The Illusion of Enlightenment: Facing Emotional Pain

The Needle Point

Some of the more profound insights havent come all at once. But rather drips deep in a cave slowly creating beautiful rock formations. Each drip discovering a little more of the never ending creation.

The illusion of enlightenment is that there will be Minimal pain and suffering once you reach a certain spot. I’ve found It’s more about how to feel the totality of the water dripping slowly, endlessly. To allow everything space to come and go.

Emotions, come and go like clouds in the sky. Sticky they can be. With enough effort and patience, even the big ones pass. Suffering continues as we hold onto things that are no longer there. To will something into reality that will never be.

Addiction soothes feelings that are unbearable. But when it’s done compulsively it acts to magnify pain rather than help it fade. The deeper we can feel the pain, the deeper we can sink into the good vibrations as well. You can’t have one without the other.

It’s difficult to look deeply enough to understand How self medicating made things worse. left unchecked relationships degrade and isolation increases. cascades of regret, shame, isolation block out the sun. Until all you can see is the negative weight of everything.

Not realizing that each step you take into numbing the pain takes you further away from the potential that comes with each breath. Continued on that trajectory, the individual eventually destroys themselves in search of internal freedom from the roar inside their heads.

Up Late night thinking about this stuff and the long journey it’s been. Sober since the Summer of 2023. The longest stretch of sobriety with clarity on mental health care I’ve experienced. Traveled today to Portland/my lady’s house. Her daughter is also here preparing for her work week. 4 cats and our dog Banjo roam the deepest corners of the structure keeping the ghosts at bay.

typing by the glow of the computer screen blue light seeps into my skin. Casting brightness into the outer edges of long dark storm clouds. The moon light dulled as those up late night lean into themselves, journeying further still within.