Matters of life and death

Maelstrom #3 -Kauai, Hawaii
Originally uploaded by PatrickSmithPhotography
My kabbalistic healer is one of the wisest people I know. Not because of degrees, training, ego or intellect. But because of her ability to re-frame the ordinary in extraordinary ways.

In our session today, I wanted to understand the connection between what has happened when I've walked near death with another and how this has propelled me into Hesed of Yesod territory.
She explained to me that death/dying is a very honest place. When one is approaching death, it asks you to no longer lie to yourself. Being close to others who are getting ready to die, brings us vividly into our relationship with the ways we distort life and death.

In Hesed of Yesod territory, the parent uses the child to create a life. When the child is a certain way, then the parent can be a certain way.
For me, if I could remain small, invisible, not express disappointment or anger or sadness, then my father and mother could remain in their bubble of not feeling, not dealing, not experiencing their own pain. The "poisoned ground" of our childhood is that place in which we perceive that if we don't adjust, if we don't shape-shift for our parents, then we're gonna die. In my case, I didn't want to feel how displeased my parents were with me, I didn't want to feel their disappointment and my own. "I can't bear _____, so I'll cut off life here."

This feeling of not being able to bear the disappointment of another turned me into a person who lived by the motto: "Kill or be killed". Especially during my drinking days. If I had a hint that you were displeased with me in any way, I bailed and cut you off before you did it to me. Re-locating, changing phone numbers, eventually email addresses were all ways that I cut off life. I perceived that if I didn't, I would not survive.

My healer spoke today of the notion that in being whole, life and death are always entwined. Saying "YES" to one's feelings, needs may result in many "NO's" for other things. With a birth comes a death. Each cannot exist without the other. My healer went on to say this: "The life/death you can't bear is the one you have to kill."   I paused deeply on the other end of the phone as I took in the magnitude of this statement. I operated like this for nearly my entire life. Fear and terror permeated my every cell, coursing through my veins. I thought I would die to feel what was actually in my being, so I "killed" it off. I understand now why alcohol was so so seductive and magical. It was the potion that could kill off anything. At least this was the illusion. And when the alcohol was no longer the weapon of choice,  it was workaholism. Or exercise. Or cleaning. Or mindless TV. Or web-surfing. Or busying. Or stuffing. Or denying.
My healer further explained that operating like this exiled places in me. I deemed it so that those places were not allowed to exist.

So walking close to death with someone, I realize, is a very painful reminder about how I cut off and killed off life in all forms. This may be why the subject of death transports me back like a time machine into Hesed of Yesod. I was a little girl who lived hypervigilantly in a war zone where I thought I would die any minute.

And it is even more interesting that this discussion would be on the heels of doing 9th step amends work this weekend. I re-visited those people and situations which I formerly killed off to save myself. To be awake to my regrets and resentments and disappointments and to want to address and take ownership of my fear-based actions is yet another plea from my very soul longing to be whole. To fully embrace both life and death.