The war within is not what you think... it's just a misunderstood case of expansion. A part within that contains a deeper truth needing to unfold- a greater, more colorful version seeking to come out into the world. Births are always chaotic and violent. Trust the darkness, it is where you find your deepest inner light.

Maybe anxiety is just new energy running through parts of you that haven't awakened yet, it’s just your f*cking system coming online, it’s your soul rising and screaming to make contact, in its own really raw way that makes you tremble and freeze sometimes. 

Maybe what you think of as brokenness is your greatest gift, misunderstood. Maybe there is something big within you that wants so desperately to unfold in this lifetime that every time you get a sense of it, it causes your system to shut down. You ground yourself in heavy feelings, anger, jealousy, depression, because that’s what we are taught to do with untamed energy. Maybe it’s a question of expanding your bandwidth to allow it to run through you and lift you. Maybe you can construct a state of inner cohesion between your brain, heart and spirit- a mechanism that is actually tailored to support the rise of your true self.

(That’s what Hope would sound like, but Hope doesn’t sell pills.) 

One of the little magic breezes that shifted my sails towards a new land was when I happened to walk by a random conversation. They were talking about different states- there is Suffering & there is Baseline & there is Flourishing. I had so far only known suffering and maybe was able to get some solid claw marks into Baseline a couple of times as it was violently jerked away and I fell backwards into the darkness time and time again. But one of the greatest internal powers we possess is that of Curiosity. It is the way you attach to a vision like a rope with a grappling hook. It focuses and powers your climb to that destination. It is the strongest connection you can create to the seemingly impossible and begin to open a channel energetically whereby it becomes possible. It actually creates brain circuitry that you don't yet possess because your circuitry is created solely by your environment. That is why you create the same life over and over. If you build circuitry from curiosity and imagination, you are escaping that cage and your vision eventually becomes reality.

So I became passionately curious, obsessed with what Flourishing would even look like for me. It was alarming to realize I couldn't even feel it as possibility. (You can get lost in all kinds of sad stories about this, but really it's Simply a lack of circuitry). If this was the only chance I get to live on this planet, I couldn't accept that. I mean, F*ck that! I wanted full ownership of this life. Full ownership of my Self. 
I began to spend time feeling around in that blank space. Painting in the void. What did me flourishing even feel like? Who did I have to be to keep that as a permanent state? What was the life even like that supported it? And ahh when you begin to spend time in the realm of those possibilities... when you slowly see your dream become your real world...like a Polaroid picture developing all around you... isn't that is the journey we came here for?

I like to take January as a burner month like ripping the first page out of a pristine notebook, but in that space of letting go, magic always happens. Last year I had the urge to go hole up in a fancy hotel for a week and be alone. In that silence I faced my own static, surprised to realize how many situations and people I had ick attachments to, to the point where they had become a concrete part of my internal landscape, imaginary characters in my everyday world. Freedom is a master that I began to worship very young and so I decided to write each of them a letter, that started with “I release the need to feel this attachment”... and then I wrote whatever came to mind. Just let all the energy that I had been storing run its course and unwind in whatever way it needed to on the page. Was shocked to discover each of these boxes of darkness had actually been a twistedly magnificent gift. The best way I can describe them are gifts of Formation. In not having the capacity to handle whatever it was, I was forced to expand. To become something I never ever would’ve otherwise in the span of an entire lifetime of trying. The more painful or brutal the situation seemed, the faster that result. But I has been so stuck on the surface injury I had never allowed myself to receive the gifts. The most priceless treasures of my life had gone unnoticed. This realization changed everything as my eyes opened to a new understanding that no matter what, everything is a story of gain. Thankful to finally be able to honor the dark angels in my life and see only the magic & beauty in them. 
And, ok to be honest then I then burned all the letters and threw them in the toilet. And peed on them. But the peeing was not intentional, just more eco- friendly than the double flush. I may or may not have been giggling and yelling SUCK IT m*thafukerzzzz while it was happening… because maybe that’s what forgiveness looks like from me!!! 

This started as something I used to yell at myself, like an inner a bitchslap to the soul. I believed I could do some really bright things in this life if I could just somehow unfuk myself. There used to be two sides of me, one that wanted to live a life a life full of blooming color and unimaginable adventure and one that wanted to shrink into the blackness of nothing and die. The chasm between the two was great, and this was my inner cry went I fell into it. Eventually the darkness won. One day, I decided not to go on. Standing in that space of complete self abandonment and having let go of all attachments here on earth, I slowly became aware of one last tiny curiosity. It began to glow like a tiny spark and then to my surprise, became a full blazing fire of curiosity. Was the bright life full of art, adventure, and magic that was so deeply imprinted on the horizon of my internal landscape really just a delusion? Although far from reality at the time, it seemed like the truest thing I had ever known. Turns out, setting forth on that journey to find the answer to that one last question was the day I truly began to live.

Life has a way of showing you something bigger & bigger until you face it. Eventually I got really curious about this uncomfortable thing that inhabited a space deep in my center. It refused to be exorcised. It refused to lay flat, fit into the puzzle picture I was so desperately crafting, refused to be shaped into something cohesive with its surroundings, refused to be quiet. No amount of meds, alcohol, shame or begging could diminish it. Through it’s indefatigable obstinance it had secretly earned my respect. In fact, I respected it more than anything else in my life because of it’s crazy amount of spirit. A will to survive anything, a determination to exist. WHAT WAS this thing that despite getting special permission from the manufacturer to be on a much higher than recommended dose of numbness STILL had a pulse... A shape & sounds coming out of itself? I began to soften towards it. It was a wretched character, busted up, reactive, skittish after a lifetime of the abuse I served it. But in that softening, I began creating an environment where it could come out & begin to show itself. I began asking it what it needed...What does it want? When you begin to open to those questions, a whole new universe will begin to architect itself around you. In my case, it was my own first-person experience of the Big Bang. My cute little life imploded, exploded, deconstructed, <--infinite other synonyms for complete annihilation of not only one’s home planet, but the universe it resided within - ->and a world began to create itself that at the time made no sense to anyone looking. It was terrifying. And beautiful. There is indescribable peace when you can feel the energy of love within destruction. If you’ve never seen the horror of life choices you can't explain outside your head space, reflected on your loved ones faces, oh friends, you are missing out. In time you will forgive everyone who bet against you, and the horrible things they say… they couldn’t possibly know what you know. Because at the time, you don't even realize you knew it. The sweetness of resonance between your outer world & your inner being is the only thing I’ve found worth living for.

I don't think we came here to grow up and settle into some fixed shape. I think we came here to go on all the adventures that light us up to the fullest, the kind of stuff we knew all about in the beginning, when our eyes were wide with hope & mischief and the only thing our hearts knew was how to create magic.

Life has a bitched up way of conditioning you into a lower set point than your true nature. A lot of unhappiness is not caused by unhappiness itself but by the vague sensing of this gap and not really having words for it. Words correspond to our brain circuitry. When you don't have words for something most likely you don't have the know-how to address it consciously and it just becomes yay a little extra layer of unease to fucking nest in. 
Feelings live lower in the body and are more powerful than words...Intention, curiosity, hope and belief are the sparks that jump that gap and lead you by the heart to the mysterious and magical path back to your true nature... back to that warm patch of inner sun where you used to play before anyone taught you different. 

You can't negotiate with the truth. In time I began to understand this thing with the claws & sharp teeth that left marks all over everything I tried to keep clean wasn't separate, it was actually just a truer version. I was fighting to keep my hologram alive so I could live peacefully amongst all the silent lifeless fucks around me. You can't go on living with two opposing frequencies running through you, every time they make contact there is violence. Choices are simple when there really is no choice. I had to let it out into the world to feed or it would eat me from the inside instead. You can't negotiate with the truth.