Can Self Destruction be Self Love?
I’m not sure I really know what self love is. Do any of us really?
It’s been a couple months since I’ve written. I’ve been in a lot of pain. I ended my relationship in April, quickly got involved with someone else, and fully left myself in search of something that could really truly only be found within.
Maybe it’s love.
I don’t think we can know what self love is.
Maybe we can only feel it.
I intellectualize things a lot. I think, and think, and think. To my own detriment. I exhaust myself thinking. The thoughts swirl around me and take over everything. I get lost. I get sick. And I lose myself. I.e., cue anxiety.
Sometimes it feels uncontrollable. I do the things I know to do– take deep breaths, go for a walk, talk to someone I trust, journal, write poetry, take a bath, etc, etc, etc. And to be honest, sometimes none of that fucking works.
Sometimes, nothing can save me from myself. Nothing can protect me from the default ways I leave myself as a form of self survival. Read that again: sometimes, not a single thing can protect me from the conditioned, default ways I leave my own being as a form of self survival.
It is in these times that I suspect destruction is essential.
It has to happen– it must– for me to be reborn.
I’ve written about descents before. In fact, it was my last post I wrote on here, at the end of May; about two and half months ago. So often, we know what’s coming. I knew, in my bones; I knew descent was upon me.
Descents are unstoppable. Sometimes we choose them and sometimes we don’t, they just happen. Regardless of how descents come to be, they do not relent until you surrender. I heard someone say recently, “By the time I finally let go, I’ve left claw marks.” This spoke to my soul. I am persistent as fuck. I am stubborn. Someone tries to tell me I can’t do something, I stare them in the eye and say with utter solemn conviction, “watch me.”
And at times in my life, that persistence and stubbornness has served me. It’s taken me across many finish lines– U.S. Army Boot Camp, a Ph.D. program, writing and publishing three books, backpacking several countries, starting a business.
But then other times, it’s destroyed me. Wanting something I cannot have; something I don’t need. Trying to control other people, places, or things. Addiction. Sometimes, by the time I finally let go, I’m bleeding from the claw marks, and everything and everyone around me is bleeding too. And I’m left wading through bloody wreckage.
In those times, I am left completely and utterly annihilated. Self Love is Impossible.
And in those moments, I know I am in descent. In descent, I feel so far gone from myself that self love feels impossible. It becomes some theoretical concept that eludes and taunts me from a place I cannot go. It hurts. I feel so alone and lost. And afraid.
All of these feelings are part of the journey and soul-forging experience that a descent is about. When I am in those moments, I have a choice: fight it or let go. I can dig my claws in, I can be persistent and push back against the pain. I can distract and numb myself every way possible under the sun. But the longer I do that, the longer descent will rain down hell on me.
The easiest way out is through.
Easier said than done, I know. But the sooner I let a descent have its way with me, the sooner I can resurrect.
But there’s a hidden key in this. Not only do you have to let go, but the descent has to let go of you.
I believe there are two parts to surrendering and letting go:
You must be ready. “Enough” looks different for each of us. Maybe it’s context-dependent, on things like where you are in your healing, what the lesson is and how deep it goes, who and what else is involved. Maybe you’re as stubborn as me and you need to be metaphorically bleeding before you will give up and let go. You have to be ready. And only you can decide when that is.
Interrelated with #1, the descent has to be finished with you. This part you do not get to control or choose. This, I fully believe, is divine intervention. This is God (as you understand God/dess). Some things are only revealed to you in their own timing. Some lessons come slowly. Some hit you over the head 500 times before you finally get it. Sometimes you think the shit storm is over, but it’s not– there are things within you that you cannot see but need to surface, heal, and release. You don’t know what you don’t know, until you do. So often, it’s the “until” that we do not get to decide.
In this way, I believe letting go works both ways.
You must let go of that which you are gripping, and that which you are gripping must also let go of you.
The lesson must be ready to be taken head. The fruit must be ripened in order to harvest. This part, you cannot control.
And it is in this knowing, holding this truth, that I find self love. I find compassion. Grace washes over me and I am able to release the shame I covet as self-inflicted punishment for not being able to let go sooner. For not being able to “love myself” as everyone says I should. For feeling too awry and broken and full of pain that embodying worth is not only unreachable, but would not serve me in the moment.
Perhaps (just go with me here), self destruction can be a form of self love. What if allowing the full annihilation and demolition of self that descent brings, even if that means you are away from your self, from your felt sense, and from your ability to embody self love, is actually one of the most radical and truest forms of self love there is?
Maybe it’s okay to grip on until the blood comes. Isn’t it the blood that washes us clean?
Healing Red
Why can't we be healed,
even keeled,
almost kneeled
but I couldn't find God
in the sky.
No matter my try,
the red bird wouldn't fly;
the void took my cry.
Sometimes,
I want to die.
Just look in my eye
and see
my pain,
my potential,
my holy temple
of peace
forsaken,
hope taken
and alchemy
climbs these walls.
A burden;
don't catch my fall.
Let me be,
see me
forgivingly.
And I'll know
God's touch
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