On Exhaustion (thebookofbrig 080617)
Dear Love,
Sometimes it gets heavy. My feet hurt. My joints ache. My temples pound. My patience wears thin. My strength wains. My sight blurs. My breathing shallows. My interest gets lost. My mission obscures. My ability to feel God in me numbs. And I just want to collapse into a puddle and cry my eyes out.
Sometimes the voices in my head tell me that all of the work I'm doing doesn't matter. That no one is listening. That I don't have the authority. That what I have to say isn't compelling enough...
...because the world keeps turning and in the peak of my exhaustion nothing good ever seems possible. All imagination leaves me. My world gets dark. I don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to keep even a modicum of basic commitments to myself. Nothing feels good. Nothing tastes fine. Sounds grate on my nerves. Everything has a faint stench of death. And everything in me wants to just surrender to these things as if they are inevitable.
“As magnificently creative and imaginative as I can be in ways that raise me, I am equally as creative and imaginative in ways that descend me into that abyss.”
But all of this is like a hologram in my head. It's real dynamic in there. A real demonstration of the Hermetic Principle of Rhythm goes down in my mind. As magnificently creative and imaginative as I can be in ways that raise me, I am equally as creative and imaginative in ways that descend me into that abyss.
This is not a cry for help. No advice please. Do not indulge your urge to fix it. I'm not broken. I'm a whole being, both Human and Divine. There is nothing to fix. And I'm not crying for help. I'm sharing in the hopes that some of you can relate to these parts that most people try to hide out of shame and self-loathing. I do not loathe myself.
There was a time in my life when I lived there in those dark caves and had no idea that there was any other option. Or even that there could be beauty there which I was sent there to pick up and bring with me into the light.
But I am an expression of God. I know even when I do not know. I am infinite. I am everywhere. I am all powerful. And I'm so grateful for the lessons I have learned regarding sensation. I know that when my body feels heavy and my mind can't quite shake the blues, that there are things to be done in the shadows. When the perception of exhaustion and overwhelm show up, it's time for me to slow down, and do some work in the places that don't often see the light of day, and upon which eyes seldom lay. And I do my work. Sometimes that work is just simply a practice of stillness. Sometimes it's a moment of reconsideration. Sometimes it's a deliberate shift in direction. Sometimes it's internal housekeeping to keep God flowing through me unobstructed.
Sometimes I want to quit. But I get over it.