy is subconscious, it controls his every word and action.

All their voices were drowned out as he continued to strive for perfection, this elusive concept of happiness that he thinks exists in fleeting moments of approval. Only through this approval does he ever feel accepted. And yet, there is always someone better, and the happiness he felt fades again as he strives to be better, always better, than himself, larger than life itself.

To him, other people are just parts in a formula. He can move them, change their properties and behaviors with words. Anything to get him happiness again, before it would be gone and he’d find himself empty again, the withdrawals creeping in quickly.

He never lived for himself, though admitting that scares him also. Living your own life at the whim of others’ expectations was what everyone did. It was wrong for him to have a problem with the things that everyone else did without a problem. He knew, deep down, that everyone felt the same emptiness that consumed him. And he especially knew that if he could hide the emptiness, he would be stronger than the other humans, with their childish attempts to find shelter in other people. He knew they only wanted other people so they could use them to further themselves. He knew this, because that’s how everyone is.

And he was no different, just that he was better at it than other people.

The girl is gasping for breath, hyperventilating. The blood is running silently amongst the cuts. She tells herself it’s selfish. It’s selfish to want to be free. It’s selfish to live for yourself. And she tells herself to be better than she is. Just be okay.

The words he says echo in her mind, haunting her, causing her doubt her own direction. But from this perspective I can see the price that comes with believing those words. Adopting her narcissistic father’s broken beliefs about life and how it works begins to take her in a different direction in life.

Believing that she is being selfish for wanting to be understood takes over. She gives in and realizes he was right all along. Everything she has ever desired, is selfish, and thus wrong.

She has sex with people simply because their desires are more important than hers. She works long hours and ignores the exhaustion that is eating away at her. She bullies herself. This reflects immediately in her interactions with others. “Stop being such a wimp,” She snickers at someone who is crying, because she envies their cunning abilities; their abilities to trap other people, so they can get what they want from me, and discard me, she says.

She uses words to change people and their behaviors. She knows that everyone is inherently selfish and don’t mind using her. She becomes the christian, college cheerleader she was always assigned to be. She never questions, because the answers terrify her.

People leave, but she never cared about them. They were just one part of the formula, and the different variables could be played out by several different people. The formula is designed to be accurate, based on her own life experiences. And it is.

But the moment she finds herself alone, the withdrawals begin. The need to be approved of consumes her. But beneath all of it, she just wants to be seen. Seen, and accepted. She, like her father, made the mistake of thinking approval meant acceptance. She endlessly chases; and at death’s entrance she becomes deeply afraid that she will be forgotten.

She is not forgotten. But she is remembered for her ability to hurt without remorse, not her empire of images and facades she took her whole life to carefully craft. Like a shell on the shore of the ocean, it is taken away, and only the imprint remains.

However, this is but one possible future.

The girl, hears the words of her father echo in her mind…

“You’re acting immature. Cut it out.”

“You are such a selfish bitch…”

“THIS is why I never talk to you!”

“If you killed yourself, it’d be the first thing you ever accomplished in your life…”

He spat at her, and at once, she is standing in front of her father yet again in this very moment.

Time is frozen. She can see every last crease on his face, subtly etched across the entirety of his skin as if he was afraid of expressing anything real. His forehead comes to a fold where his two eyebrows press together, dividing the left side of his face, from his right. The saliva that spun from the sounds stay suspended in air above his pointed finger. Unrelenting. Unforgiving. Unconscious.

And yet, from this space of timelessness, she can see something she didn’t see before, something she couldn’t grasp as the initial timeline threatened her life itself. Beneath eyes glazed over after years of giving up on joy, was a deep fear. A fear so palpable, that it colored the walls and windows with stains deep as blood. A fear that a stench of blood soon follows, because the fear itself is a knife that destroys life just as quickly as a knife or a gun.

A light surrounds her, and I hug the girl who is crying, as the realization comes rushing towards her. She appears to be weak as she cries. But she doesn’t care. And though she cannot see how incredibly strong she becomes because of this momentous act of defiance, I can.

But she needs help, and that is why I am here. I walk over to her energy field, which is twitching uncontrollably.

My body is cascading beams of light in this space, “You are worthy…” I whisper. “Please… Stay…” I say, as I quietly envelop her in a hug.

The scene snaps into motion just as quickly as it stopped. I look at the girl, tears adorned with bruises. Rhythms of terror shivering through her veins. But for a moment, she is once again still.

All the waves of emotion simultaneously pull back, like the ocean unto itself after the crest collides with sand. A serene defiance subtly marks her expression against the smudge, as if moving rhythmically in time. I witness the moment of calm that occurs immediately before another tidal wave comes crashing.

I see from this place that he resents her very existence. She is a threat. A threat to the formula. She might have the power to impact the outcome, and because of this, she is dangerous.

And he will do whatever it takes to break her. I am horrified to witness his amusement as he realizes he doesn’t have to do a single thing to physically harm her, that she will destroy herself all on her own. To him, it’s like a dream come true.

Turning back around at the monster, I see it even more clearly. If this girl were to kill herself, it would be the only thing she ever accomplished to benefit him. That’s what he was actually saying. He has everything to gain, and only a piece in the formula to lose, which he believes can be easily replaced, with a person who is not so defiant.

I face the girl again, and touch her shoulder with this thought in mind. Though her energy field vibrates violently, she is centered with an inner knowing that standing up for herself is not selfish. That everyone has a right to life. That there will be no quiet exit.

This moment is a turning point in the course of her life. And though her demons are far from being quiet, she is slowly developing a way to coexist with them.

For now, I get a sense of closure for this specific memory. I close my eyes, letting my astral body drift back into the present, a trail of stars in its wake. And at once, I am back in my body again. I observe how their lights balance out my inner darkness.

I remind myself that I am okay. That this happened in the past, but the past doesn’t define me. That my needs are important, and having needs doesn’t make me any less worthy of life than if I had no desires at all.

And I am thankful that I am still alive.

This is only the beginning.