LETTER FROM A SISTER ON THE PATH

I am posting a letter from a friend this time around. It is the most honest writing I have read in some time. And it points to an authentic place where true inner work can begin and take hold: our ego on its knees - most else is posturing and hiding under the false guise of doing spiritual work.

A,

I was chanting today and it has stirred up some interesting emotions as it always does. Chanting has a very clear way of cutting through to the heart, I guess that’s why I love it so much...

Anyhow, I have hit a very important wall...

A wall that for so long I thought I could “work away” or “fix away” or “diet away” or “fast away” or “forum away” or “travel away” from, but I know that trying to fix something on the outside, hoping for a lasting shift on the inside, doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because I’ve tried it, I’ve pretty much tried every external way I know how, to fix these feelings/to fix myself, except becoming a raging alcoholic or drug addict, which really isn’t any different from starving yourself, except for the fact that starving yourself seems to be “in” these days. And I’m over trying to get away from these feelings of inadequacy, fear, and judgment, the ones that drive me to overcompensate and fill my plate and overwhelm myself with tasks in order to avoid going into the depths of these emotions. I want to look at them head-on, no crutches...

To tell you the truth, I am just so tired of trying to change my external reality hoping that it will shift the inner, and I know that “the next thing” is not going to be “the thing” to make that shift happen... I see that the shift I am looking for will come from the inside, if it is to have a lasting impact it has to, and that is scary because I have to let go of my crutches, and I have to finally go to the place I sometimes write about, but avoid going all the way… 

I am ready to know my shadow, and I am ready to make friends with it and try to understand what/why I have been trying to get rid of it for so long. It is hard for me to reach out for help because I am geared to do things alone, but I am ready and I will do whatever it takes because that’s what I am here to do, to heal this shit. I want to go all the way into the wounds; I want to stop bandaging them up.