Journal Thoughts – June 2017

There’s something changing in me. Again. Still. It feels deep down in my core, as if every blood cell is being reengineered. As if my entire body is changing. I feel a bloodletting. Letting go again on a cellular level. Like a new skin, only inside.

Maybe that is what it takes for this one. Letting go of family is hard. Someone who has been internal to my soul. A love so deep that the thought of letting go hurts me to my core.

It’s as if I’ve been possessed all these years. My life was so wrapped in theirs that it was seamless. We were enmeshed, anchored together. As least I felt that way. A joining so deep like twins must feel.

I’m reminded of the old horror flick “The Wolf Man.” This movie has always been a metaphor of good and evil, for me. The movie starts slow. He’s a normal Joe, going about his business then one day he looks in the mirror and he’s grown an extra eye in the middle of his forehead.

This poor guy is doomed and he cannot ignore what’s happening. When he is confronted with this dual person living inside of him, the human tries to split himself from the animal inside by running into a tree. There is this scene where Average Joe guy is literally being split into two by this tree. His human self on one side and the wolf on the other. It looks and sounds very painful.

Yes, that is exactly how it feels. It did not come on all at once, it happened one eye at a time. I feel like the wolf man. Only it is the soul that is being ripped from me. Although the realization is stark, it’s not as dramatic as that because this has been a slow detachment.

So slow that it’s taken awhile to even discover that it’s been happening.

I’ve been reading the Artist Way, by Julia Cameron. This must be my 3^rd or 4^th time through this book. She describes some of what I’m feeling in the chapter on Week 4  Recovering your sense of integrity: Once you discover that there is change happening, be prepared for bursts of tears and laughter. A certain giddiness may accompany sudden stabs of loss. Think of yourself as an accident victim walking away from the crash: your new life isn’t apparent yet. You may feel yourself to be temporarily without a vehicle. Just keep walking.

I felt lost but this lets me know that the process is working. There can be no growth without pain. I’m not sure what’s past the tree where I’m leaving this other “self.” I am sure that leaving the past there is a good thing. Recovering my integrity means being my most authentic self. I can’t be me when I’m living for someone else. I see that this is the beginning of a new phase of my life. My old life is becoming less visible. I no longer need to carry that eye in the middle of my forehead. Just keep on the path, keep walking in faith.