This Shit Hurts
on overcoming fear and building trust with your heart
It’s easy to follow your heart when it tells you nice things about yourself, when it’s aligned with the company you keep and the way you spend your time.
But how do you follow your heart when it tells you something scary? When it tells you attachments need uprooting. When it tells you something’s wrong and needs to change.
How do you follow the heart’s guidance when it points straight to your own unseen fears, traumas, and griefs? How do you listen when it asks you to look at the things you’d wish to ignore the most?
How does one continue to follow their heart, when doing so has long-since proven itself a painful endeavor?
Can we even trust our hearts? Or are its wisdoms simply naive — forever in need of balance with rationality?
These are the questions I ask myself as I walk in clear reception of my heart’s truths. My wonderings as I eagerly follow my heart’s lead into pain and challenge, over and over again.
Despite all struggle, knowing exists within me that permeates this whole inner debate. A knowing that I am my heart. That its ‘wisdom’ is my truest voice speaking to me, calling out to be heard. And that no matter how naive its desires may be. I must live in honor of them regardless. Regardless of how they make me look to others. Regardless of the pain I may suffer in following them to failure. Regardless of the hurts my heart itself holds within from a lifetime living in a world so cruel. Knowing innately, my heart points the way to freedom, and though the path may be riddled with thorny vines, beyond them lies abundance.
As with so many of my writings, I am here to discover the meaning of this exploration with you. Blind to where this goes, I still know this is the way, for my heart has led me here. And I trust it implicitly.
So, here, I must ask myself. How is it that I arrived at this place?
There Was Once a Boy
Oh, Garett. What an unhappy person he was.
What a walking embodiment of the consequences we face when we deny all the heart has to say.
What an example of how taking the societal values of rationality over heartfulness seriously can create walking and talking lies.
What an example of practically smothering the truth of what one’s heart knows to the point of despair.
Pretty fun person too, despite it all. Humor found in the twistedness of their life, a kind of relaxed desperation to them.
He had trusted his heart when he was younger, and it made him feel foolish.
There was nothing he hated more than being foolish. He’d move mountains and break himself down to not look silly in front of people. His insecurity couldn’t take it.
See me! Love me! He cried out inside. I’m smart! I’m cool! Unaware that his denial of everything the heart had to say was the reason love evaded him. Unaware that his fear of being seen as he really was—not a ‘he’ at all—was the driving force behind his own inability to feel love.
So, he kept on. Doing his best to have fun despite the bullshit. Making sure, above all else, he didn’t look stupid.
It went this way throughout his life. Sadness growing and growing, finding himself dissatisfied with the seemingly ideal life he had built. Until he was about thirty-four years old and began the process of remembering how to listen.
It was then he started to hear the heart’s call once again.
It became clear to him. Even still repressed in matters of gender. That there was an awakening happening within. A feminine awakening.
At the time, they projected this onto the world around them. It was the dawn of the age of Aquarius astrologically. So, they believed it was a product of the tides of change, coming to awaken their own suppressed femininity.
Little did they realize this meant far more for them than for the collective. That for them, it meant the facing of their heart’s deepest truth.
So, a journey began. A journey into creating sacred space for themself and others to unfold within. A journey into self and spirit. Finding support not only in this community they built around them, but also, from on high. Gifted with dreams to inspire confidence in what was to come. Sights beyond, to freedoms unrealized.
It was at this time they began to share themselves creatively as well. Pouring their own personal spiritual journey into meditations that would touch many. Turning their process of growth into a living art—making magic with their pain.
Finding that through this portal of fear, and by stepping through it to share themselves so bare and plain for all to see, there was nothing to fear at all.
Instead, discovering the rawness and authenticity they had so feared allowing shine through, was a beguiling flame which called others to them.
Finding that by leading with their heart, and bravely following its scary lead, healing was wrought. Not only for them, but for those in their life.
Here, in this place of healing, is where the big one came. The biggest fear of all. The biggest challenge they’d ever face.
To finally let herself exist.
And Then They Were ‘She’
For me, gender transition has been a process of discovery.
I didn’t know myself. And I’m still learning more about me every day.
It wasn’t as if I’d suppressed this fully formed woman and had her within me all along.
She was simply not allowed to exist—no space given.
So, for me, the process of transition has been reminiscent of holding open a door and creating safe space for my authentic self to step into.
In the creating of this space my life has been uprooted.
A marriage ended. Parents no longer spoken to. Friends lost. Dreams abandoned.
Yet, my heart has led the way through all this pain.
It led me to date. To take on great heartache from fleeting receptions of feelings long sought. It led me to seek out comfort in places that I aught have known better about.
My heart has taught me many lessons about myself by steering into trauma.
Still, I trust it.
I see in all the chaos, all the pain—untold amounts of lessons learned. A wholeness of self born through it all.
And now, at long last, she’s here.
Somehow, the suffering a part of her birth. Somehow, it needed to scrape the fat off her soul. To rid her of parts unneeded, parts born of ‘him’. To release the toxins taken in from a lifetime of lies.
Healing is not pretty. It hurts.
Often, I believe we let this confuse us as to which path we should take. And we take the one with least resistance, feeling it right, while our heart screams at us to reconsider.
Now, as a fully formed human woman, no longer hidden in the shadow of a boy, I am proud of the trust I’ve placed in my heart. I am proud that I took the path less travelled.
Still, right here and now, it leads me to expose myself and my truths publicly in ways that test my fears of being seen, of being exposed, of being a fool.
But if being a fool is what leads to the life I can feel now on my horizon, the looming presence of joyous abundance just beyond the veil of fog I move through, which I can feel right there. Then I will be a fool over and over again. I will let myself heal in whatever painful ways I need to.
If that leads me to the freedom I can feel now in my heart—coming from my own near future. Then sign me up for that shit right now.
Wahe Guru
Yogic Mantras are a dime a dozen. But this one has long been a favorite of mine. One I truly feel within myself when called upon. It’s a mantra meant to help us touch the bliss of life. The joy we all hold deep within us, which is passionate for this living experience.
My favorite definition of this Sanskrit phrase is this: Wow, the ecstasy of moving from darkness to light.
I call upon Wahe Guru in trying times. It can often make me laugh.
To call upon the ecstasy of living in the face of great challenge can seem counter intuitive. And surely there is truth to the need for us to face our pains head on. Still, after that acknowledgment, and after being with the suffering for a moment. Is it not wise to laugh it off? Is it not wise to revel in the challenge of viewing your life from an enlightened place, even when it’s so painful?
There’s something in this acknowledgement to the challenge of life. This recognition of how difficult it can be to stay joyous in the face of everything. Which in itself brings me joy.
I get a kick out of how cruel a trickster this universe is. I think, deep down, we all do.
We all signed up for this shit on some level. And on that level, I think we fucking love it. We love every second of it. Even the parts that hurt more than we can say. Even the parts where we wish we weren’t here.
There’s a part of your soul that is having the best time riding it out. Seeing this portion of itself; you, doing your best to tame these rapids.
Make no mistake. Your higher self is proud of you. No matter what. Even if it’s been years and years since you last listened to what your heart had to tell you.
Because this is hard as hell.
Wahe Guru.
