Going into the cave is CPR for the soul...
It has been over 3 years since I made a choice to go into the dark to know the unknown. I was pulled in like a tractor beam in full motion.
This sweet pull from life had been luring me since I was a child like a fish on a hook, one crank at a time, and man did I fight it….until I didn’t.
I attempted every trick in the book to ignore this gravitation from life.
I tried drinking, eating, sleeping, starving and exercising it away.
I tried saving others to distract me from it in the form of people pleasing. I used guilt and shame to drown out its signal.
I tried being pure entertainment in a box to make it laugh thinking it might lay off if I could distract it.
I went along with everyone else’s plans for me in my life because I knew if I was left to myself I couldn’t fight off the tractor beam, I knew the pull would win….and I wasn’t ready…. It might sound like this calling from life was painful or terrifying, like a bogeyman in the closet, but eventually, I learned it wasn’t.
I discovered this because it was this same pull from life that guided me through my sorrow and pain during tragedy and rock-bottoms.
It was the light in the dark that I didn’t choose to be in.
It was the soft pull that held me and kept me going when I was searching in the cold deep snow in North Dakota for 5 1/2 months looking for my missing cousin Dru. It was with me when I would look up to the sky to talk to her. It was with me in the lonely nights in the hotel and after a day of desperation handing out missing person flyers to people in a mall. It was with me during Dru’s trial in days of pure rage for all the pain and suffering in that courtroom in and in my heart. It was with me when I delivered my victim impact statement to the man that took her life.
It was with me when I begged to finally grieve this tragic loss because I couldn’t feel anything yet I HURT for everyone.
It was with me when I was immediately hit with a bolt of grief lightning that took me to my knees and I felt everything all at once. It remained with me while I was on the floor on for 3 days of panic attacks and sobbing my eyes out.
It was with me when I finally picked myself up off the ground…. It was with me when my heart was shattered by all the men that disappointed me. It was with me when I fell in Love with a man that saw through all my bullshit tactics because he knew them for himself. It was with me when we collided in Love and it shattered our protective barriers so the real people underneath started showing through. It was with me when we both gave up one of our biggest crutches, drinking….
It was with me when people didn’t understand my life choices and who I was becoming.
When life shakes you it also shakes off anything that ISN’T you..
The things you used to hide under can’t stick anymore. The protective armor that you didn’t even fully know you were wearing disappears…… and you are left with YOU…. only YOU
Who are you without the things you once identified with?
Who are you without your distractions?
Who are you without your crutches, the tragedies in your life or the struggle?
Who are you without your success, family, and intimate relationships?
Who are you without your job, money, vacations and fancy things?
Who are you without the title of sister, mother, daughter, aunt, cousin?
Who the hell are you????
That’s when the sweet pull of life shows itself once more but in a different shade of light, or is it dark?…
Now, instead of being afraid of being left to myself, I yearned for it. I yearned for the pull of life to take me deeper into the cave of the unknown. There wasn’t much left of myself that I could relate to so what did I have to lose? It was more painful to reside in this grey in-between area than the fear to enter into it.
This time around there was an intense curiosity that flowed through me and acted like a strong magnet to the familiar pull.
I willingly went into the holes of the cave where the things I thought I once was attempted to fill. Because as I have learned, and Barbra Taylor Brown said in her book Learning to Walk in the Dark, there is no such thing as filling a hole because it was never designed to be filled. It’s meant to be entered into….
The only thing that can enter the caverns of your heart is your willingness to explore the lessons that reside in them and the experiences you are meant to have to shape your life.
This is the only way to “fill” the holes, you have to go into the dark, it’s an act of faith and the same gravitational pull of life guides you through when you can’t see…
It’s the same guidance I felt during deaths, tragedies and rock-bottoms AND the extreme joys of life. It stays with you as you explore who you are in the dark AND in the light. You get a taste of truth in it’s rarest and most potent form and it never leaves you, it only gets stronger and so does your faith. I no longer fear myself, I no longer fear the unknown or the light. I don’t always like it, that is for sure, but that’s what baby steps are for.
I also know that whatever the sweet pull of life is guiding me towards is bringing me somewhere so I can feel even more alive and apart of something so beautiful there are no words for it. It’s never led me somewhere that I wasn’t meant to be. It’s only brought me to a deeper understanding of life.
The pull is serving you, always, even when you don’t choose to be where you are. Yes, horrible things happen in life, I’ve lived through them, and no I don’t know why they happen. But what I do know is that the resistance to healing the holes they create is what keeps you feeling empty, lost and in pain.
The only way to resurrect yourself when life shakes you to the core is to enter the cave. You need to explore, feel, express, and find the sparks of joy in life while you are spelunking.
The way out is always the same way you went in, like a labyrinth but with each step you are brought back deeper into a life of TRUE wholeness. The cave is CPR for your Soul… 📷 Janelle Sjodin- Spiritual Development Mentor- Aura-Soma Color Therapy Consultant Janelle specializes in guiding women to reclaim the authority of their spiritual nature by learning and trusting the language of their souls through mentoring, color therapy, community, and devotional practices. www.janellesjodin.com Unveiling She (Private Fb group for women) Janelle Sjodin Spiritual Mentor Fb page Janelle Sjodin Instagram janellesjodin@gmail.com