Your Spiritual Path unfolds

after the agony

Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash

“You cannot know yourself and your meaning before you have lived in agony. Pain will break you wide open, and your spiritual path will unfold.”

~Rea de Miranda

I read this on a restacked post and I sat with it.

I consider how similar that is to Rumi’s line that the cracks in us are where the light gets in.

I have read this before - in many different versions.

I know I cling to it because it offers some meaning or opportunity for growth in my own painful family history and my own individualized story.

But I do think that suffering also teaches us vulnerability, humility and compassion - if we allow it to -

It’s the paradox of it - or perhaps the shadow side - the other side of the same truth - the way our world, or at least our limited human ways of thinking, categorizing, and processing often exists in these binaries -

The brutal and the beautiful

The deep, deep pain and the abundant joy.

Always at the same time, simultaneously, or, at best - not one far away from the other one. A moment, a breath, a blink away -

I guess that that is what it means to exist.

My dear ‘Gamma’ that I’ve acquired since moving to the south said the other day - you do enjoy helping people -

I do, but I think that deep underlying reason for why this is has changed over the years.

I used to do it to people please, to try to validate my sense of self worth, and to show I was a good person and worthy of love -

The wounds of growing up as the child of an alcoholic.

I’m not saying I’m completely healed from that journey -

But I do think my ‘why’, my reasons are more nuanced now -

I believe I share and give and help because -

I spent a lot of time rumbling around in the internal landscape of grief and trauma, shock and hurt and terror and loss, and then my own self-induced hellscape of alcohol abuse that led to addiction -

I’ve been to some pretty low places and known some experiences that others can scarce imagine -

I don’t say this to be arrogant or categorize myself as special -

But, after five years, I’ve shared my story often enough, with enough different people, that I often hear —

“That’s unimaginable” or “I can’t even imagine…”

Many can’t.

And I am bound and determined -

Some good will come out of this dumpster fire fuck of a situation.

David Kessler refers to this as the sixth stage of grief. Finding meaning from a loss - whatever the type of loss is.

I grapple with this delicate fine balance - I’ll be completely honest with you, readers,

Because I am called to hold two truths in my hand -

My trauma does not have to confine me to a life sentence - healing is possible. Nor does it have to define me indefinitely, forever - I am allowed to heal and grow and not only survive but thrive, despite these life experiences.

And yet, also -

My brain and body have been damaged by my trauma(s), and I know/feel that, still, in so many different ways - (and you can’t ever remove yourself from this body/brain; you’ve only got one. We can’t shape shift in this world, as cool as that would be.)

From my struggles with sleep to my heightened startle reflex to my low-level but rumbling anxiety to my recovery from alcoholism and my other wounds - my other behavioral patterns - that I work to understand and heal from -

The balance, the delicate balance in claiming ownership of my survival status and not allowing myself to stagnate, or to completely take on the identity of trauma so that it becomes all of me, so it doesn’t swallow me whole.

Because it could.

It has before.

When we suffer, as low as we get, as much as we think it’ll break us -

It usually has something to teach us and some way to evolve, to become a better member of humanity.

In this context, as I wrote in my last post, in spirituality, I don’t necessarily mean religion.

For me, I do, that’s part of it. But I have a spirituality - a connectedness and synchronicity- that I observe in the world as well - that isn’t necessarily tied to religion.

I go to church, identify as Mennonite, and believe Jesus was an amazing peace-loving, compassionate, leader and teacher whom we ought to follow - even if we don’t believe Him to be the son of God -

But there is still much about my own spiritual beliefs that continue to evolve and unfold -

Like - how I feel my mother - It seems I believe simultaneously that she is at eternal rest and in Heaven while also with me and all around - much like God.

It is challenging to articulate, but I suppose it’s because I believe the temporal and spatial disruptance of death - when time shifts and bodies cease, yet souls and spirits remain - things get shifty.

I also ponder over this as I wonder and seek and pray and ache for my general prayer of my life - on a day to day and larger life goal -

Please, help me to be of service to others, oh God -

Help me to heal and regard others and treat them in kindness and love and compassion -

Because I ultimately believe -

Existing on this earth is an intensely painful experience, with lots of suffering -

“We are here to help each other, walk the mile, and bear the load….

I will weep when you are weeping, when you’re laughing, I’ll laugh with you.

I will hold share your joy and sorrow, til we’ve seen this journey through.”

Yet, I believe that - God or Divine Creator or Life/Energy source, or perhaps you believe - the amazing evolution and rising of consciousness - has it so that if we grow and evolve, and understand interconnectedness and interdependence is key to humanity and life -

That we also understand how suffering and spirituality, and the unfolding of our spiritual paths, is intimately, intricately, intertwined.

There are vastly important lessons there, if we take the time to consider them, learn and embody them in how we move forward.

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash