Stuck In No Man’s Land? Let Go Of Everything You Think You Know.
{Photo: Meghan Coleman}
And then she came to a point where the things she thought she liked, didn’t fill her up anymore. And the things she thought she was, weren’t… anymore.
She found herself in a sort of no man’s land of where to go and what to do and who to be, so she hovered around waiting for something to happen. But it didn’t. So she thought some more, and kept trying old things, and still nothing happened.
At that point she hit a wall. That wall was made of dense but rotten bricks. And she found she was stuck in that room she used to like, but had now become dull and restrictive. Then she really began to hate it.
So she bloodied her knuckles trying to hammer down that wall bit by bit, and she screamed and she cried and she fought, using every last ounce of strength she had. Until she was so weak and so uncertain she felt like completely giving up… everything… completely.
And then, when she was down there on the floor as low as she thought she could get, she finally learned what was so simple all along. She just let go. Not because it was easy or because she made a conscious decision, but really because she had no other choice. Sometimes the bad times are gifts in that way.
So she let go of everything she thought she knew and everything she thought she liked and everything she thought she was. Of course those things were still there, she just wasn’t clutching their tails anymore.
And then, something magical happened. She put on her invisibility cloak and realized that she could pass right through that wall she’d been fighting so hard. And what waited on the other side? Oh, just the bottomless potential of timeless loving empty space. A black hole of possibilities to explore and new ways to be and think and do.
Of course the old room was always there to revisit and play in and tidy up as needed, but now it was up to her to decide when to come and go.
And the search to recover soul in a multidimensional existence is an ongoing, infinite adventure. But living without fear meant letting go of everything she thought she knew about anything, and falling into the black hole located at the center of her own private universe.
*****
I continue to come up against these walls, and wrote this about myself a year ago in some of my darkest days. Maybe you know the walls too, those that only exist in your mind but somehow keep you separated from yourself and from everyone else too.
At that point I was healing from a damaging relationship, staying with my parents at their home and even eating food was a necessary evil. It was bad. I literally wore the same outfit every day, black jeans, a grey t-shirt and a black sweater.
My mother told me I looked like I was attending a funeral, and in a sense I was. I was mourning the loss of this relationship, or more accurately I was mourning the loss of my illusion in regards to this relationship.
Disconnecting from him was like withdrawing from a heroin addiction, and the woman I had become in the time we were together was not the woman I had been before. In a sense I was also mourning the loss of my former self, for when I went back to the default mode of who I was, none of it fit.
So what the f*ck was I supposed to do?!
For me it was as simple as giving up the quest for a perfect solution, and just seeking healing in any way that felt right. I’m not going to tell you what I did just now, because there is no magic cure-all for everyone. Only we can decide what our own personalized medicine is.
The interesting part about my breakdown is that no prescribed method helped, because I had become so distanced from my unique soul-song that the only way to come back in line was to start hearing it again, by myself. And no advice column or bullet list was going to cut it.
This was something I couldn’t begin to understand until I was at my lowest low, because it was only then that I could hear my soul whispering.
If she said No, I couldn’t even be roused from the bed. The Yes came in many forms, some of which turned out to be mistakes too, but each was a tiny victory, giving me a little more strength to stand up and feel alive again.
Besides re-learning who I was, which is still an ongoing process, the best gift I gave myself in that time was learning to take it easy. Really easy. Which meant there were moments I felt so lost that nothing would really suffice and I was kind of bumbling along. I think the most fundamental truth of being stuck in no-man’s-land, is to be gentle with ourselves.
I am often quick to self-loathe when things are bad, or to wallow in it and feel sorry for myself. And then when things are good, sing the praises of the Universe and pat myself on the back for pulling through. What is gentle about that?
In a world of social media life-glamming and new age oneness proclamations, it’s easy to get down and out when you aren’t feeling like your best self, or when you feel confused and far away from everyone else. It’s easy to become disenchanted, and for me this happened most when I started to walk a path of self-awareness.
As I started to do the work, I was no longer in hiding, and couldn’t ignore the places inside that spoke to me of truth, painful ones at that.
The more I sat with my feelings, the more I saw that each sore spot pointed me to a place I needed to see, a wound that still needed a little cleaning and bandaging. The most confusing one was learning that at 30 years old I didn’t really know who I was or what I wanted anymore.
I had learned everything I could from my previous life and it was time to step up, only I wasn’t sure where to place my feet. And honestly, at that point I was so detached, it was as if I was just floating away. I’m glad I didn’t, because I did start to feel my feet again and there was a joy in learning new ways they could move.
I’m still doing it; I’m determined to keep following the breadcrumbs back to my own castle and face whatever demons (real or imagined) I meet. I also keep coming to these walls, then breaking through them only to find another one. It spirals on, just like time itself, but I’m seeing that it doesn’t take strength to break down the boundaries or slay the dragons.
It takes surrender, and the courage to feel deeply and with no reservations, exactly where I am. It takes bravery for us to walk our unique paths and to be authentic in them, even if it means we have no idea what to do.
Because sometimes ‘I don’t know’ is exactly the answer.
*****
Meghan Coleman is a nomad of sorts. She’s been wandering all over the world the last 10 years, teaching English and studying Yoga, shamanic traditions, Ayurveda, Tibetan Buddhism and… creative writing. She currently resides in a vintage van in California, and although usually on the move, her Southern roots have instilled a passion for front porches and the art of doing nothing. That passion extends to soul warriors like Townes Van Zandt, Clarice Lispector, Rumi, and all those who dare to fall into the black holes of feeling at the center of their beings. For more writing, photos of her travels, and links to her small business ‘Witch Docs’, see her website or Instagram.
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