Happy BIRTHday
I recently celebrated my 52nd birthday.
The build-up to this day was a journey that spanned a number of weeks (was it 5 weeks or 105 weeks? I think probably the latter) of me visiting my deep, dark, shadow parts. I have done shadow work before and each time I venture into these spaces of my Beingness, the discoveries that I make shake me, shock me and shape me. Each time I think “This must be it. This is immense, life-changing, soul-shaking stuff. This must be it”. Yet, here I am, recently emerging from yet another trip through my own Dark Hedges, Haunted House, or Minotaur Labrinth and this time felt deeper, darker and ultimately more expansive than the times before.
What made it stand out? My willingness to look into the eyes of my own shadow self for longer than I have before. My willingness to really SEE the darkest parts of myself and accept them. Not as some entity separate from who I am but as a part of me, an aspect of who I am. My willingness to allow these parts of me to connect, to align and to integrate. My success in seeing myself as a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional Being. Not just a person filling an identity that I decided to believe in as a result of expectations (others’ and my own), ideals, social conditioning and programming. I finally see mySelf.
Getting to this point did not look pretty. The ethereal part of me has been dipping in and out, making me seem soulless on some occasions to the people closest to me. My emotional Self has been riding the rollercoaster, processing ALL the feelings that come with journeying through the dark night of the soul - fear, anxiety, pain, loss, shame. My mental Self has teetered on the edge of reason many times as the lines between what is real (to me) and what is illusionary have blurred. My physical body has supported me by taking beatings in so many ways - hormones, digestion, metabolism (what metabolism?). Ever faithful, all aspects of my Being have journeyed together through the dark and more than every before, these aspects have remained connected and in-synch instead of splitting off in compartmentalising attempts at Self-preservation.
On the night of my 52nd birthday, I gave all parts of me a voice. My fears were spoken out loud and not rejected or pushed down. My pain held court and was seen and heard and felt. My shame was vocalised and no other part of me looked away. I clearly articulated on behalf of all parts of me. I cried. I breathed. I spoke and I moved. And then…I truly MOVED. I moved out of the skin that I was in and into a more authentic expression of me than I have ever known before. How? Love.
Radical Self-Love held me every step of the way through these past 105 weeks. There was no suffering. There was all the shadow work, all the pain, fear, anxiety and exhaustion and yet no suffering. There was a quiet acceptance of the validity of the journey, a deep ancient wisdom that told me this is part of a life of truth because the only way to know the truth is to shine a light on everything, to see everything, to know and accept all that is. Every step of the way, there was the knowing that this is part of the journey to true self-actualisation.
Not every moment of every day in the past 105 weeks has been hard, or painful or tiring. There has been joy and celebration and oh, so much love! Radical Self-Love meant that I did not try to manipulate the moment of joy, love and hope into lasting longer or covering the other stuff. Radical Self-Love meant I allowed the joy and the pain to stand side-by-side, I allowed the love and the loathing to hold hands. It meant I allowed myself to validate ALL aspects of my Being. All the parts, not just the pretty ones.
Some (I and others) might say that I have been living this way for a long time and they would be right and also just a little bit off the mark. Because this journey is a spiral one and my spiral is expanding, going deeper and reaching higher than ever before. And Self-Love has been tested and stretched and expanded. Self-Love has shown me how to reclaim all the parts of me that I rejected, all the parts of me that I abandoned.
Of course life held a perfect mirror up for me. Every aspect of my experience played a part in me being able to see mySelf fully and deeply. Life always does this, it is our eyes that change.
This year, on the 4th of November, I was able to realise that I had opened my eyes wider than ever before to the mirrors that Life has been holding up for me. This year, I celebrated my 52nd birthday and also, my BIRTHday because in this state of Self-Love, clarity, acceptance and appreciation, I allowed my full Self to be birthed, to show up, to be seen.
Gathering all the pieces of who we are back to ourselves, calling in the energy that we have scattered out there through our lives and reclaiming ourselves in full - this is radical Self-Love. This is the work. From this place we can know what we need to fill our own tank, so that we can live love and be the change we want to see.