Lifeletter #171: Dying to Live

A friend sent me a link to this wonderful interview with Brené Brown: http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/the-ultimate-act-of-love

It’s short and to the point, and it begins with a question that lives at the heart of my life: “Do we have to die to live?”

Brené says, “Oh yeah, a thousand deaths. Because of rebirth-not the Christian metaphor, the real thing. We have to bury things and grieve them, and they have to go away, for good. That’s death. And let me tell you, rebirth is not easy, and death is not easy.”

Well, I already knew that. I already knew that I had to die to my old way of being in order to make space for the new one that is waiting to emerge. And I already knew that this kind of dying is not easy. But it’s very liberating to hear Brené Brown talk, in her open and down-to -earth way, about the necessity for this death and rebirth. Whether we are religious or not, whether we call ourselves spiritual or not, without death and rebirth, we just get stuck. Nothing really moves. We go around in circles-we don’t  mature or evolve.

An old part of my identity has been falling away lately, a defensive structure I’ve used to protect myself all my life. As I allow myself to soften, and show up in a way that is much more real and vulnerable, I notice how much pain I have been moving away from. This is one of the key reasons that death and rebirth is so difficult. This process asks us to feel deeply, and that can be very painful.

I’ve known for a  long time that we are living in a culture that is phobic about emotions.

In my work with clients, and in the conversations I have each week with people all over the world, I have learned that many people, when they feel intense emotions rising up within them, start to panic. This panic can happen on a subtle level, so that we do something to avoid feeling it before we are even aware of it. But it wasn’t until recently that I really saw this kind of primal fear, and precisely how it moves  in me. It was really quite shocking to come face-to-face with a part of me that believes I will die if I am in pain. I walked around the house for a few hours, really taking it in: “Holy shit! I really think I’ll die if I feel this deep pain. That’s amazing!”

How can I love life if I believe this? I am using aggression to respond to my own vulnerability. I realized that I had to find a way to transform my relationship with pain. Robert Augustus Masters  talks about this in ‘Meeting The Dragon.’ He defines suffering as the dramatization of our pain, what happens when we turn away from the immediate experience of pain and create a story out of our avoidance and resistance. He describes the ending of our suffering as the moment when we soften enough to enter our pain.

Here is one of the doorways into our death and rebirth: finding the willingness to enter our pain. I wish that I had learned how to do this a long time ago. Except that it’s not a really a doing at all, it’s a surrender. I’ve noticed that this willingness has been blossoming lately in my heart. I don’t really know yet how to enter the depths of my pain, but I am willing to find out. My heart, thank God, is no longer freaked out at this prospect. This opening also seems to be connected with a strange kind of grace—a deep exhaustion connected with being my old self. This outworn identity feels like a burden that is just too heavy to carry around any more. Why was I ready to carry it around for so many years before this? Who knows? Grace is inexplicable. It has it’s own rhythms and seasons.

A chiropractor I know said something tonight in a class that feels connected with all of this:

“Look around you,” he said. “If you are just going along with what a lot of other people are doing, do something different. It will be a good thing.”

I look around me and I don’t see too many people allowing themselves to die and be reborn. So, I am making space for something different, praying for something different, calling in the possibility of death and rebirth. It’s time to let myself be taken in this way, into a new life.

Maybe it’s time for you too?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

-Antonio Machado

 

 with love,

Shayla

 

photo credit, ‘In Bloom’ Jenna Martin