who are you right now?

i am becoming.

originally posted on Substack

Not too long ago, I walked away from the edge of a cliff. Today, I realized that I didn't walk that far.

If I'm being honest, I'm going through one of the most challenging times of my life. I am breaking a cycle that I was born into, one I've kept alive for some time. Through the pain, I've received clarity. Alchemy at it's finest happening at my lowest. In the grand scheme of things, it makes sense. When is there a better opportunity to alchemize? In these moments, this is where I find out who I truly am and what I'm truly made of. A creation who has the power to create.

A massive piece of clarity is the realization that my drive was coming from a place of escape rather than a space to create. I was so focused on escaping my situation that it made the ability to leave harder, the solutions felt so far away. I wasn't creating from a heart led place and it was contradicting the very beliefs I worked so hard to nourish.

How do you see past the pain?

How do you feel anything outside of the pain?

You discover that the only reason you are experiencing pain in the first place is because joy exists.

Pain is not my natural state yet for a long time it felt like it.

Who am I outside of the pain that I endured? Who am I outside of how people treat me?

Here is an excerpt from one of my random notebooks:

"let yourself be surprised. let yourself be swept off your feet. let yourself be romanced. let yourself be seduced. by yourself. by others. by the universe. allow yourself to be you, no one else. they already exist and so do you. who are you? who do you want to be? truly? without judgement. no one needs to know right now but you. how would you show up? who are you really? the version of you that you've been trying to get rid of? the parts that you try to ignore? the parts that persist, refusing to be silenced. how would you act if you let them be? released them, let them be free?

who are you right now? not before, not in the future. who are you right now?

accept who you are in this present moment. accept where you are. accept what you've done. accept what you have yet to do. accept what you want to do. accept what you no longer want. accept what you used to allow and accept what you no longer allow. accept what you never were and accept what you've always been."

I found this when I needed it the most. A reminder that I get to decide. I get to choose who I want to be and how I want to show up. Amazing that I knew before I understood.

Have you ever needed to settle a dog? Watch them get distracted by everything around them and as they tire, they relax. They settle.

In the midst of the chaos, being faced with trigger after trigger, pain that I didn't know existed flaring up as if freshly struck, I felt stuck. Stagnant. Seemingly forced into still waters, can't drink from still water. Where do I go? Where will I find sustenance? Will someone save me? Not realizing that I am being forced to settle. To not get distracted by everything around me. Simply observe. There is no need to be saved from your own story. Can I be defined by me? Who else would it be?

Settle.

Focus.

"who are you right now?"

I'm realizing the answer can fluctuate, will fluctuate if I'm doing things right. I welcome the waves, who am I to dictate the flow? I don't create flow, I ride it. Ultimate surrender to the possibilities that I can't see while not getting distracted by what I can. Who am I right now? Do I jump or do I walk away?

Can I see past the illusions?

Settle.

Focus.

Do you feel that? The breeze tickling your cheek? What knowledge do you seek?

What messages do you hear?

What wisdom can you reach?

At a time where I have felt the most lost, I discover that being lost is an illusion.

"What's a destination when there are so many?"

After I stepped away from the cliff, distraught that I almost jumped, the realization hit me. The urge to jump isn't to fall to my death, the urge to die, to be crushed by the weight of pain I felt too weak to carry. The urge to jump is to face my fear of flying. You see the glimpse of life beyond the edge. To witness my own strength and spread wings that were meant to be used. Stiff from disuse, the only way through is through. To act.

What is stillness but an illusion?

'Can you do it?' was never the question. Do you crave it? Do you want to become it? Do you want to experience you?

Why wait to become you? Stop trying to change the future. Change now. The future is supposed to be inconvenient to the present.

You aren't your circumstances. You aren't what happened to you. You aren't how people treat you. A mantra, a reminder that I am never fully formed; I am constantly created. I don't have to punish myself for being alive. Accepting the fact that I am so important, I exist.

We exist. Do we yell at the bird for using its wings? Do we shame the dog for sniffing its environment? For interacting within the world it exists in? For experiencing life the way it was gifted to?

Trust the versions of you you haven't met yet. What does it mean to be a vessel? How does energy move through you? You are transmutation, you are the becoming. You don't need protection, you need understanding. Physical needs are necessary. They are not burdens. You are not a burden. A need is alchemy, reaction, conflict, friction, science, math, magic. Needs create.

I no longer can treat authenticity as a want. I am a need.

Sometimes you need an irritant. I faced mine at the edge of a cliff. I didn't choose a life of knowing; I choose a life of discovery. I am the dots and they are connecting. In order for me to find, I must look.

"The other side of pain is liberation."

m.c.