Getting on the same page.

Hemostasis Phase
In the time that I've been away, I noticed that I've been running from something. Facing up to who I'm capable of being was simple enough when it was to see the brighter side of things.

But it'd become more about staring into the abyss, the parts that I could see were still dark now that the light was shining on them.

In the time that I've been away, I learned how to process fear.

There was a time when it had gotten all too easy to use the Loft as an escapist tool - I'd have an idea, say some words, be an optimist about it and start over. For a few hours a week, I could get away from the real issues and spread positivity to the few I write for.

But I felt divorced from my own writing, and each new post drew me further away from myself. Beyond the chattering activity of my mind's renewal was the hallow sound of a much darker place that I was poorly prepared look into, so I stayed in the light and let it blind me so I wouldn't have to see what was waiting for me.

It worked for a while - I ran about like the bouncing, brilliant, buddy-bud-bud that I am; demonstrating my spiritual dexterity and operating as a placeholder for what happens to people when they grow from traumatic events.

Inflammatory Phase
A question haunted me for weeks after: what happens after post-traumatic growth? When the laughs have run out and the smiles are finished, what happens? Is the plan to be this ball of energy that lives cyclically between recharging and depletion? Is there, seriously, no way to curb or eliminate this existential terror?

So I took a step back, and had moments where I was threatened by fits of suffocating panic and impending doom... you know, the usual.

I'd gotten so frustrated with pretending like change is something I naturally move with. I miss the way things were, I miss the bits and pieces of the life I had a year ago, and the year before that. I've spent a lot time using ''being healthy'' to dodge the real issue - emptiness.

But what would it mean, facing up to that only now? After all this time... it might have, very well, invalidated all the work I've done within myself and the very existence of the blog before you today.

No pressure, right?

So I slept, literally, on the fear and once I did, my mind's door revolved me into a room where three young men were seated, exchanging ideas at a table. I could see them, but they couldn't see me. They all had something extraordinary and unique about them but, somehow, they all felt like the same person as if they'd grown up separately but similarly.

There was one with a composed, stable energy - calm and collected. His speech was as rhythmic as it was thought-out. He had an air of confidence about him, like he'd maintained a consistent sense of self throughout his life. Even if things weren't easy, he could keep himself as free as a cool breeze. His detached demeanour, though, was the same reason he was absent and unmoved. That's the trap he couldn't escape; when things needed to get personal, he couldn't bring himself back to be in the thick of reality.

There was one with this bright, surging social competence about him - as if he was bursting to jump face first into any conversation and just connect with people. The space around him felt warm, like the sun could only be shining wherever he was. It looked like it was always day time for him. But as the conversation evolved, his vibrancy became anxiety. He had the energy and the presence, sure, but that's why he made everything his own problem and he'd divaricate himself all the more for it because he thought he could handle it alone, like he's been conditioned to think.

 

There was one with a fiery passion, a determination to accomplish things. With him, a solution was needed as urgently as the problem emerged. It seemed to me like he could only be one of two people: focused or impatient. Something about him spoke familiarity with failure, imagined or otherwise. I began to wonder if he was so driven from a spirit of genuine motivation, or a fear being seen as incompetent.

It was only when I woke up that I realised that those three young men were, are, me. They represented the aspects of my character that I've seen naturally emerge throughout my arc, the aspects that have managed to stay intact despite my identity-shattering experiences.

Proliferative Phase
So I finally looked beyond the chattering activity of my mind's renewal, into the void I was avoiding.

It was still me, but in torment. I couldn't, for the life of me, begin to understand why because I was healing, right? I was doing better, right? I was getting back on top of things, right?

I was, still am. See, it took more strength than I even had to finally be true to my personal trinity but that's exactly where I found the courage to take my present healing into my past hurt.

My dream became a group therapy session where the parts of my spirit that had healed embraced the part of me that was still in pain, still trying to process the trauma. Since last year, everyone has managed to admit that a terrible thing had been done to me, but I never really admitted that to myself beyond the knowledge of it. 

I figured it out quite late, but I always say that a relationship will fail if there's a person unwilling to make it work, and I keep saying it in the context of two people being together. I had the shock of a daytime when I brought it down to me being with myself.

I was willing to make things work with another person, but where was that same energy when it came down to making things work with myself?

Regardless of the circumstance, no one can take away the feeling of being replaced when people come and go as they wish. Even if they say or mean that they didn't want to leave you feeling that way, the truth is you do and that's what they did.

But the strange thing is, I was still there and I could be there for myself.

Throughout my years being a little more like this or a bit too much like that, my greatest challenge has been to get my... ''selves'' all on the same page. Finding balance is an idea that gets thrown around a lot, but it's more essential than it's given credit for.

Maturation Phase

For years, I'd seen things as they happened to me as a person in day-to-day, but then I started looking at them as they happened for me as a character in a story.

As a plot device, the trauma of being detached from someone so close, for relatively dispassionate and obscure reasons, presents a potentially unique opportunity that allows the character to look beyond the superficial realm of personal improvement and genuinely introspect.

The problem with this, though, is that the sudden introduction of a tonal shift this drastic may trigger a cataclysmic failure of, not only the character's sense of self, but their belief in anything... for anything in the future.

Characters go through things like that all the time, but the cornerstone moment is always defined by their choice. Every conceivable answer I could find all pointed to one thing: the choice is yours.

I didn't like that too much because it revealed me as the one who fell and chose to stay down, which just made things even harder.

To what end was I suffering? How much longer until life suddenly has a mood swing, and decides to give me a break? What's the alternative? Do I even have one? How much better is it than the one and only hope I have of finally having the strength to live abundantly?

Things had to shift - I gave up my heart of stone for a heart of flesh so bravery could displace my fears and I learned how to set my affections on things above so truth could displace false evidence.

But the winner-winner is the moment-to-moment meditation of thinking toward things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and commendable - learning to abide in the transformation so I can be healthy and wholesome.

It's been a year, and it shows.

Grace and peace, bud. :)

Coolest regards,
- Your Friendly Neighbourhood Kenji