The liver and the waterfall — 80/100

I was meditating the other day and I came across something interesting. I’m going to share about it.

I’d been feeling pain in my right upper back. It’s nothing big, nothing debilitating. But it’s been there. Just chilling.

During meditation, I felt moved to ask what it was. I’m in a place where I’m beginning to understand that everything is connected — the physical, spiritual, and emotional. I think our lives ail when we don’t understand that and compartmentalize ourselves. Anyway.

I asked the universe / God what the pain was, where it was coming from. I didn’t get an answer or feeling.

But in my mind, I did see — or imagine? — a hand reaching down and removing something from my right upper back. It pulled out something that looked like… a liver? I am no med student so I have no idea lol. The thing was black, it looked like it was covered in tar.

Well, that’s lovely.

I continued with my eyes closed. The hand then took the liver thing to a waterfall — I don’t where that came from, don’t ask lol. It held the liver thing under the water. The water seemed to wash away the gunk, giving way to a gray rock underneath. It was streaked with shimmering color.

I think I made it sound prettier than it was haha. But it was definitely better-looking than with the black stuff on it. The hand continued to hold it under the water and the thing eventually got lighter and lighter and lighter… until it turned… clear. Lol. What the hell is this shenanigans.

And it looked halfway decent. Like it was no longer this dirty thing and no longer a gray rock. Cool.

So what the hell did this all mean?

For me, I connected it with something my friend, Stef, brought up the day before. In a phone conversation, she mentioned that all the things I deny about myself are true. Things like me being creative, artistic, and spiritually sensitive.

[Personal disclaimer — I feel super vulnerable sharing about this because I’ve just never talked about stuff like this before. But there’s always a first lol.]

I don’t know why, but I’ve always seen myself as mediocre, normal, regular, blah. Not in a bad way. I just felt that I wasn’t that great at many things, even though I know I’m not. I just felt that way, and it dictated a lot of what I thought about myself. It dictated the way I lived my life.

Because if I didn’t think I was creative, I wouldn’t move in any direction that I thought would require me to use my creativity. I would run from it because I’d be afraid it would expose how uncreative I was. Same with being artistic and spiritually sensitive.

But I realized, this denial is detrimental. If I don’t own what I am, I am putting a perfectly healthy body in a cast, disabling it from functioning the way it truly was created to, the way it naturally wants to.

How sad is that?

Very. It’s such an easy thing to do — deny it, even brush it off in “humility”. You do it once and again and again and don’t realize what’s happening.

What’s happening is a perpetual death of the self. It’s the withering of a soul yearning to be released in its fullness, in its perfection, in its glory, beauty, and freedom. It’s the deflating of the heart yearning to know the happiness of expression and experience.

It’s the caging of a being meant to roam and soar and explore. It’s a massive tragedy.

I used to hide the denial behind humility. I don’t blame myself too much for that — some of it was the effect of the culture I was raised in. But hearing Stef and seeing the vision of the liver or whatever it is makes me realize that something needs to shift. It seemed like her words and my acceptance were the waterfall, allowing the clear rock to surface and be appreciated for what it is.

I don’t want to live my life bullshitting myself and others. I’m not trying to get recognition or anything. I just want to accept myself. I want to stop judging myself. I want to stop limiting myself. I want to free myself to be, to create, to express, to feel, to know and experience myself in new ways.

So I will.

Grace, you are creative, artistic, and spiritually sensitive. Now, go and turn shit up.

What part of you have you been keeping behind the door of denial? What part is just waiting to show up? What part of you is hungry for acceptance? Will you turn to yourself and give yourself compassion?

Originally published at gracejyk.com on August 27, 2017.