Shadowheart

For as long as I can remember, there had been this shadow around my heart.

I knew of its existence, and how it came to be. My life has presented many challenges, starting from a young age. I began exhibiting symptoms of Tourette’s Syndrome around age nine, and the disorder was wreaking havoc with my mind, body, emotions, and social life by puberty. I also lived with about fifteen years of physical and emotional abuse from a parental figure, from age four until escaping to college, at which time my mother and he finally separated.

This did not make for the easiest of childhoods. I was awkward, shy, full of self-doubt, and had little to no confidence in myself or my abilities. Thankfully, I had two strong role-models- a husband and wife that were my art teacher and my enrichment studies teacher at school, respectively. I am grateful for their unconditional positive regard, and that they pushed me to pursue my creative tendencies. Poetry, art, and music were my outlet, my escape from a reality with which I was ill-equipped to deal.

I frequently became angry and hurt when others didn’t meet my expectations. This was further complicated as I was often unrealistic in those expectations, expecting others to put my wishes and needs first, even though I rarely communicated these needs in a rational manner. Upon reflection, I could see that I had acted irrationally, but ‘in the moment’ I couldn’t control my emotions enough to stop and see the situation for what it was, and how I was contributing to the drama. I was completely caught up in my own self-created anger or hurt and would act out to try to avoid or deal with it.

Until recently, I have often identified myself with the shadow. My pain became my story. When I thought about the past, I would dwell on how unfair it was that I was abused, remember how badly I had been hurt, assign blame and try to figure out what I or others could have done differently. I obsessed over each tic and how others viewed me. I would cryptically allude to my childhood abuse, in the hopes that others would see how strong I’ve become, and infer what I must have gone through to overcome this pain.

The story I created was not always negative. I knew that my past had made me stronger. Because of it, I learned coping mechanisms, and taught myself to use the emotions to feed my creativity. Unfortunately, this also made the shadow that much harder to heal, or even want to. I had lived with it for so long and forged so much of my identity through it that I feared what would happen if it was no longer there. Would I lose my poetic voice? My artistic inspiration? Who would I be if not the shadow? I was afraid to find out. So I told myself that this was my lot, that art was fed with pain, and I was a better person for it.

This worked for many years, until someone unknowingly brought me face to face with myself, and I realized that the story I had created- one of a survivor who made it through tough times to emerge kinder, wiser, and more creative for it, was one that I could no longer keep up. I saw that I was still allowing my abuse, and therefore my abuser, to control my behaviors and attitudes, and something needed to change.

Meditation was the key.

I used to believe that one had to sit zazen each day to build an effective meditative practice and achieve awareness. I struggled to find the exercise that would finally bring the peace I sought. I tried every guided meditation to be found on YouTube, walked labyrinths, played alpha, beta, delta, and theta waves until my headphones fell apart- anything to break through and become the wise ol’ mystic that I wanted everyone to believe I was.

I finally found the break-through I was seeking when I read Eckhart Tolle’s ‘A New Earth’. The book was the catalyst for me to see that fighting is not the way to achieve inner peace. All I had to do to achieve awareness was… just be aware. Nothing more.

As often as occurs to me, I take a moment to foster clear awareness. I don’t sit lotus position for an hour each day or shut myself in my room for my daily meditation time. I meditate in my kitchen, while letting the dogs out, at work between conferences, on my breaks, while making dinner- any time I can safely do ‘nothing’, I gently guide my attention to my breathing, then take a moment to just be- no judgment or worry, just pure awareness of my surroundings, both outer and inner.

If there’s a mindset at all, it is one of slight curiosity. Not curiosity to the point of investigation. I’m not trying to learn something or figure something out, but just experience whatever’s in front of or inside of me.

For example, find somewhere safe and relatively peaceful and look at a tree. Look at the trunk, its texture and design. Is it large and gnarled, skinny and smooth? Notice how the branches grow- twisted or straight, up or out? Are there leaves? What colors are present? Is there any movement? Don’t judge the tree- just see it for how it exists. Accept that the tree is there for a reason, each branch grown out of necessity and design. In this acceptance lies that ability to see ourselves the same way. I became more able to view past hurts not with anger, but with an open curiosity. I could allow whatever emotions came up to just happen, and then view them with this same curiosity. I came to understand that the past cannot hurt you any more than you allow it to.

Curiosity is spirit’s driving force to understand itself. We free ourselves when we learn to foster a curiosity free of judgment and anxiety. Judgment is the past trying to take over the present. Anxiety is the future doing the same. You find a much more enriching present when you’re not weighed down by the past and the future. You become less your identity and ego, and more pure spirit. You see that life is our gift from the universe. We are here for a reason, although we don’t have to fixate on that reason, or even be conscious of it. The tree does not have a brain with neurons to allow it to understand its beauty. That does not make it any less beautiful. The tree just is. As we just are. We exist, and we find true peace when we see that existing is enough. The shadows lift, and we are left with the symphony of life surrounding us, begging us to play our part.

Of all the things I think I know

Of sun above and earth below,

I still see only with my eyes

If all I reap is all I sow.

Our breath, at times by thought disguised,

Is all the truth to realize.

Breathe in the light, breathe out the same,

The air is ours where wisdom lies.

The wind will rage, the moon will wane;

The darkness comes without a name.

Reclaim the night- the sun burns on!

With faith, tomorrow sees the same.

The path to truth is sometimes long

But to this moment we belong.

One breath may sing the truest song.

One breath may sing the truest song.

(C) Copyright M. R. Stover