The hardest confessions to make are the ones of your darkest and most desperate times. Bene Brown says our vulnerability is our power. Being this vulnerable and laying bare this soul does not feel empowering, at least not yet, not in this moment as I begin to write this. There is an acute sense of anxiety, as I imagine someone, I know reading this. It doesn’t bother me if you did not know me. In this case, to me it feels empowering to share with you what it felt like, my desperation. It feels good that maybe something that I write will help you deal with your own vulnerabilities. Either way, known or unknown to you here goes the continuation of my dark times.
My light had gone dark. I could no longer hear or feel this part of me, that I have known forever. I did not even realize that, this something was present in me, around me and connected me to everything. All I was now left with was a hollow and uncomfortable pit of knots in my stomach. Everything felt cold. This was not the physical sensation of temperature, but a sense that is born when you feel cut off from the very source that gives you life. It is the absolute truth that I did not die nor have a near death experience, but I surely did not feel alive. I was 41 years old, barely hanging on edge of the cliff called my life’s choices.
I really did not understand what I was feeling. It felt stronger than grief, depression, hopelessness, helplessness, and sorrow, put together. It was overwhelming, drowning me and scaring me. I, who had struggled to lose weight, and spent countless hours of exercising, dieting and starving myself to lose a pound, was surprised how easy it was to shed 20 pounds in this mode. I loved my family, my children, and I would gladly take a bullet for any of them, and yet I did not want to live this way anymore. I could not share this with anyone either. Who would understand problems of privilege? There were so many people in poverty, suffering in illness and tragedies, yet leading such inspiring lives. Who would care that I felt this way? I was immensely blessed to have family, food, shelter, transportation, safety, ability to stay home as a mother, good health, and I felt nothing but scared, lonely, un-supported, un-loved, ashamed, and worthless. This is a mother’s curse and blessing when her children suffer. My entire existence felt wrong as I saw my child suffer. The descent into darkness had been successful, smooth, and as incognito as the dark web.
Hell, Naraka-loka, was something I had read and known from religious perceptions, as a world one enters after death. I was still alive here in this world, and felt its burning heat in my everyday chores, as I continued to cook, clean, drop of kids, take care of laundry, smile at strangers and be pitied and indulge in self-pity. Sleep no longer came easy, and being awake was hell. I did not have to die to reach its depths. In place of that something I had lost, rose a force more powerful, and questioned my most intimate thoughts. The feelings I had were so indistinguishable, that every question it asked me, I became aware of how that thought, action and deed had affected me and those involved in it. It brought up circumstances of my earliest memories of my righteousness, where I had accused and assumed a fellow third grader had stolen my eraser, because they had a similar one in their possession, without giving them a chance to explain it and told others about it. This force, whispered that I had to pay for what grief my actions costed my classmate. The only payment that would soothe this deed, was for me to sit with what I had done and feel it. It was unbearable mental pain and anguish, and it was only the beginning. As days passed, every memory came to surface, asking for release, the pain and suffering that was created. Memories of getting angry, feeling superior to others, accusing others of weakness, instances of wishing pain on others for causing me pain, impulsive reactions to gossip, selfishness, lack of courtesy, fighting with my brother, fighting with my parents, fighting with friends, cussing at the stranger who cut me off in traffic, hating others whom I did not understand, my righteousness, my mistakes, every single event and person that I have interacted with in a negative way, all rose and filled my cup to the brim. I did not know what to do, where to go, and who to discuss this with. Every relationship was affected and infected with negativity, that I had created. This was my darkness! Life is really generous, mysterious and of the highest intelligent life form. Many years ago, before this descent into hell, my husband had casually mentioned that he had read somewhere that Einstein explained darkness as “an absence of light”, you cannot create darkness, you just have to take away the source of light. I had been fascinated by this sentence and completely ignorant about its impact and the life lesson that was at my doorstep. Life had been generous to me trying to clue me into what was to come and prepare me to face my journey. I did not understand it back then. Only now today as I write this, the memory of that day comes into my perspective to join together the puzzle pieces of my story, showing its creativity in guidance and wisdom. This particular piece of wisdom, and the pain of my darkness led me to do the only thing I was capable of doing, nothing. I did nothing. I had watched enough inspiring videos, and I had no energy to be motivated. I sat still. No TV, no news, no searching on the web for information, and this nothing, this stillness, was the biggest blessing.