Purging

I’ve never been so excited for a year to end.

2018 turned me inside out. Repeating circumstances this year literally forced me to face my deepest hidden fears and insecurities to finally address them. Despite being a very high functioning depressed individual leading a normal healthy life, I couldn’t see how I had also boxed myself into a safe, comfortable routine emotionally and mentally. For 14 years I created a carefully crafted outward persona while also attempting to maintain a very strict control internally.

And that control was coming unraveled.

After a series of events in March sent me back to counseling I realized I was still reverting back to the same coping skills and mindsets I used to help myself when I was younger. While those tools helped me immensely, they no longer served me because I wasn’t that girl anymore. That’s also when I realized there were still issues I had never allowed myself to acknowledge, talk about, or process. Mostly because I thought I had gotten over them with time, but also because they terrified me. Turns out I was never over them. I was just really, really good at never thinking about them.

And that set off an unstoppable snow ball effect of purging.

Despite knowing I needed these shifts, I still resisted. How could I simply undo 14 years of survival fight or flight? Before this year I never even let myself consider the thought that I could be anything else but a high functioning depressed person for the rest of my life. I also never anticipated the oceans of anger and layers of grief hidden underneath the depression and anxiety. Ironically, it was each circumstance this year that I cursed, that I cried over, that I willed to end, that triggered those fears and anger right into my path.

I begrudgingly realized there was no positive-thinking or daily-affirming my way over or around this. If I wanted to learn how to create new abundant mindsets, I had to first clear out the old ones.

I can’t really say when or how exactly it’s happened, because I’m still learning. There hasn’t been any light bulb moment where everything finally fell into place and made sense. It’s just me, finally allowing myself to be angry, to grieve and to finally stop avoiding the shame and guilt I built up around my depression. It’s just me taking stock of myself in a raw, authentic way I never have before. Over and over, it’s just been me, digging in and pulling out each burden I’ve buried, acknowledging it, forgiving it, setting it down before me, and creating a path of stepping stones forward, one at a time.

At the advice of a dear mentor and friend, I’m reading a book by Derek Rydall called Emergence, where he gives the analogy of an acorn tree. “As the acorn grows, the roots dig down into the dark soil, the detritus of all the things that have outlived their usefulness and fallen into decay. Working with nature rather than against it, using what exists rather than resisting it, the conditions are cultivated for its emergence.” He continues, “As the oak emerges, driving its roots deep and broad, its shoots rise up and out, reaching for light. The deeper the roots go, the higher the branches can grow. The innate balance of nature understands the you can’t have one without the other. If the tree strove for the light without grounding itself in the dark soil, it wouldn’t be able to sustain its reach.”

Every single moment from this past year when something or someone made me face a deeply buried fear, new ground was turned over for new growth and roots to take place in the last place I ever expected. Instead of avoiding my past experiences with depression, I’m learning to exchange guilt and shame for self acceptance and love. It took this past year of purging old beliefs to recognize the balance of both grounding roots and flourishing growth.

While it’s been almost an entire year this isn’t a perfected practice. There’s still plenty I’m angry about, confused about and am still processing through. While I feel like my circumstances haven’t changed, I’m still learning to change within those circumstances. While I’ve felt stuck for 8 months, still I’m moving internal mountains to unearth things I never thought I’d say out loud.

I have no idea what 2019 will bring. I’m equal parts hesitant and willing. But I know for certain I am closer to emergence.

Sarah Lorna