Sigh… It’s overwhelming still. Processing all of what I did and didn’t experience during my guided Ketamine journey. Since my last post, I have spent countless hours journaling about it, talking with professionals and friends and just digesting. The power of the images and physical sensations are like nothing I have ever felt or experienced to date. The parts and pieces of my past and I psyche that I have re-opened and been able to re-examine have been incredible. I have some awareness of some things that had been feeding my inner-critic and toxic shame as well as some incredible new insights into love, connections and how I’ve damaged myself. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns, with awareness comes awareness of loss and sorrow, new grief and opportunity squandered or lost.
I’m not going to get into too many specific visions or paths I explored, as most are far too personal and involve people and places I love and care about deeply, those stories are mine alone, or maybe ours to share if you showed up. I started under water, swimming but able to breathe, it was dark and I don’t generally love the water, as I pushed through into waist deep trenches, eventually crawling through mud and emerging into the open. Pushes through the reeds and the grasses to meet my guide. The person, show gently took me by the hand to walk me from one opening to the next, eventually to a final place and leaving me there alone, to face and confront something that has eaten me alive for 30 years. The true root of my toxic shame, the strength and power of my inner critic, the absolute heart if my inability to love and forgive myself. In this place, I saw doors open and close, some old ways and paths severed forever, some rerouted with new objectives and new allies, and some new doors, terrifying and clear that they are now open, but I must step through them alone. My friends, my family, my loved ones, will be there on the other side. But these first steps are mine to endure, mine to embrace and mine to follow…
In this journey, I learned the true depth of the love I have for someone, the source of the connection, and the real pain of a broken heart and a severed connection.
I saw the doorway to learning self-love and self-forgiveness standing open, the path on the other side is scary and hard, but I must cut the lasso around my chest. The weight of shame I have been dragging, this door won’t let us pass through together.
I lament the loss of the guide. I have never felt so safe, so understood, so willing to surrender to another. Maybe they will find their way back, maybe they won’t, regardless I will hold space for the time we shared.
Lastly, the new road. I see now, my healing will continue as I learn to heal others, I see a void in our world, a place I can fill, part of my own redemption will come from giving others a soft place to land, a safe place without judgement or shame, simply a place to find and reattach the lost parts of themselves. It will take some time, some effort, but I see where this hard turn in life must take me.
Love to all of you, hope you spend this holiday season wherever and with whomever you desire. My house is sold, my life moved to a storage unit and the road ahead beckons. I’ll leave you with a quote from Viktor Frankl, that was shared with me this morning and really struck a chord:
“Et Lux in Tenebri Lucet” – …and the light shineth in the darkness
