Identity
I’ve been trying to put into words what I’ve been going through lately. It’s not easy, and it feels a bit scary to put myself out there, raw and authentic. But the urge of sharing this seems to be larger than the fear. So here we go.
The best word to describe what I’m going through since 2 months is the word REBIRTH. Let me tell you why. Two years ago I discovered family constellations. A kind of therapy that looks at the system of family and that dives into how you are related to your mother, your dad, and maybe also other relatives. Their science is based on the idea that in a family, every person should have their own spot. Figuratively speaking, of course. But since our birth, maybe right after conception, it might be that you take on other people's roles. In fact, you start living out someone else’s life. The metaphor they often use is the one of a champagne fountain. Everybody has their own glass and when you pour the champagne from the top, everybody gets their fair share of champagne. The champagne here is a representation of life force or life energy.
Energy is the keyword here. Sometimes you’re just not receiving the right energy to live your life the way you need to. That’s exactly how I felt for more than 20 years. When I was 12, my father suddenly passed away. This was a shock to me, my mother, and the rest of the family, our friends, and village we lived in. My father was a very dedicated man, who loved the community and who was socially involved in many ways. For me, I was old enough to understand that my father would never be in my life again. I was mature enough to grasp that my whole world would crumble and change. My father was my hero, my mentor and my best friend. He was the pillar a girl needs growing up in this beautiful and at the same time cruel world.
In one of my meditation sessions, I had a perfect representation of what this event did to me. Imagine you’re a young tree. You have roots, but they’re not fully grown yet. Suddenly there is a grumpy woodsman who decides to cut you down. With the slice of a large axe, he cuts you off from your roots. Except, he didn’t succeed. You were just strong enough to hold onto a few strings of your roots. So the only thing that is keeping you from vanishing completely are a few ‘hairs’ of roots.
This happened 22 years ago. This event brought so much pain into my life that pain became my identity. This was my story: my dad died. What else did life bring me? It brought me sadness. It brought me guilt, as I thought that I was being punished because this happened to me. It brought me shame; nobody of my classmates understood what was going on. I had to hide my emotions A LOT. This event stayed with me like a very dark cloud for a very long time. It overshadowed everything in life. It brought an existential truth: safety is an illusion. We don’t get to choose how and when we leave this Earth. Anything can happen, and we’re not really in control.
I’m aware this all sounds very heavy. I guess over the years, I learned to carry this heaviness. And this brings me back to the therapy session I had 2 months ago. Right there and then, during the analysing of certain feelings, I discovered I’ve been carrying something dead with me for such a long time. We came to a point where I had to say goodbye to that part of me. A part where I identified myself with for SO long. It honestly felt like I needed to cut off a dead limb. At first, I resisted. But a bigger part of me knew it was time to let go.
Because as much as all of the above (and more) is true. I also have beautiful moments in life that showed me I’m allowed to be happy. That there are ways to live after such a trauma hits you. I found true connections in healing with others, through women’s circles, through workshops with Ayahuasca, and with family constellations. In friendships, I’ve found mirrors to discover more of myself and it helped me to show that it’s ok to love people again. Carefully still, but a baby step is also a step.
I have had more ‘shit-uations’ happening to me and as an adult, I managed to overcome these happenings and it made me see how strong I can actually be. For a long time, this 12-year-old girl, who had to grow up really fast, stayed at the steering wheel in my life. Making sure we were safe. Scared to give up control. Anxiously holding on, staying alert and ready for the next big crash. But I can now safely put her in the passenger seat. She is a tough cookie, but she was afraid of herself. She sought validation in the outer world, scared to look into the mirror. She didn’t feel safe being alone, even though that was exactly what she would do: stay lonely. She believed that she had to DO so much to be loved. To prove herself to the world. She tried, multiple times, to fit in somewhere, anywhere. But nothing felt really like home. Until we figured out, that home is within us. Our outer world may change entirely over the course of our lives. And maybe a few times more than we actually wished for. But if we take care of our inner world, what else is there to fear?
After cutting off this dead piece of ‘emotional meat’ in the therapy session, I felt as if life was finally mine! If all the hardships in life were a test, I believe I’m the most successful person that I have ever been. I’m 34 years old now. I don’t have a steady job. I don’t own a house. I don’t have kids or a partner. In some parts of the world, this doesn’t look good on paper. And if I enter those parts of the world, it’s confronting and hard not to feel like a failure. But I’m here to remind myself, and you if you like, that life can shake up things really fast and quit brutal too. So would you rather have ‘all that jazz’? Or would you rather have a strong relationship with yourself? So that it feels like you can surf on the waves of life.
It feels like I completed a level in the game of life and entered a new level. . A level where there is room to feel. Where there is the power of free will. A power to create the life of my dreams. I’ve seen a lot of darkness, but it is THIS part of myself that NEVER gave up, even when we were at the bottom of the deepest pit. Now, there is even more room to grow into the person I’m always meant to be. And this person feels extremely grateful for all that has ever happened in life. Because every moment, the good, the bad and the ugly, all accumulated to the beautiful person that she is now.
Until next time.
Love, Numi
