Cat Satsang

The state of collapse doesn’t want to be messed with.

It wants to be held, loved and tended.

It’s despair and lethargy all mixed up into one.

A dizzying cocktail it’s no fun

Rising up from the depth without a warning

The mind is plagued, thoughts are swarming

This ancient pain is too much to bear

It’s murky, it’s real – it’s so much fear

Fall into this , the abyss is calling

There’s no other way – enough stalling

You tried pushing, hiding, numbing and biding

Nothing is working, you can’t stop the fighting

Work your way from the outside in

Name where you are and feel your skin

Look around and notice this moment

Your nervous system is not your opponent

Safety is here even if it doesn’t feel real

You haven’t failed there’s just too much on your plate

You’ve been gaslit since time began

Culture, family and all the men

It’s been a wild ride and now you’re digesting

The hurt the confusion your Heart’s been fasting

It’s no small thing to unfurl in this environment

Don’t gaslight yourself in believing you’re arrogant

What you feel is valid and what you see is true

Drop all the spiritual concepts you thought you knew

Trauma is real and your experience is valid

Don’t skip the meal and just eat the salad

Your path is unique and it’s your own

Trust your gut and hone in your bones

Nobody can tell you what it’s like for you

That’s why you’re here and it’s a blessing too

Remember that when doubt takes over

An old habit it comes with an odor

To rob you blind of your own riches

Make you poor and throw you in the ditches

There’s nothing humble about distrusting yourself

In the name of the Unknown you put your power on the shelf

Misguided by trauma spiritual guidance can be tricky

If you’re not careful you’ll find yourself all sticky

Not knowing where you end and where the other begins

If you don’t reign in it in you’ll find the mind spins

Taking on a task it can’t handle

In there you can light yourself a candle

By finding the source of the mind’s spinning

A buzzing a whirring a feeling of sinning

You’ll find it in the body a tsumani of confusion

Unsafety and fear are its illusions

Trusting yourself is the key

Not as a belief but more like the only guarantee.

I am not your ‘daughter’.

I am not a piece of flesh you bought to serve your meager torpid ‘needs’.

You insolent fool.

I am a Queen in my Own Right.

Your touches are revolting.

An insult to my skin.

Stirring a fire of rage inside me that could eat you up.

Get out of my way.

For you’ve tested my patience enough.

You can’t dim me.

If you had the eyes to see, you wouldn’t step foot within my vicinity.

You’d cower like you do behind social convention, patriarchy and false masculinity.

I have denied my rage for far too long.

But I can no longer contain what wants to burst from within me.

To protect your frail ego.

Or to pamper the twisted facade of femininity you wish to see in me.

Like a soft river of glowing Pāhoehoe lava.

Overflowing with billowy grace.

Commanding it’s path with sculpting fervor.

Deceivingly soft but wrathfully ablaze.

Set foot on my path and you’ll be incinerated.

Stop slamming the part of you that wants to look good. Be beautiful. There’s nothing ‘spiritually noble’ in punishing that part of you. This part needs a lot of tenderness. It’s the part that was bombarded with you’re not pretty enough. Well-dressed enough. It was battered with shame for not looking a certain way. Not being ‘presentable’.

It was shamed, ridiculed, ignored, alienated, put down, left out, neglected, forgotten and blamed even for not looking the part. It was the target of a lot of abuse from both within the family and from the outside world.

Of course she wants to look good. Get that nice jacket or those nice shoes. It’s not all “bad”. If that’s the word even to describe it. But your psyche is describing it in that way. It’s not all twisted. But it’s also not all “clean” either. But not in a punishable, falling short kind of way. In a I need love here kind of way. Love and acceptance. Not a trying to wipe out it’s very existence because there’s an idea that spiritual people don’t care about how they look. This is bullshit.

In this culture, in this society, how you look meant survival. This is what you’re dealing with. The desperation of trying to survive. It differentiated on a racial and socio-economic level between those who live in squalor (who don’t get basic human respect) and those who had it all (authority, power, respect, social status aka safety). And this conditioning is so intense here. It’s rabid.

It’s nothing to sneeze at. Nothing to spiritually bypass as superficial ego stuff. No. This was survival stuff. It’s embedded in the psyche as this is how I can survive here. This is how I can get people not to prey on me here. I need to look good. I need to present myself in a certain way so that I am not preyed on. It was a survival mechanism. And in a way it became your research project. It shaped your interests, hobbies and ambitions. Both healthy ones and unhealthy ones.

And even so, you were still a target of abuse within your own family – who saw this as mere vanity not as survival. And they hid behind the veil of religiousness – that was their survival mechanism. And in that mechanism, your inclinations were seen as vain, superficial, egotistical even. You were judged for it. Made wrong for it. Alienated within your own family for it. And outside the family, you were loved for it, liked for it, recognized for it – that contradiction is super confusing.

Super challenging to wrangle with both extremes within yourself. And of course you chose to go for the love, for looking good, for the attention – so natural, who wouldn’t? Even if it came at great cost to you because it did. It was no picnic either. Genuine suffering there too. Believing that looking good meant survival, love, attention. The desperation of it. The agony of that struggle, that my life depends on this! So hard. So challenging. So filled with conditioning on each and every level; cultural, sexual, female, racial, socio-economic and probably more you can’t even see. It’s not just a small thing. ‘Shopping’.

Mercy on this part of you. This intelligent, savvy, extreme, self-protective, to-the-death part of you.

There are days just for crying.

Believing that tears mean ‘there’s something wrong with me‘ adds an additional layer of suffering that is unnecessary.

You don’t know why you’re crying.

And you don’t need to know either.

Just cry.

You don’t even need anyone by your side.

Crying alone is in itself what’s needed.

Without someone there to justify or intrude upon the natural flow of tears.

You with yourself crying, mourning, grieving and even more than that.

You’ve been taught by the world that when you cry, that means something is very wrong.

And so crying becomes something you’re trying to hide.

Ashamed of.

Something to keep in. To hold back.

So you can go about business as usual.

But business as usual has gone out the window some time ago.

Business as usual was always a superimposed layer on the tears that want to flow.

Days for crying are beautiful days. Just for you. You by yourself.

Ask those around you to leave you be. To not intrude or impose their relational needs on you. To leave you to cry your heart out. Without trying to come and save you. Or even feel with you. It’s not what you need. It’s a time for you, your tears and your solitude to be honored – bowed down to. Left alone.

Sometimes you just need to cry alone. Totally alone. So you can be honest with your tears. And so that your tears can be honest with you. So that your tears can bless you in your aloneness.

The kind of honesty that comes when you’re by yourself. The kind of let go that comes when there’s no one else around.

Crying days are sacred days that need to be honored.

You can cry your heart out.

You can cry till you can cry no more.

And the mind will try to come up with reasons for why you’re crying.

But it doesn’t matter, does it?

The tears are the fact.

There’s no need to add a layer of understanding on top of it.

What can we understand anyway. Not much.

So be with your tears and honor them. Let them clean you out. Let them take you where you are alone in the solitude of your dark. Without needing to explain or worry or care about anyone else, anything else, anywhere else.

Let your face be an expression of the pain you feel. Don’t try to mold it into an amicable expression to soothe or appease your nearest and dearest. Trying to communicate on some level, “I’m okay, it’s okay, nothing to worry about”.

No, fuck that. You’re not okay. And in your not okay-ness, you’re okay. More than okay. You’re beautiful.

You don’t need to make anyone feel better about themselves by masking your pain. A saccharine smile, or a slight nod or gesture to re-assure them all is well. All is not well. And that’s okay.

Pain is not a mistake. Pain is not a sign that something is wrong. That belief makes an enemy of pain. A shame of pain.

You’re not here to make everyone comfortable. That’s what weighs on you because you believe you need to hide your pain. To take on a role. And you can’t. You don’t have it in you. You no longer have that capacity.

Be in pain. Don’t make an enemy of pain. Let it be on your face. In your eyes. In your relating. The more you try to hide it, the more painful it gets.

And cry. Cry without making the tears wrong. Without holding back. Without putting a time limit on your tears. Without making tomorrow a day for ‘being better’. Because in that, there’s a subtle demand for the tears to come to an end today, sooner rather than later. And in that, a sense of hurry – speed past the tears, rush by the sobbing and the heartbreak. Be a mess today, but business as usual tomorrow.

No. Throw out this old and dusted instructions manual. And be here today crying, sobbing, in pain, in heartbreak, in inconsolable sorrow. Let the pain pierce your bones, your heart, your gut, your skull. Give it permission to totally touch you, unhidden, unashamed, untangled from the belief of wrongness.

Bless you in your pain, in your tears, as it is, as you are without anything needing to change. Amen.

How small that is, with which we wrestle, what wrestles with us, how immense; were we to let ourselves, the way things do, be conquered thus by the great storm,—we would become far-reaching and nameless.What we triumph over is the Small, and the success itself makes us petty. The Eternal and Unexampled will not be bent by us.

Rainer Maria Rilke

There’a a a great undoing at my root. It wrestles me as I wrestle it. Or is it the other way around?

Compassion says, go slow, slower than a snail even. Regress if you must. You don’t really know where you are anyway.

You can’t understand what you can’t understand. You can’t undo what you can’t undo. So what is there to do? What is there to understand?

All you can do is be quiet. And even that you can’t do. You can’t force. You can’t will. You can’t pretend. You can’t hold onto.

So…

I don’t know what to do and that’s okay. Really okay. More than okay.

I am not supposed to know what to do.

I am not supposed to be ‘on top of it’.

When my nervous system is highly activated with anxiety, stress, overwhelm.

When my mind is coming up with a million and one things to fix, do and learn.

When my body is exhausted, stretched to it’s limit, processing a lot of energy.

All I can do is tend to myself. As best I can.

And that doesn’t mean rushing out to do the thing I think I have to do before it’s too late.

And it doesn’t mean adding a layer of ‘failure’ to my experience because it doesn’t feel good.

The hardest thing to ‘do’ sometimes is to stay put despite all the urges to run, rush, fix, figure out, jump over.

And we can be looking to get the answer from anyone.

That desperation. That impulse. That energy.

Doesn’t need to die by ‘sitting with it’ or ‘feeling it’ or ‘understanding it’.

Nothing needs to happen. Nothing needs to change.

Not the mind, not the body, not the nervous system.

Not this, not that, not the other.

It can just be as it is, like it is because it is.

“Slowing down” is not an idea

Not something ‘you’ do

It’s the breaking down of an ancient mechanism

That has it’s grips at the root

Feeding into the brain and the wiring of the nervous system

It’s a complete systemic shutdown of the old

Without the promise of the new

No installation or re-configuration

No guarantee no warranty

Slowing down is not just ‘self-care’

It’s a letting go of all that you know

All that you wanted

All that you dreamt

It’s a deep grieving of everything that could’ve been

Should’ve been would’ve been

There’s a Grumpy Monster that lives inside of me

This monster is always hungry

Always restless

Always looking for something to do

Something to worry about and a problem here too

I’ve got so much on my plate – I just can’t remember it all

I’ve got tons to do and no time – make the call!

There’s a problem here – it needed fixing last year

I’m already far behind – I can’t keep ruining what’s mine!

There’s a list somewhere of all things I have to do

I can’t waste a minute let’s move! – (don’t know where to)

Like a hand on my back and a weight on my chest

Rushing and squirming – never doing my best

This could’ve been better, you dropped the ball on that

It’s alright just keep moving- you’re as dumb as a bat

There’s no hope there’s no time – no solutions anywhere

Crawl into a ball and fall into despair

Don’t breathe, don’t move, you’re on thin ice

You’re fucking it all up and you might wanna check your hair for lice

You’re breathing in mold, you’re spending too much money

You’ve only got one chance to get it right honey

What a joke what a mess – you could do so much better !

If only you could get your act together…

Fumble and fall

Stutter and bawl

You can’t do anything or much at all

Grumpy Monster,

You’ve really got a hold on me

Making life a misery…

When I listen to you, life’s a mess

I’m blind, I’m deaf – I confess

A pause, a hiccup, a breath or two

I come to my senses and break the taboo

Oh Grumpy Monster, I know you’re upset

There’s nothing to do and you can’t stand it

Nothing needs fixing there’s no problem here

You’re out of a job and you can’t seem to bear

Come here, come closer

Let’s get a look at you

You just need some lovin’ like everything too

I feel, I know, I sense your monstrosity

Your restless fear and false grandiosity

You’ve danced, you’ve dabbled, you’ve run amok

You got me to the point where I don’t give a fuck

But enough’s enough and that’s all there is to it

Gratitude, rest and kindness – you’ll be fluent

Come here, come here

No more running – let’s breathe

Let’s bring some sanity to this day please

I’ve burnt your lists and turned off the phone

Got nothing to do – except hear you moan

There’s nowhere to go, I’ve dropped it all

I’m gonna go slow even if I crawl

Let’s sit together get to know each other

Wrestle and fight or try to bite

Won’t matter at all, cuz I’ve hit a wall

It’s okay Grumpy Monster

Let’s swim in deep water

Not knowing what happens

Let’s stop all the barter

It’s not the end of the world

It’s not the end of time

We’re just here that’s all

You’re not even mine

Nothing is wrong

Not even you

All is well and you’re welcome here too

Step into the world of Everything is as it should be

The crud the mold the mess and the could be’s

I was left at school when I was very young

Left wondering where my family had gone

Did they forget me

Did they exist

Was I imagining all this

In the playground I wept while all the kids went home

Picked up by their mom’s and dad’s one by one

Emptier and emptier the playground grew

And darker and darker the evening drew

Run out on the street trying to make my way home

The whole world whizzed by

I was lost and alone

I was lost and alone

Lost and alone

Run back I would to the playground again

Where I sat under a tree and looked around me again

I’d cry and I’d wait with no guarantee

Not knowing if there’d ever be mommy

I wondered why I had such little trust

Was I just making a fuss

She’d pull up her car and hastily rush me in

Not looking to see the tears that have been running

Thirty years on I now understand

They showed me who they are the first time around

There’s an imbalance here that is revealing itself to you and wants to set be straight. Wants to come into balance. Into coherency. Into clarity and truth.

And it’s showing up as this fear. This trauma. The fear is the trauma. The trauma of the terror of feeling unsafe in your own family. Feeling like living your life is an abomination to them.

In the past, the expression of your own autonomy, sovereignty was severely punished. You were punished for speaking your truth, living your truth, for doing whatever it is you needed to do to cope. Punished by those who were meant to be your closest allies, your dearest. And all in the name of family.

And so the fear is a friend. The terror is the body speaking to you. It’s shaking you up. Waking you up. Saying, hello hello, mayday, mayday! We’ve been here before and it was hell. Safety needed. Pay attention here. You’re needed here. In the body.

And the body itself is confused. Because when family are the one’s who are “dangerous” – it’s a mind fuck. Because it’s the most seemingly familiar being seen to be the most foreign. It’s “home” but something know this is not what home is supposed to feel like. It’s all you’ve ever known but what you’ve known is hell on earth. It’s the biological pull to be in the safe arms of family and the intelligence of the trauma pushing you to run be as fast as you can. And this is confusing as hell. For the body and the mind.

So let’s bring real kindness, real gentleness to this fight. This agonizing struggle. The mind fuck of it. The heart wrench of it. The panic of it. The one that wants to run and the one that feels pinned down. Let them both be here.

And really look, what was really happening. What is happening beneath the guise of family. What’s really going on here. Why do I feel so endangered around these people? Am I in danger now? Why does the body feel like it’s being ambushed now? Why is it activating fight or flight? There’s intelligence here that needs a deep listening to.

Is this the ambush of feeling ganged up on… Act this way or else. Do this or else. Stay in line or else. Or else. Everyone’s getting their ducks in a row and you’re in the way. What a problem you are. How rude. How impudent. You think we have time for your childish feelings. Your imagined sovereignty. Your unacceptable behavior.

And you feel it, the more you speak your truth, the more this fear is activated. In this interaction and in that interaction. You speak from truth, you act from truth and it’s not well-received. So something in you wants to run. Feels unsafe. Because in the past you were unable to create that safety for yourself and neither did you have it. Nor did you have an understanding or capabilities to discern what was going on.

And there was a hierarchy that you believed in. The family hierarchy. Mom, Dad, older brother, older sister. I’m the little one. The child. Treated as such. This constellation.

A software update needs to happen internally and is happening. The update of seeing through the guise of the family. Dismantling the hierarchy or having it dismantled for you. Undoing the sense of ambush. Seeing through others wanting you to do their bidding under the guise of them doing your bidding.

The stigma around setting boundaries and living from your truth is what activates the fear of being ganged up on. Because in being the family scapegoat, in being the one who carries the burden of the family’s collective unconsciousness, you’re a problem – for them. And so you need harshness or diplomacy, a tugging or a pulling – you need a strategy in order to be coerced into doing, saying, acting in a way that is ‘beneficial’ to them.

But this is not real ‘benefit’. Real benefit is acting in accordance to your innermost knowing in the moment. And finding the whatever it is you can find to anchor you to the earth, ground and breath. So that you’re not sullied by the attempts at coercion, the stigmatized beliefs around speaking from truth. So that you can hold your own amidst the stormy weathers of the family ambush.