Conversations of a certain caliber tend to come at synchronicitous and life-altering times. Last night was one of them.
I connected with someone who had once been a mentor of mine. He knew me in such a dark and demented chapter in my life that as soon as we got on the phone, he wondered what I had been doing, because I didn’t sound like the same person.
That heaviness wasn’t in my voice that he was so accustomed to, once upon a time.
Disclaimer: I still have much work to do, I’m far from some finished product of healing. I fuck up all the time. All I can do is do my best to choose the solution every day as opposed to the problem. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I do not.
On the topic of everyone being a “synchronicity” (wake up call, blessing) for everyone else,
On the topic of literally EVERY interaction being medicine, depending on our perspective,
On the topic of shame,
On the topic of his statement: We’re all just walking each other home,
Let us begin:
There is no separation.
It’s one of the most unnatural things we can do to ourselves (isolate) and it’s one of the most devastating illusions we believe and act out. We bring it about by the programs (algorithms) constantly running in our minds.
Although these inner-narratives are extremely painful, if they are familiar to us, they become a habit no different than addiction.
Whatever our core beliefs are, we will subconsciously always seek scenarios that reaffirm these beliefs — and if we don’t have a scenario where it is occurring, we will subconsciously create one.
This is most commonly known as self-sabotage.
I have been guilty of it myself more times than I can count. I am just as guilty as any other human on planet earth of doing this.
Nobody is better or worse than anyone else.
However, it is a heartbreaking malady.
To know that LOVE is the most powerful force in the universe can make one real confused when we watch ourselves (all desiring the same thing - love and connection) actively destroy and run from it.
We may all have varying reasons, but they all boil down to one thing — our core beliefs about ourselves, about life, about what we do and don’t deserve, which is often rooted in shame and fear.
Nobody wins in that scenario, because it goes against the fundamental truth of all reality: The interconnectedness of all things.
On SHAME:
We talked about a variety of things I won’t disclose, but to paraphrase, we talked about the medicine in things that feel poisonous.
He noticed my shame when he mentioned how much I had changed. It was a cringe reaction I had when he reflected on who I used to be many years ago versus now. Instead of me acknowledging, wow, I am not like that anymore, I cringed, felt shame, and my first response was, “oh my god, I feel so sorry for the people who had to be around me.”
I did feel shame. I still do. Was I conscious of my behavior? No. But that doesn’t make how it affected others any different. Impact > Intent.
Although I know the process of inventorying of ones part in troubling situations is a must if one wants to grow, it’s to be done in moderation. And again, in a space of clarity, not heightened emotion.
Why?
Some of us can obsess on trying to figure out “what’s wrong with us”, and that doesn’t do anyone any good if it turns from thoughtful examination to self-inflicted wrath. Looking at our part in situations is very important, but we must be mindful of our state of mind when doing it.
I was once told that things like shame, morbid self-reflection or self-pity is just the opposite side of the coin of pride.
It’s still keeping us stuck inside our head, therefore completely useless to both ourselves, our friends, our loved ones, our families, our community, and certainly the world at large.
Nobody benefits from that, and in most cases, people are actually harmed because of it. And not just the person who is in their head. Everyone around them suffers too.
As within, so without.
Whether we realize it or not, our energy is contagious. Our actions are the manifestation of our emotions and beliefs.
So why are we surprised when we behave in ways we do not like, if we don’t even like ourselves?
The Medicine He Reminded Me Of:
He shared a few stories with me. He told me that back in those days when he had first begun mentoring people on a certain path, he normally would not have taken someone on like me.
I was in a really dark space, extremely aggressive with violent urges, that kind of shit is not for everyone to deal with or even know how to be around, let alone help.
Something told him to do it though, and he did.
When I felt my shame come up for being reminded of how out of control I was all those years ago, and that he even had to deal with me like that, he told me that even poison is medicine, what determines any medicine from any poison isn’t really the substance itself, but the dosage, and how it is used.
He told me that he later went on to start working with severely at-risk youth; over 100 teenagers who were involved in gangs, been through severe trauma, who had incarcerated parents and were living in extreme poverty, many of them involved in the juvenile “justice” system, addicted to drugs, suicidal, etc.
That kind of stuff scares a lot of people, and even if it doesn’t scare you, many people have no idea what to say when a 12 year old kid explodes with physical aggression, then threatens to take his own life.
Do you know what you’d say to a 12 year old who was hell bent on going and doing that?
Turns out, he did.
He told me that working with me trained him to be able to work with those kids. So there I was, feeling shame for him having to be exposed to my dark energy back in the day, but he was like “yo, that helped me help other people, that made me better at what I do. I wouldn’t have been able to handle that situation had I not learned how to work with with you back then.”
Holy shit.
I never considered that or knew it.
So why feel shame? I’m not the same person today, and that experience of be having BEEN that person to such an extreme degree (again, still not a finished product here, but not where I used to be) wound up giving him the tools he needed to be of service to over 100 kids who really needed somebody to hold space for them.
Most people would toss them into the system and write them off as another statistic that’ll be in and out of jail their whole lives. We are so quick to give up on the things that scare us. Thank God he did not.
That’s a blessing — and I had no idea I was used as a tool to later down the line help someone to help someone else.
The story about the 12 year old kid he mentioned is important. I know what it’s like to be that out of control 12 year old, and to have no hope.
The man who once mentored me went with his gut, and he happened to say just the right thing to the kid. He challenged him when he was freaking out. I won’t repeat what he said, but he certainly didn’t handle him with gloves.
It worked.
He told the kid, who had attempted suicide multiple times already, you may have done that three times, but you also survived three times. Why do you think that is? You have purpose — what is it?
The kid paused.
THEN, out of the 12 year old kids mouth, came the following words:
“Because I’m here to help people.”
I clarified with him to make sure that sentence came out of the 12 year olds mouth. He said yes, that is what he said.
I immediately started crying. Just by hearing that.
It brought tears to my eyes just now to type it.
He told me that him, and the other two adult “coaches” or counselors also burst into tears when the kid said it, and so did the kid.
That turned shit around for him (the kid). If there’s one thing I’d love to do, it would to be to help the young ones who are SO far down the line that EVERYONE has given up on them, and walk with them through whatever they need to walk through so they can LIVE.
So they don’t have to grow up hating themselves and never having any relief.
If you are someone who grew up like that, and never had anybody give enough of a fuck about you to ask if you were okay, or to offer any legitimate form of support or help, and to just discard you as some defective accident of the cosmos — that’s one of our greatest blessings, and yes I know, deepest wounds, but yo…
WE KNOW what it’s like to have nobody when we needed them most. THAT is exactly what the fuck makes us qualified to be of service to others in the same situation. EXACTLY THAT.
Yes, yes, all the sayings. The medicine is in the shadow. Everything is medicine. We are all synchronicities for one another. We are all JUST HERE TO WALK EACH OTHER HOME.
All of that shit is true.
When you feel shame of who you’ve been or who you used to be, and I deal with this shit too on the regular and I’m working through it, it’s hard — know that everything is always exactly as it should be in that particular moment.
Maybe some shit goes sideways and doesn’t work out and it’s baffling and heartbreaking and makes you feel hopeless or enraged or whatever.
Yeah, it didn’t work out how we envisioned it in our minds.
What if it was supposed to fall apart so we could learn what area within ourselves has been begging for our attention and healing?
Sometimes, we don’t know what those areas are until we go through things that illuminate the parts of us that are still really hurting and causing a lot of damage.
So, these situations and people are actually medicine, even though it feels like poison, because at the end of the day, we are all MIRRORS for each other.
We get it fucked up when we think we’re looking out a window. We’re not.
We easily become unconscious to these things, until something comes along that rips the scab off and it becomes undeniable.
We then have a choice. We always have a choice.
There’s nothing easy about it. But what the fuck would be the point in things coming easily — they’d hold no value, and would say nothing about our character, nor would we have any developed.
We’re all just walking each other home
What he meant by that was… we’re all here for one another’s evolution. No matter where we’re at in life, even if we feel wrong, even if it feels wrong, until it fucking changes, for whatever reason, that’s where we are supposed to be.
We all have limitations. We can kill ourselves with shame and self-hatred for our mistakes. Or we can recognize, this is where I’m at right now. And if I want things to be different, and I want to be different, then I’m going to begin working on what I need to work on in order to change it.
It’s a lifelong process, it doesn’t happen overnight. As long as we are aware and making an effort to actually do something about what we need healing around, that’s really all anyone can ask of themselves or anyone else.
Maybe that’s why people run from love.
Love is not enough.
Honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness are more crucial than anything, otherwise how could we sustain something that requires all of us to be of a certain caliber to not strangle the life out of?
Willingness is huge. Courage to face ourselves is huge. And not destroying ourselves with shame because we think things should be this but currently are that, is huge.
Have no idea why I wrote this today. Wasn’t planning on it. But maybe someone else out there has experience or is going through the same thing, and maybe this will help someone not judge themselves so harshly today. I’m trying to do the same.
Lessons learned.
The world around us burns as we learn.
To be an arrogant jerk and quote myself.
" It is not the flame that burns
It is only you that learns,
No matter how we twist and turn,
It is only you that burns.
When we bleed it turns to rust,
We called the tune because we must."
‘He told the kid, who had attempted suicide multiple times already, you may have done that three times, but you also survived three times. Why do you think that is? You have purpose — what is it?
The kid paused.
THEN, out of the 12 year old kids mouth, came the following words:
“Because I’m here to help people.”’
Wow this gave me so many chills. I love this story. The way it ripples through all of your hearts, how your experiences are intertwined. It really speaks to how life is a divine tragedy at times. It outlines the beauty in the darkness we traverse. 🔥