Baruch's Blog

I have heard that there is a thin line between going crazy and transformation, and that they often overlap. Hear hear!
This last weekend was one of the most difficult and intense internal times I can remember in this life. I encountered my rage at a level I have never allowed myself to experience before. In truth it was scary at times. It was definitely not pretty.
I fasted for 4 days, not intentionally so much as having no will to nourish my body. I slept a lot, and when I wasn’t asleep I was in my bed enraged, ruminating. Like I said, not pretty.
I slept a lot and I dreamed. I don’t remember all the dreams in detail but I was experiencing a review of my life; memories, people, mistakes, joys.
The family I grew up in was one that, by the time I came around, had been hurting for years. My parents were unhappy with each other, unhappy with where their lives had brought them to. My three older brothers were all engaged in their own survival tactics. Along came me; smart Aries child with BIG feelings and BIG questions and hardly any boundaries. You can imagine what ensued.
Now I am in my 50’s encountering still the patterns I learned as a child. I learned that I am too much for the people around me and I better tone it down. I learned that being smart meant having to defend myself from attack. I learned that I was on my own, and that no one would ever really come through for me.
It’s been decades of deliberately choosing to change how I see and what I do and all that, but the patterns are stubborn and were etched deeply. Just choosing to change has not erased them or transformed them. Encountering myself in a different way this weekend, and thanks to one of my housemates who was willing to hear my rage without taking it on, and thanks to the many friends and family who reached out to me, I feel in myself the space that opens up when something is released. In this instance releasing rage, like releasing a caged ferocious angry animal, has exhausted me and in so doing is setting some part of me free. I think it’s an ongoing process though, not a momentary event.
Now I find that I must be gentle with myself. I am honoring the space that opened up and not wanting it to be filled quickly or without intention.
The pain and rage are teaching me. I’m listening. I’m watching. I’m feeling. I’m learning.