An Expert in My Field

Out of the Depths and into the Shallows, Out of the Shallows and Into the Depths

I’m endlessly curious about how we navigate in the midst of earthquake-sized changes. Big external changes change us and sometimes the new identities formed run slightly ahead. We may find ourselves playing catch-up to those new versions.

The new version of you may know things the previous you didn’t. Which can be disorienting for awhile and put you at odds with yourself.

It may process information differently, more efficiently; skipping steps the old you was used to. (But now I’m getting ahead.)

I lived in Northridge California during the earthquake there. A young mother of three at the time. The visceral shock of it - especially those first few moments of being thumped out of bed with a jolt and a roar, in the midst of a dream no less only to find myself catapulted into a nightmarish reality; surreally straddling two worlds and needing to attend quickly to the one that was moving furniture - impossibly - around the room; where little kids were screaming - my little kids! - down the hall; and sounds of glass shattering (from where?) could be heard in the background.

This sort of moment takes its toll.

As the days and nights right after the quake went on, and the aftershocks continued, I took to putting my kids to bed under the dining room table, while I slept on the living room couch, fully dressed with a flashlight in hand, and where they were in constant view.

I thought all of this was reasonable

A friend, realizing I wasn’t getting over that fateful morning (returning to my bedroom was returning to the scene of a crime) phoned my husband to say, I needed to be somewhere the ground wasn’t shaking.

I went to Arizona, stayed in Scottsdale, and had a brilliant idea. Why not live here? We bought a house.

A few months later, we moved in even though my ex still worked in LA. He would commute and be with us during the weekends.

I was a traumatized person and those around me nodded a lot and simply went a long with my ideas. (Just keep the crazy person happy, I guess.)

Arizona was a needed break. It was good to live where the sky, rather than the ground, was the main focus. I don’t know how a sky can be bigger in one place vs another, but there it is. Arizona skies go on forever and provide for glorious displays and this was welcome.

The external quake and the wreckage it created was mirrored internally in me. It took me some time - and help from an extraordinary Aunt - to recover myself. The underpinnings of me, let’s say, had already been loosened a bit prior to the quake, (as she put it) via some thread-pulling, and in that less than tightly knit state, a good whack was all that was needed to send the whole self-system flying to bits.

With her guidance, I revisited in my mind, night after night, the earthquake and what unfolded, until my body no longer reacted in fear. We were getting the trauma out of my very cells. It took close to a year. When it was done - meaning I could review the events without any trace of trauma - I was ready to move back.

Looking back, I see how that experience partly informed my current understanding of identity; its fluid and complex nature; its vulnerabilities and deeper aspects and how, paradoxically, as we figure out how to live in this fabricated world, we can assume identities while losing sight of ourselves.

When the more superficial aspects of ‘self’ are cut loose from its moors - it’s unsettling - something deeper becomes accessible. It moves forward. That you that persists despite any storm. That you that abides, just fine, no matter what.

This is a process happening now in larger numbers. It’s a great opportunity though many identities will get snagged in the process, and attempt to hold on through the metaphorical earthquakes erupting.

The you holding on, isn’t you. Not really. It’s an identity that was assumed in order adapt to a world, which in part, wasn’t real either.

It’s almost funny. No, actually, it is funny in an unfunny sort of way.

I don’t know - by any means - everything about myself, or any self for that matter. But I know me better than anyone else and this is how I came to be an expert.

And of course, I’m talking about all aspects of me - physical, emotional, mental, spiritual - and the larger personal - teaming with energy - bio-field these exist in. Which we can easily feel. (You know when someone is in your space, without having to see them.)

I’m an expert then, in my field.

All this to say, given the tyrannical reach and grip TPTWB have extended and increasing add pressure to - if we do no take a stand - in our own selves and our own fields - this force will be happy to take it from you.

In this terrain, this shedding of a false world and its narratives, we can expect that some of our previous identities - adopted in order to adapt - will be in upheaval. Some will try to cling to that old world but ultimately they will need to be let go of.

It’s uncomfortable but good. As they fall away, the more essential you takes deeper root. The you you can rely on. It’s not going anywhere - even if everything else does.

We don’t often reflect on the deep mystery of existence itself. (There is so much to stay on top of in a collapsing world.)

But Mystery it is. Where did we come from? Out of what depths does life spring forth from?

I don’t know, but out of these depths we found ourselves born into the shallows of a superficial, manufactured world. A world stripped down to commoditized parts, devoid of mystery. A world that demands we conform to it, requiring us to become smaller and smaller versions in the process. False paradigms keep us arguing and boxed in to endless dead-ends. False narratives - beyond ridiculous - now even include telling us carbon itself is the problem, meaning carbon-based life-forms are the problem.

Meaning, we are the problem.

In an inverted world that actually means we are the solution.

We are in an extraordinary moment.

Because while we came out of the depths of existence itself and adapted to these shallows, we are now shedding that superficial landscape and reclaiming those depths.

Wow.

The opportunity in this challenge is almost inconceivable. You may find you want to shrink back into an earlier, smaller version of you. One you know better. One that feels safer.

Don’t.

Step forward into the unknown you and the unknown world it belongs to. (This is why we’re here right now.)

You. Me. The world.

Old versions leaving.

Better, real versions, coming in.

It’s a great time to be alive.

Thanks for reading.

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