When I think about these waters there are three things that immediately come to my mind: it was the time when I started a solo entrepreneurship project for the first time; I went to Colombia in December to spend Christmas and New Year’s with my parents after 10 years of living abroad; and I met the person who turned out to be my best ally.
All of this was part of that period in which things continued to improve from every angle, and I was always learning. I was finally hearing back from old contacts for new projects both in the theater and in the audiovisual fields, my creativity was flowing and I felt stimulated, my family and friends were doing well, and I felt that I had more and more clarity about the path ahead of me. I also felt that there was a greater force guiding and protecting me: everything was going well, everything was flowing, because I was doing things right.
Never would I have imagined everything that came next. It’s often breathtaking how a significant change really happens in an instant, we tend to think that big things take a long time and that results can only be seen over the years. But in the end, all it takes is an instant, a choice, an action, a moment in which we say yes, I accept, or no more, or the moment in which someone stops speaking, and in which the silence gets through and into our bones worse than the cold of winter.
In just one summer everything changed its rhythm and tone, a summer where She needed me, because her world had suddenly changed and, inevitably, so had mine. When her world had become floorless, as she used to tell me, and my insecurities crossed her own. Our shadows met and intertwined, perhaps for the first time, and then things no longer felt easy or fluid. The waters began to stir and seemed to drown us in our attempts to communicate, to connect. Every attempt to get closer to her seemed to generate the opposite effect, as if I was swimming towards the shore yet each stroke was taking me towards deeper and deeper the bottom instead.
Something was not right and that frightened me. Had I perhaps made a false step? But where, or when?
We come, finally, to the real point of this writing dear reader, to the real picture of these turbulent and precious waters. In the past I had fled, I had closed any relationship or situation when I felt that it was not flowing, thinking that it simply did not follow the harmonic flow, and therefore was not meant to be. Like in those ancient myths and tales where the characters suffer and nothing goes right for them because they have stepped out of their role or are trying to navigate a path that does not truly belong to them. Likewise, I would have changed my course on my own, until I found someone else or other fellow travelers with a new goal.
This time I almost gave in to that habit, almost. This time it was different, thanks to Her, and thanks to a voice inside me that resonated with her, trying to cry out stifled stay!. Until I could finally see. I realized that what appeared to be toxic storms, were actually a dance between our shadows, and it was precisely from there that we got the tools to build our life, the foundations of our relationship, to build the fertile ground where to face our wounds together. It was not easy, nor did I have this awareness or clarity back then. There were differences, there were moments of distance and feelings of abandonment. And I am grateful for it all, I am grateful to Her as well as to myself for having done things differently. Because thanks to these events I began to see all things with different eyes, as if with a clean look and a deeper perception. I realized that by looking so intensely for that flow in every event or relationship, I was losing sight of myself. Because, in this regard, the feeling of fluidity became more important than the experience itself, as if the priority was to keep me on a path that always felt harmonious, where everything simply fits.
In a context that often trains our minds to focus on results, I have always deeply believed that it is crucial to enjoy the path without obsessing only about the destination. These waters helped me to understand that it is also fundamental not to get fixated on a path that always adheres to our concept of harmony or flow, because in my case this began to form an extreme comfort zone. With this mentality, without realizing it, I was giving up my Power and condemning my own Strength.
By assuming that a sense of flow and ease means that a divine entity connects with me, thus I am able to manifest, I am subordinating my own desires and goals to this new and subtle concept of Good by seeking a certain cosmic approval. Because, according to this logic, only with said approval do things flow, and it is then that we feel great and acquire the closest thing to a contemporary super power. In this case we are allowing this dynamic to determine our actions and decisions, and at the same time to lead us to condemn difficulties and idealize comfort. For anything that requires an effort that seems uncomfortable, or requires a movement that falls outside of our definition of harmony, ends up being considered toxic, that is not meant to be, because we are forcing things and should just let go.
Fortunately, I travel on deep waters, the kind which we can explore in their infinite richness, and which invite me to choose clearly and to hold on tightly to what I love, because they are not still.
I wanted to focus on the role that my relationship with Her played in this great process because, although there were other adversities that made me question myself, friendships that I said goodbye to and irregular work experiences, I feel it was the main accelerator of many movements that all led me to this same conclusion.
I identified and freed myself from old patterns through my actions and choices. It was not and is not something that happens overnight, because it is not about changing or fixing something once, it is about choosing every day: choosing every moment, without fear or ambiguity, instead of passively living the consequences of our past decisions.
Thank you, dear reader, for joining me in this story, for which I took more space than I had anticipated.
I wish you never to give up your power and strength, your free will only in the face of apparent flux.
Originally written in: Spanish
Daniel Vincenzo Papa De Dios
