Unbecoming: A Somatic Journey through Self-Transformation
Many cycles are closing, and simultaneously, new ones are birthing into form. The past and all of its becoming is rapidly dying, burning into ash by the internal flame of unencumbered Being. I am terrified of the Light, I feel what it does to me; shaking loose everything I have ever cherished, every dream I ever built, even those that remained as castles in the sky, thought does not serve a purpose here. Not while Greatness is birthing its Light. I am just the vessel, I guess that’s what I’ve signed on to be, a body that transforms human suffering.
Last night as I lay in bed, heat waves rushed from my heart, bathing my neck, head, and arms. The Eternal Flame scorching some shadow of experience left tightly bound in my chest. The mind all too eager to find a reason, to place a semblance of understanding that fits within its box of safety. But as I said before, thoughts can’t live here. Reason, well, Greatness is beyond it. Light does not stop shining by the will of some lesser mental force. If anything, and as these last few months have solidified through experience, thinking through the process of transformation all but guarantees unresolved anxiety. No, the moment must be, experienced in all its fullness, its rich presence, as scary, terrifying, and bewildering as it may be. The only way out is through, to let it move as it does. Because really, what do I know of Greatness?
Pacing helps to move the energy through. Walking sweeping circles around my living room. Really it’s the mind and all of its believing that is stimulating my nervous system to move. Stuck in stories for far too long, the pattern I’ve entrained to become is to leave behind the body and all of its feelings, because all the body is, is a storehouse of pain, shame, and every emotion I avoided so that I could feel safe. Funny thing about the body, is it doesn’t go away. I can mentally check out and disassociate, but the body remains. I too am my body, I am not solely a mind, I am also every experience I’ve ever denied. So what remains in my body when I’ve tapped the Source of Light, is a necessary process of unbecoming. To notice during these states of heightened emotional release, that awareness is king. Awareness to the mind keeps my system spinning amidst the stories of what I did or am doing wrong, quickening my pace, trying with even more force to escape the pain. No, that doesn’t do. What does is to feel and address the here and the now. The body has that capacity, to communicate the present moment perfectly. What physical symptoms am I experiencing? Where in my body do I feel these things? What is this emotion? and what is it trying to communicate? These somatic tools have been instrumental in helping me process unresolved pains and bridge a healthy relationship between mind and body.
As the hour struck midnight I began to shake. The mind denied it, screaming that leaving my safety circle of pacing would all but add to the intensity of discomfort that I was feeling. But what did I say of the mind? It likes its patterns, it feels safe in what has been. So instead I checked in with the body, merged my consciousness with it. The body speaks not of words but of actions. And the action was to shake. Twist, jump, rile, contort, stomp, march, move in a non-linear way. Be the chaos that breaks down rigid order. Chaos is necessary to unbecoming. It hits reset in a way that no other energy I’ve experienced can do. It’s wild and free, uncontrollable and absolutely uncontainable; it’s the force behind a fierce, bellowing volcano. It’s the potency of sacred rage.
What came next was the explosion, the boiling over of repression. Discontent to living under the thumb of man’s law. The vocalized force of lifetime’s spent denying authenticity, was the voice of primal fire erupting. The voice of the ancestors for whose blood runs through me, the inauthenticity of humanity’s self-limiting beliefs. I am done shrinking, and if self-transformation has taught me anything, it is that I will no longer stand weak-kneed trying to prove something. Rather, I will kneel at the feet of Greatness and know nothing.
What is to come? I have no fucking clue. I haven’t had the experience. Since I am no longer becoming something, I am drawing my awareness out of the future-past dyad and into present being. Sure, my mind will continue to bark orders and insist that to know what I’ll do beforehand, to lay a well-paved path will satiate its urges for creative problem solving. It will insist that based on past experiences, some experience off in the future won’t be ‘right’ or ‘good’ for me. It’ll rear its head; it’ll weave in stories of limitation, presenting an almost convincing argument as to why my way is supreme. But what it doesn’t know, what it absolutely cannot fathom, is that this moment, this breath, this feeling of sunshine on my bare skin, the smell of salt rising in the ocean breeze contains all the answers that I will ever need. Discontent is not an effulgence of Being, discontent arises when the mind and body are not in sync.
Knowing this comes with practice and the willingness to sit with yourself as you are. Uniting the self with Greatness, Being the Light, is a journey in which us imperfect, flawed, and messy humans are the perfect candidates. For at our core, we are simply the canvas of consciousness, capable of knowing ourselves as the essence of awareness. But we must commit in eagerness to the process of unbecoming, to drown in the putrid waters of darkness, because that is how the Self reveals its Light.