Artful Dodger

  

there is weakness lurking in the hearts of all men, are you afraid to acknowledge yours? - blue exorcist

happy new yeaaaaaaaaar as I look over scenery that enveloped the beautiful night sky filled with whispers from the locals about their hopes & dreams. I felt I was gearing up for something but I wasn’t sure what. Once the ball got rolling there was no going back because very quickly it felt like one thing after another.

Thinking to myself when will I get a break because it felt brutal. Growth is when your circumstances and environment force you to break. A very excruciating evaluation follows, regarding what you haven’t faced due to the pressures & expectations of life.  

Often referred to as an initiation where you are forced to grow into a new version of yourself at the price of your old identity. Synonymous with the definition and it being the year of the dragon. The Chinese teaching that the dragon represents tremendous internal transformation. People left out that part and just focused on the shiny aspects of life that they can accumulate through "manifestation". Some of the things I unpacked so far felt like a ferocious internal spring clean which led to life sobering experiences.

 

‘lower beings tend to fear intimacy’ - young justice

 

I never caught this the first time I heard it. This time it encapsulated my purview with my dynamic on relationships. Those who love with their heart on their sleeves in my eyes are seen as the ones that are not afraid of themselves. Leaning into an emotion completely allows a person to surrender and subjugate the conditions and range of outcomes and messages that emotion can show you. Until I came to a cross road that I had to make the decision to not. the first thing you eat are emotions. 

How to be loved became prevalent in a situation and it made me question my vulnerability within myself. The situation was an unconscious mirror which made me face parts of myself that would have only come up in a environment that was deep enough to face the requisite of understanding my dynamic of relationships and how they developed over time. This showed in friendships and community. 

People are mirrors if you pay enough attention and I was shown how much I needed to release in order to receive more of myself. Having perfectionist tendencies spilled all over multiple areas of my life and helped me pinpoint it was the cause of the stagnancy I faced in myself.

My need for accumulating information got lost in translation. it was time to put it to practice and let tell you my strengths and setbacks were put to the test. Sounds silly saying out loud that there is no perfect way to be in a relationship and as I write this but it has put me on a path to free myself from what has kept me frozen for so long. 

- I felt fragmented when I tried to express my thoughts and the weight of emotions that were triggered by the circumstances. They put me through the process of having to confront the difficulty of being vulnerable and transparent with myself and people. as opposed to my factory setting of saying what I thought would be suitable to say. Those moments really showed me where the survival traits came from. Having to go through that was indescribable at the time but with grace it helped me face a part of myself that was trapped by the illusion of having to be perfect. -

fear got you blind you don’t see the signs - bellah

To me this time round it said that I have a long way to go when it comes to understanding the complexity of intimacy and why the fear of why it runs so deep. I've learned how to make people feel safe and vulnerable so when I was given that space, I was taken back and had to discover what I hadn’t dealt with in that capacity. Communication & expression are different things and become very blurred depending on the context. When asked to share my views, my logical and emotional minds clash and enter a freeze state.

Easy to explain in hindsight but practice is where I am finding my resolve to acknowledge and find the steps to have a better relationship with that part of myself. As opposed to treating it like it is something that needed to be fixed.

Certain moments have shown me how difficult the process is because I had to feel my way through and not intellectualize my emotions making my emotions seem like it is something that needed to be fixed. Despite that it is how the male brain is designed, discovering that was transcendent to say the least.

Anything can be an escape and information was mine. It is endless and the only way to master anything is by being practical. I am the biggest project I will ever work on. I had to practice being myself in a way that I wasn’t used to and I’m seeing the changes in multiple dimensions. (more on this in next piece)

the pen is mightier than the sword – unknown

I've faced other things this year which have been more eye opening than usual because of the fluidity of the events from betrayal,  realisations and goodness taking place simultaneously. Letting go of the deeply ingrained ways of surviving to fit in, get along and coexist with suitors and people on different levels have ran its course.

It's still new to me but I appreciate the direction of where I am headed especially with how I catching onto how I'm responding differently to situations that would have thrown me off course & taken me much longer to recover from which is part of the real glow up.

In a storm/twister, eagles fly above them to use the current in order to rise above them. letting myself be present to the vastness of emotions, thoughts and ideas that I used to organise on autopilot is already bearing the results. 

I look forward to what and how I share my art and myself with these words and mastering myself while being more receptive to the fruits of my labour. The new revolution is art & it WILL be a revelation.

turn your curse into a gift - inside out 2 (disgust)