a light was briefly shining..
Recapturing energies – the act of harnessing self and eradicating negativity – from a few years back is hard. But it is not impossible. However, to do so, I must learn to shake loose of some worrisome traits and characteristics.
I run across memories that include the writings of 2014 and 2015 – a few years that were crucial to me in terms of personal growth, recovery, and direction that would (hopefully) cement the later part of my life, from turning 50 years of age on. These writings are greatly inspirational, show the evolvement of a broken man and crushed soul into a previously unseen beacon of light that I actually enjoyed embodying and “becoming”. It was something that I KNEW was inside of me, and the steps that I had to go through to find that person were difficult, to say the least. I wrote about them openly and freely, and hoped at the time, that the words and experiences I shared would reach out to other broken souls with hope and inspiration that if anyone else had gone through similar times, they would find a new voice and a new strength within themselves to step up and out of their own pain.
I was immediately rewarded with some very passionate letters of thanks; some quite detailed and some reserved, but they all gave examples of lives hurt by others in horrible ways – some by abuse, some even by rape, some by drugs, some by alcohol, directly and indirectly and some things that I would never wish on the worst of enemies. And, some of these people carried around this pain for many years just as I had done.
My main vehicle to channel my own feelings was to start working on an album of original music, and I tackled the hardest subject first. In “No, Father”, a song about child abuse, there is a line that says “Now 30 years it takes to make my prison break; you didn’t kill me but you took my life.”. There are several truths there. I carried an ever-increasing burden of stress for three decades to the point where it was literally affecting my physical health. When I let it go, finally, with therapy and direction, I began to heal. But it was not without a cost. Three decades is a lifetime for sure and time that is never truly regained. I realize now that my journey did not stop there. The growth must be continual. Even in positive growth, there is pain. There was perhaps some undealt-with bitterness about that, especially when “Where do I go from here?” was not easily answered.
That “question” got further muddled by some very confusing and extremely unexpected and hurtful words from someone very important to me and then a life-altering event for my immediate family living in Dallas in the form of a tornado that wiped out their lives, and I found the ability to continue ‘self-work’ had disappeared completely. There were so many “things” to pay attention to, compounded with the fact that my sister had just passed 2 years before this event, and everyone was still spinning from that and sorting out and discovering their own feelings regarding that…I believe that I just became something else… nothing like what I had been aiming toward, nothing of what I’d been dreaming about, or working on, and I believe subconsciously was convinced that everyone close to me would be exiting my life. That particular feeling was a sure carry over from the past and it began to show its actual presence again by three very important figures in my life passing away within a few years of each other; two very very close 35+ year friends and a dear dear cousin the same age as myself… I can see now that those losses put that “new” me back in a corner and “child me” back in the focus, forefront, front burner….and much in control.
I find that I live in a different type of immediacy than most people; I also trust folks far too quickly for what the world is these days and think that they somehow know my past, my journey, and are understanding of it. It’s taken some refocusing time to realize that isn’t the case. I should not blame anyone for that. I acknowledge that I fully wear my heart out on my sleeve and that is something I’m working on – although I will note that it is a very common attribute of creative artists. I didn’t say it was ideal, but it is common. Couple that with a high level of empathy and absorbing the emotions of those around me on a regular basis, well, I think you can see that overloads are pretty much unavoidable. Trust me, I “handle” it much better these days than a decade ago.
When Covid-19 took over pretty much everything, I honestly had a night sitting on my front porch in which I was tearful, thinking that the beginning of a new apocalyptic world was here. Thankfully, a year and 2 months after that onset, we’re on the road to better days with a vaccine and things opening up. But a lot has changed and people are part of that change..there is now a reservation of closeness, a new and additional wall that is up regardless of how open someone may appear as if an internal “need to protect” has been activated. There is also a strange level of defiance from a certain portion of the adult population – especially displayed online – that I’m actually disappointed in as if those who were online bullies before have been strengthened over the last year in all manners of “not going to” and a show of bravura that is simply useless in society and communication. It was present before Covid; it’s prevalent now and sometimes offered nearly with an “I dare you to comment”, etc., and I find that just a waste of time.
The result of all these things, at least in my world, has been a drop in my self-confidence which had risen so high before, a return of the constant self-doubt that infiltrated every thought and action in the past, and a constant worry that I’m no longer liked by people. That last one… well, just as a person it’s bad enough to carry that around in your head, but as an entertainer, it’s a double whammy. For me, and the way my mind works, it becomes a tick that burrows into my brain and doesn’t stop. I find myself constantly worried now about the amount of talking I do, what I talk about, what people think of me when we meet, and more so when they walk away. I don’t know why it became such an issue, but it did. I try to explain to friends/people that if I am talking with someone, it is because I like them – and enjoy the conversation. I’m a fairly intelligent guy and can discuss just about most things and I feel that in conversations with people, at some point, someone is going to say something that will be a huge help or key to the other – perhaps shedding light and help on something that they hadn’t thought of in a certain way. That can be life-changing. I talk at friendly levels and feel that I am genuine when I do engage. I take people at face value, what they give in the conversation and sometimes I’m shocked to find that “the face” they presented in our conversations was just that; a facade and not the genuine article… and I’m always at a loss when that happens…especially when what I’ve offered up has been real. Was it not good enough to be met with the same? Are my expectations of human contact just unrealistic and therefore, too high?
This feeling continued stirring in me and I realized I needed to coordinate the answer into my ongoing spiritual search for answers. While spirituality could easily be a whole different and separate post, I will let it suffice to say that I have been looking for a church or organization that I could blend into and feel comfortable with, and I believe I’ve found one. I have only been one time, and will not be able to go for another two weekends now, but the first visit certainly created a stir within me that was calming and exciting at the same time, and began to answer a few of these questions.
I also feel strongly that I STILL have a message to give and that I have a purpose here to deliver it. I do feel that I’m currently not in the right “form” to give it, as I’ve let my weight and my health slip from where they were when I was in top form, and life was flowing the right way. I fully believe that there is a direct correlation between the body and the mind and the need for them to work in conjunction with each other for the soul to function properly. As we age, I feel that health and weight issues simply bog us down leaving us unable to realize potentials that we’d previously tapped into, and I feel strongly about this. Part of that is societal in nature as well, as I have been up & down between heavy & thin points physically three different times in my life (in major amounts) and the treatment that I receive from society in general when I am at my heavier weights is pretty brutal and rude; despite what talents I may be able to display and/or perform at the time. However, when I’m at my thinner weights, doors open up naturally and easily and the generalized treatment from people is usually pleasant and inviting. It’s very sad, but it’s unfortunately very very true. That factor is also part of my message, and it’s necessary for me to shed the extra pounds to relate that the way that I’d like to, and soon.
All of this is maybe just a reiteration to me that we’re never done with our journey until the very end; that we can never really let ourselves “relax” if we know in our hearts that we have not delivered. We can change focus for sure, but until that point, we feel in our hearts is driven home, we can’t give up. I have this strange “never give up” determination when it comes to my music and to a different extent, acting and other creative outlets. I must always have these in my life. However, when the negatives from the items above overflow and take over, sometimes for many many months at a time, the tiredness factor becomes more of a controlling factor, and I must learn how to get control back of the man I know I am because at too many times in recent years, I don’t like the man I see or hear as I should.
It involves reaching inside and directing that negative energy anywhere else but within yourself or loved ones. By doing so, you are left with your natural resonance and that is never a bad thing. In fact, that may be the big lesson in life – we have to learn to always find that centering point – for it truly affects every other thing we do in life, our very existence, our very being. Only when we balance on that centering point with ease, do the windows to the rest of the world and the rest of our journeys get revealed to us. And for that reason alone, the balance is worth the work to strive to achieve.