The Deep, Beautiful Depths of Truth

Fairy pool adventuring, Haga Haga, South Africa

It was late. I’d switched off my devices and hunkered down, ready for sleep. My body had other ideas, though. I was coursing with energy and my brain was ticking over. I knew I needed to capture this moment so I flipped open my laptop and this is what poured out:

“I just watched the replay and suddenly feel so alive and keenly aware. As though I’ve been walking through life as a zombie and, suddenly, I’ve been plunged into alive awakeness - the deep beautiful depths of truth. Or perhaps, it was that I was drowning, and have now finally taken a big gasp of fresh, life-giving breath.

I am so desperately tired of the ways I move through life so distracted, avoidant, masked and numb. So muffled, so unclear, so fuzzy. It’s hard to hear anything when you’re essentially drowning underwater. In that session it was like I popped above the surface, where the sky is crispy blue, the sun is shimmering and the air is perfectly still, clean, clear, crisp, peaceful. And true.

Is this what being alive truly feels like? I know I will fall into the depths again. I will fall victim to the desperate, filthy, depraved, soul-sucking screens and fake conversations and sliding doors. I will crave the distraction. But I will hold onto this moment. Perhaps that’s what this life is. Spending each day searching, reaching, stretching towards that aliveness, that truth, that presence. That seems a pretty worthy thing to reach for.”

The reply I’d watched was with Nici Harrison, of The Grief Space, during one of my online Roundhouse Council’s from the Deepen Your Roots course. We explored France’s Weller’s 5 gates of grief'. I witnessed others expressing their pain and, quite frankly, I don’t know what happened next…it was like a portal opened up or a veil was lifted. I was transported somewhere I’d never been before. And it felt extraordinary.

I am an apprentice to grief. I can’t yet speak on it with any authority, but, I am learning that we will not be able to heal the world without feeling its pain. We will not be able to heal ourselves without reaching into our deep, dark depths, touching the places we so often suppress and ignore. Without falling into the hellish pits of anguish, sorrow and heartache, we simply cannot rise to feel the heights of love, gratitude and reverence. We must stretch our capacity to feel.

Grief is a doorway into a more alive version of ourselves; a more alive life. I have now felt this in my being, and know it to be true. I wanted to share it with you in case it inspires you to feel more alive too x