The Unfolding
Thoughts on personal growth and defining a path to freedom
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you -Rilke
I recently stumbled on the above stanza from a Rilke poem and as a huge fan of the poet, it seemed appropriate to describe this stage in my life. In talking with my therapist, we had reflected on how I am growing more into a people person, learning to find joy in community, learning to risk to find my “tribe”. I realized that I spent maybe close to 2 decades a folded person. I got close to people, but I never really let them in all that often. I isolated, and in isolation I became ill, disordered, a hot mess. Now that I am on a healing path and doing much much better in my personal life, I am learning to appreciate being able to “grasp” things in a true way, to see things without a quick judging, a rejection, a half-hearted but wary attempt. My boundaries have become better but also less rigid and awkward. I know what I am for and what I am not and what others are for and are not. I have removed ulterior motives and given way to raw, honest interactions and it's a beautiful thing.
As a single man with enough baggage to anger a Southwest Airlines ticket desk, I am learning to relate again, to seek what I truly want and risk being walked away from, shouted down, mistrusted, loathed, or simply just misunderstood. If you are in recovery, coming out of incarceration, or healing from trauma likely your desire to risk is low, which is understandable. I find I'm a bit too conflict-avoidant for my liking and maybe you are as well. Nobody wants to feel they are going to be torn down when sharing their most vulnerable and authentic self. Still, this is part of the process of self-actualization-To be torn down and built up again, to risk, to be vulnerable in a world which takes from, exploits, abuses, disregards, and distrusts you. To maintain dignity in the face of disgrace, discrimination, false promises, politics, gossip, oppression, underhanded tactics, and empty promises. Your baggage may never go away. Lots of people I talk to want it to disappear, to discard it.
As I told a new friend recently, we can't make it go away, but we can leave it by the side of the road and refuse to carry it any further, burdened by it's weight. Whether it's the job they promise you and then pull out from your unsteady grip, the friendship that dissolves leaving you wondering what went so wrong, or the comment that stings when it lands, some things can't just be ignored or erased. Many of the people in recovery I talk to say this..THIS, is what hurts the most. They've learned that there are only 2 choices that you can make in this circumstance: Get upset and use again, possibly being found dead in a vacant lot somewhere, or decide that something feels awful but you are OK right now, and you call your sponsor or a friend or your pastor or whoever and you make a better choice.
Unfolding is a long, drawn out process. Think of Origami.. it takes forever to fold something in such an intricate way. The process of unfolding your guarded, rigid, mistrusting self to open up to new ways of looking/living/relating is just as complex. Be gentle with yourself. Let go of everyone else's nonsense opinions and hold on to the wisdom of true friends and confidantes. Allow for the bumps and bruises of reentering life. You know what it meant to be crooked and bent, to be inauthentic and untrustworthy. You don't have to go back there, but remember that “back there” is a choice with a door that's unlocked. You can always return.. It's easy to return. You could always return. The power is in not returning to the familiar mess.