We spend an immense amount of time planning, scheming, and plotting. All in order to do one thing: to not live. We research which is the best way to murder ourselves, which technique will yield the desired result with the least amount of suffering or pain. We research the best way to die, hoping we don’t Fuck It Up.
Why do I use the word murder? Because that’s just what it is, it’s the premeditated killing of one human by another. you are killing YOU. When we are in this state we may not be able to clearly see who we are. We have forgotten.
We have written letters to those we love and care for, explaining why we are going to murder ourselves. Apologizing for the thing we have yet to do. We have put all our financial affairs in order. We think about which “technique” will leave the least amount of mess. We stop going to work. We sleep for inordinate amounts of time. We stop eating. We dream of the peace we so hope to find.
We become fixated on not being “here”. Where is “here”? If we could only be over “there”. If only we could stand someplace else that wasn’t this blasted plain of ash and darkness. What if we can’t see “there” because it is really “here”?
The amount of energy and commitment this all takes is unimaginable. It exhausts us and bears down on us. This Sisyphean task crushes us with its weight. We can only see one solution in our myopic view of life. That one solution is murder.
What if we can take all that energy, moxie, and grim determination and turn it around? What if we can somehow take this immense amount of focus and retrain our gaze on healing? What if we could harness all that unstoppable drive for murder and unleash it on healing ourselves? What if we took all the energy we have been pouring into not living, and instead poured it into Living?
We can. But it’s hard to see from “here.” I couldn’t see anything else from “here.” It was all dark and grey. Is it that I was blind? In a way, yes I was.
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
― Wayne W. Dyer
I know the above quote may seem thin and trite, but it’s true. What if we can change the way we look at things and then they do indeed change?
We have spent a lifetime building the reality we now live in, decades of concerted effort, and here we stand in the dark, we hear ourselves screaming in the distance, we hear the wailing of our own soul. We are full of pain, fear, grief, we feel lost, stuck.
We all have trauma and hurt, deep in our bones. We have stood here so long staring at it that we can’t see anything else. From where we stand the world is indeed a hard and dark place. We have brainwashed ourselves into believing that these traumas and painful experiences are all we have, and it colors everything we see and do.
What if we could take all that energy, all the hurt, all the pain and transform it into healing ourselves? What if we could take it all and redirect it, turn it upside down? We can. First, we need to look at where we are. Where we stand, does it serve us well, is it comfortable? Are we willing to let go of all of our beliefs, all of our misgivings, all of our pain? Those are the first steps we have to take in order to heal.
I know this sounds like a huge leap, to give up everything we know or believe. Things we know and believe are not fixed, they need not be concretized. Your perceptions are not fixed. Start asking, “What if?” Start using your imagination and curiosity. Step away from the logic you believe is serving you well.