In the Cocoon (it's a long one, but worth it)

A caterpillar basically has to die before it can become a butterfly, right? It has to shut itself down, wrap itself in it’s own excretions and withdraw deeply within. When it emerges, its whole being is new, never before seen or felt or experienced. I feel a bit like I’m in one of these life transitions, and I’ve no idea what being is going to break forth. A part of me is hopeful, but having never before seen or felt or experienced this new being I am hoping to become, there is another part of me (currently a stronger part I think) that is incredulous. Some might say cynical, but I really think fearful and lost are more accurate words to describe this brand of hopelessness I’m finding myself engulfed in these days.

Here’s the progression. My personal work of seeking truth and meaning in my life has always included much reflection, and in a meditation workshop I did in February I spent 6 days doing just that - reflecting, feeling, and opening parts of myself that have long been hidden, stifled by the traumas of my childhood. I had many profound insights, seeing how my opinions or concepts of “how things should be” actually keep me stuck in the way things are, rather than allowing me to create something new or move on. I also saw how much I depend on the feedback and direction of others to make things happen in my life. I often won’t do things just for myself – what I do must be in service to those around me.

Don’t get me wrong – being in service to those around you can be quite a noble pre-occupation, if taken up consciously with purpose. But I was not being conscious about it. Rather, I was being “in service” to protect myself from getting in trouble for doing something for myself, and to protect myself from the risks of failure and making “wrong” choices. I think the official word for it is “co-dependent.”

It may seem silly to you, to fear “trouble” like it’s certain doom just for doing something for yourself, but when I was a young girl, making wrong choices was devastating, often resulting in physical violence, humiliation, forced isolation. In that unpredictable, volatile environment, I learned not to make choices for myself. I learned to spend every waking moment watching my step-father, trying to pre-empt the strike by cleaning up, hiding out, doing my homework. At that age, I was trapped in my house, and had no clue that I could do anything to escape. And that trapped feeling has prevailed throughout my life, showing up as self-sabotage, people-pleasing, denial and shame.

It’s lead me here – where I’m 35 and once again at a turning point, once again trying to find my life’s purpose, once again feeling that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me I can never really accomplish what I want to accomplish – I’ll just have to do something so I don’t financially implode. I am a singer and a songwriter, with deeply hidden aspirations of rock-stardom (don’t tell anyone). I am a jewelry designer, hoping to make millions with my one-of-a-kind designs. I am a teacher, facilitator and speaker, wanting to change the world by helping it feel and release its traumas and teaching it to communicate openly with itself and others. I am actually quite talented and damn creative when you look in from the outside.

But from here inside my fuzzy, prickly caterpillar skin, I cannot see my way through to the end of any of these dreams. I sit down to work on something and my mind splinters in a hundred directions, freezes, and then some old protection mechanism firmly directs me to FaceBook, or YouTube, or online video games that take my attention and numb the dread that arises when no one is telling me what I should do. At the end of a day like this, I feel worse than before. I don’t want to tell anyone what I did all day, being ashamed of it, and I feel further isolated and powerless. It’s a spiral downward, a place I’ve been stuck for so many years I can’t even
remember not being here. I hate it.

It’s no longer a place I can tolerate without committing suicide, and in the last ten years, I’ve finally made myself comfortable enough to start dissembling this place head on. So, starting sometime last August, I began tackling this particular tendency, this part of myself that keeps me from realizing my wants and goals. I am determined to understand it, heal it and move forward – with colorful butterfly wings.

The journey to the center of the black hole is heating up, and last week, in a healing session with my friend Scot MacInis, I slowed down enough to realize some very important points. We were talking on the phone, and he was directing me to notice what sensations were occurring in my body. I noticed some deep tension in my shoulders and neck, and in my gluts (that’s my tush, in case you were wondering). As he began talking me deeper into relaxation, I noticed some tension releasing, and for a moment I had a pinging sensation in my heart, like excitement or joy that I was moving. Immediately following that ping, I felt a crushing disappointment and started to cry. Scot kindly listened, instructing me to just let those feelings be there, with no judgment.

As I cried, I thought, “what is this?” and my mind responded, “It’s either grief or fear.”

“Which one?” I demanded.

“Fear. Fear that the second I have a moment of joy, you’re going to take it away from me, or I’m going to be in trouble.”

I told Scot what my mind was saying.

“How old is that fear?” he asked me, meaning, how old was I when I first felt it?

“Seven or Eight.” Actually I was 4 when I first felt traumatic fear, but 7 or 8 when I began to understand that no matter what I did, my joy would be fleeting, and in no time I’d be back, bent over my step-dad’s knee or feeling his hot disgusting windrush of breath yelling in my face, or his brick-like fingers poking me in the breast-plate, or his open iron hand across my cheeks. I think it was at that point that I became conscious that I was truly trapped. No exit. Destined to die here with no help. Better use all my energy to placate. Better not rock the boat with any of my own ideas.

"Okay, just let that feeling be there. Look at it like it's the coolest fear you've ever had" he said.

So I continued to sit there, and then another feeling gripped me. Rage. I saw this part of myself that was so intensely angry that I had suffered all this abuse. This was no surprise. I’ve seen this part before. She rears up all the time, actually. I’ve been intimately acquainted with my rage since moving out of my step-dad’s house at 13. But what was surprising was what she seemed to yell out inside my mind.

“I am so ineffective!” What? I’d never heard that before. Angry? Yes. Outraged! Yes. But ineffective? Hmmm.

“How old is that part?” Scot asked.

“I don’t know. Much more current. Could be 30. I mean, it could be 13 for all I know, but it’s definitely some part of me that arose after I moved out. “

And in that moment I saw something I had never seen before. This raging part of me, which, if you didn’t know, is like the shadow side of power and accomplishment – if you don’t allow them both to exist, you cannot fully have either - was frozen in ineffectiveness. None of my rage makes any difference. The damage is already done. I can’t go back and protect myself now. It’s over. I lost. I’d better just shut up and watch for what people want me to do so that I don’t get in trouble now. Better not show any of my power.

With this insight came the momentary triumph of self-discovery, inevitably followed by the flood of feelings about the amount of time I’ve spent locked up in this pattern of hating myself for being ineffective, but surrendering to the powerlessness anyway for fear of annihilation.
The next day in meditation I sank further into the hole. All the feelings of hopelessness, the desire for suicide or some kind of final relief from all this suffering, the feelings of powerlessness, fatigue, and dread that I’ve experienced so many times over the years consumed me. For three hours I wept, hid my face, and endeavored to let these feelings go. At the end of my meditation, when I usually feel some lightness, some sense that I’ve moved through something, I couldn’t pull myself together. Even after all the participants of the meditation got into a circle and shared their inspiring insights, I could not shake the darkness.

Even through the weekend till today, I am still feeling the fear, feeling the frozen dark nature of it, longing to escape.

Alas, I am in the cocoon.

I cannot just move through thirty years of patterns, emotions and loss in one three-hour meditation. One set of insights is not enough to release me and land me squarely in the middle of redemption. I am sitting here in the darkness, letting this part of myself be exposed, to slowly shed itself and reveal what’s underneath.

I do not like the cocoon.

But being in here is different than anything I’ve experienced before. You see, I know I’m in the cocoon. I know inside that something is transforming, developing, opening. Even though I still feel like a caterpillar, even though some small part of me still doesn’t believe that transformation is possible having never experienced it fully myself, yet I seem to have this consciousness of where I am, and that one day, hopefully soon, I’ll emerge as a new being.

And another thing that’s different – I’m not here alone. I’ve got people guiding me, like my partner Ben, who is also on this journey, my friend Scot, my meditation teachers and all the other healers in my life. I only know to make the cocoon in the first place because I have seen you do it, or felt your gentle hands guiding me there. So I beg of you butterflies, stay near. Let me feel the brush of your wings on my shell and whisper to me that I am emerging. Lend me your strength so I can continue this excruciating process in the darkness. Thank you for going before me.




To contact healers that work powerfully with this kind of spiritual, emotional development, e-mail me from the blogspot, or check out the following peeps:

Edward Scot MacInnis 303-.875.9446

Center for 21st Century Transformation (meditations) 800-454-1224 www.thecentersf.org