I’ve had a long relationship with depression, addiction, and mental health struggles that continue to present themselves throughout my life. These issues, while truly devastating at times, have been constant teachers, refining my worldview and birthing realizations that continue to heighten my awareness and shape my compassion for the world. The teachings of mental health struggles are hard-won and emerge within my healing process as medicine that I can integrate into my life and even offer to others. It helps sometimes to remember that the lessons I often suffer alone are not only for me, but can be offered as a gift to others who face similar struggles. It’s so much better when we don’t go at it alone. In this way, the lesson becomes another vital tincture in my living apothecary.
Over this past winter, I experienced some overwhelming mental challenges which brought with them an acute awareness of the split I suffer between my mind and body. I won’t go into the details of what this particular episode looked like for me here, but I will say that through my attempts to recover from it, I began to cultivate more awareness of my mind’s incessant attempts to dominate and control my body—to override her signals and needs again and again.
The emergence of more language regarding trauma within the collective discourse these days helps provide me with some compassionate understanding for this unconscious fragmentation. I can see how this impulse of my mind to maintain control over my body is an innocent attempt to protect me from further wounding, yet is causing a fracture within my being that I cannot live with anymore. Its service has expired.
I couldn’t hold onto much when I was in this state of mental breakdown and dropped a lot of my work. I sought to climb my way out of that dark hole by listening to my desire to be with the ocean. I went to the beloved sea. I watched the sunset over the water every night without fail for three months, and I swam in those ocean waters nearly every day. It’s not lost on me how much privilege I have to be able to do this. I am blessed to have choices available to me. This is a good reminder for me to be grateful, even in the midst of deep darkness and confusion. It could always be worse.
The following is a little snapshot of a lesson that I am continuing to receive from my most recent time with those living ocean waters:
My ritual is to enter the ocean daily. Before I enter, I first read the water for a long time as I stretch my body. I study the surface, the wind, the currents, the swell, the tides, the light. Then I make offerings of kava and song to the waters. I praise and thank the Gods for allowing me the privilege of being in their presence for another day. I address the Ocean Mother as a Goddess and an Ancestor. I thank Her for allowing me to enter Her sacred waters—for allowing me to move, to find my flow in her flow, and for allowing me to find my body’s authentic expression in her embrace. I ask her for protection and for the ability to receive the healing that she offers me. I honor the Ancestors of this place, as well as my own blood Ancestors, and then I enter.
Today, swimming in the open ocean, I entered the water with a typical sense of how far I would go. I began with the usual allotment of mind chatter: The persistent counting of my strokes and breath. The fears that bubble up when faced with the water’s immensity and the many unknowns that can arise from the ocean’s wild depths.
I swam with a sense of hyper-vigilance for quite some time until I began to find my stride. Bit-by-bit my fears settled and my mind loosened its grip upon my body. I became present and intricately aware as I started to feel the endorphins flood in.
Mid-swim I made the decision to double-down and keep going beyond my intended distance. It was: stop now, or continue and be in it for twice as long. It was a challenging distance to go, but I didn’t want to abandon this experience my body was beginning to have. I kept on. And then, during the last 1/4 of my swim I heard a voice say, “Now let go—all the way”.
So I did. I let go. Something about the rhythm and repetition that assured my mind that it was ok to stop fighting. I was suddenly able to let my body move without any input from my mind. My body was completely free to flow with the water—to be wild. I found flow!
The freedom I felt was unspeakable. I was completely free from my mental pain for the first time in months.
I recognized with full visceral knowing that this experience of flow is, without a doubt, the safest sensation I know. When my body and my emotions can FLOW without any mind control being laid on top of my experience, I am safe.
And something beautiful happens to my mind when it lets go: It becomes enraptured and in awe as the lover and observer. No critic, no drill sergeant, no fear, no doubt, no morals, no agenda, no need to be somebody special, or to save the world, or change anything at all. A full acceptance of the moment. A lover of life. Just as it is.
The split dissolves into a state of connection and ecstasy. Ex- to be out of; to be free from stasis- the stoppage of circulation; immobility; stagnation.
From hyper vigilance to presence. Breath. Movement. Rhythm. Love. Rapture.
One breath towards the expanse of the ocean. One breath towards the mountain. Again and again.
Mauka. Makai. Mauka. Makai. Mauka. Makai.
Flow is my freedom.
Flow is my safety.
Artwork: Finding Flow by Cameron Brooks
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