Don't lose sight of yourself
Don't let anyone change you back

You are the only light there is
For yourself my friend

I've often used this blog to help me work through some of the more difficult issues I've been struggling with, and as a result I sometimes forget it can also be used to report happy things and positive progress. Since I'm delighted (and often wide-eyed and amazed) to report that positivity seems to be ruling my day most of the time now, I'm going to try to start sharing some of those things more. I think it's important, not only for me to get used to acknowledging that it's okay--and safe--to be publicly happy that I'm happy, but also to demonstrate to those who may have been following my blog who have their own struggles (and who doesn't?), or who come upon it later, to find some kind of narrative of change. Or, more concisely: I want people who come here to be able to see not only what was my dark tunnel, but that there IS actually light at the end of said tunnel, and what that light is like (for me personally, at least).

Because people, it's so really, really good. It's like getting to step into a shower where sunlight pours out of the tap, and just drenches you, warm and bright, running all over your body. And you get to turn around and face the tap and let it cascade down, all over your smiling face. And the tap never runs dry. Never.

I want to say: I'm starting to feel this.

I want to say: This kind of thing is actually possible.

I want to say: You can have this.

So, the topic for the week: pleasure.

I've been...just really happy lately.

It feels an odd thing to say. But it's true. And I find I'm also less and less afraid that claiming it will "curse" it and make it go away. I don't feel afraid to say it anymore. This also feels very strange to say.

But it's true. It came on slowly at first; just a little twinge here or there. But in the last two weeks, it's been almost constant. Just feeling good, feeling at one with the world--or maybe it's feeling as one in myself and being completely cool with that--even when the world is off kilter around me. Even feeling joyful sometimes; having moments when my heart feels ready to burst out in blooms like all the trees I see around me and I just can't stop smiling or singing to myself or communicating with trees.

This is not something I'm used to.

I think maybe I haven't written about this feeling as it's come over me much because; well, one, I've been busy with a new job I started recently, and two, I think I felt afraid that if I said it, it would sound like bragging or smugness or rubbing it in others' faces or possibly that I was being inauthentic...like I was trying to prove something (""Look!!! Look how happy I am!!! Really!!!! Really!!!!")--like I'd appear as if I were trying to convince myself and others of it.

But it's not about that. And it suddenly occurred to me tonight how entirely ridiculous it is that I saw absolutely no dangers of inauthenticity, bragging, etc. in writing repeatedly about unhappiness when it hit me. So why should this be any different?

Anyway, what's happened to me lately...it's really odd. It's like this kind of letting go. I can't explain it because it's almost a physical thing; as if a really heavy layer of something has been lifted off me, and I'm just walking around lighter than before. But it's not exactly physical. It is as though I've finally lost something, though, something that has been some kind of invisible albatross for many years. The strange thing is, I don't even know what the albatross WAS; I never got to see it. It just, through small tiny baby steps of work, seems to have just lifted, and I'm just...different. Things seem easier; and I seem less impacted by the small everyday things that used to get me spiraling into negativity.

And it seems that along with this is this fresh, slowly burgeoning change in how I sense myself in the world. I just wrote that and realized I'd said "sense myself" instead of "see myself," which is the familiar phrase. And now I realize that is exactly it! There's this shift from seeing myself to just sensing myself. This move from a staunch stance of "I think, therefore I am," to "I am, therefore I am."

Am I making sense to anyone out there? I think what this means is I'm losing my self-consciousness. Which is SUCH a relief. But even more than that--or maybe it's the same...what I'm trying to say here...and this is so new and confusing....

What I'm trying to say is that...well, for most of my life, I've created my identity (and others' identities, come to think of it) from identifiers--which are, of course, mental constructs. I thought that thoughts--mine and others' about me (by either agreement with or reacting against them)--were what made me me. Like this:

What do I believe in? The answer to that defines who I am; I am what I believe.
What do I know? The answer is who I am
What is my cultural identity? This is who I am.
How much more do I know than others? This is who I am.
How well do I fit the requirements for the labels of "cool," "smart," "pretty," "sexy," "talented," etc.? This is who I am.

Actually, these ALL boil down to the first statement: What do I believe in? This is who I am. Because all of the others in their way are beliefs about myself that I invent for myself.

And this has led to inordinate anger, frustration, and fear when I'm confronted with others whose opinions butt up significantly and forcefully against my own. I've been in therapy for a few years now; and the whole time I've never really been able to grasp how one can believe strongly in something (say, for instance, that racism is awful and destructive) and while holding that belief strongly, at the same time be okay with the fact that others don't.

I think this was because those beliefs were who told myself I was. I made those beliefs my identity. So someone opposing that belief was, on some level, threatening my right to exist.

I've been living so much in my head. And my head created labels for everything: for myself and others. I was alternative. That person was mainstream. This other person: materialistic. Me: stubborn. That person: racist. Me: creative. On and on and on. All these one-word stories for myself and everyone; all generated by me, all designed to keep my thoughts protected and safe from encroachment of others. Interestingly, I had both a great anger for/resistance to labels and "grades"--and yet such a great need for them, too. In fact, I made my resistance of them part of my so-called identity.

I'm getting off track. I'm sorry this post is so loose--I'm free-forming here.

The point is, this shift I was talking about earlier, and the happiness and lightness...it seems to be about losing all that. About getting out of my head--"losing my mind," if you will. About realizing none of that shit matters; that none of that stuff, none of my thoughts or ideas or beliefs, none of those identifiers define me. That I'm just ME. That's it. That's all it has to be about.

Moving away from thought and into this greater...sense of being. This is what feels lighter. And, by the way, this doesn't mean I think thinking or intelligence is useless. Far from it. It's useful; but it's just a THING--not THE thing.

You know, all this time as I've been healing, I've been trying so hard to figure out--now that I've had to let go of so many old, negative patterns of self-definition--what the new way to define myself will be. I kept thinking, "Okay, but what will I BE now? I'm emptying out of stuff, but what will I fill up with? Who can I say I am now, if I'm not any of those things anymore? I need to find an answer before it's too late!"

And damn if it hasn't turned out that the answer is I'm not anything.

And this...it turns out...is everything.

I'm not anything. I just am.

I'm not anything. It's possibly the one phrase that has scared me the most all these years--the one thing I was most terrified to be identified with; to believe about myself. The thing I've worked consistently to avoid anyone thinking about me.

Who knew in the end that it would be the source of all empowerment?

I am staggered by this.