I know you. I may not have met you personally yet, but in some ways, I know you.

There is a pain inside of you that you fear, one that you have been trying to “fix” for years, maybe even for your entire life. It feels heavy. It feels dark. It feels relentless.

There is a longing inside of you that you cannot describe, because the truth is that you’re not really sure what you’re longing for anyway. It feels hopeless. It feels sad. It feels achy.

There is a hole inside of you; one that you cannot fill, but sometimes you try - with food, people, work, substances. But the void remains.

When you sense it, it feels challenging to catch your breath, difficult to know what’s true, and impossible to feel love.

I know you. I may not have met you yet, but in some ways, I know you. For I have felt these things, and so have you.

I have felt the blackouts leading to over-consumption of a distraction of choice.

I have felt the shame that follows the next day.

I have felt the need to escape - from people, from life, from myself.

I have felt the substance and emotional hangovers that last long into the next day, and how they prevent the connection and creation which would otherwise be possible.

I have felt the hopelessness that keeps one in bed for days on end, and a depression that brings on thoughts of death and suicide.

The pain that you experience? I have felt it.

Maybe I’ve felt a slightly different flavor than you hold in your story, but I have felt it.

Maybe the sources of our pain have been rooted in different experiences... but I have felt it.

It was through the feeling of unrelenting physical and emotional pain in my life that I succumbed to various levels of addiction and numbing.

First, through self-harm at a very young age to feel something other than fear…

Then through disordered eating and negative self-talk, because maybe if only I changed…

Then through porn and meaningless sex, just to feel a moment of (false) connection…

Then through alcohol and cocaine to try to forget all of the ways I felt alone…

Then through school and work, because if my body couldn’t bring me love, then certainly my mind could…

Then through self-help books and healing journeys to finally “solve the problem” that was me…

And of course, intermittently through social media and the game of comparison to really feel the amount of separation and insecurity (I thought) I “deserved.”

And yet, nothing worked. No matter what I tried, I would end up back in the same place every single time. Feeling the same loneliness, the same unworthiness, the same shame, the same hopelessness.

Until one day, I learned something. I learned that I had been looking through a faulty lens for my entire life. I learned that the glasses I had been wearing were designed to keep me believing that I needed to be “fixed;” that I was a problem to be “solved.”

And as I learned to set those glasses down, I remembered what life looked like through clear vision:

I am Great Spirit in human form,

here to witness and be witnessed by Great Spirit in other forms.

My suffering is not inherent to me, but rather exists solely in moments

(or years)

when I have forgotten this truth.

In this process of my own remembering, I began to reclaim parts of myself that I had shunned and suppressed - all pieces of the Great Spirit within me, silenced in moments of insecurity, fear, and suffering. One by one, I found pieces of myself, and one by one I reminded them that they are not meant to live a life alone, but rather a life in union - with me.

We are meant to be whole, because wholeness is required for a life fully lived.

Thus, I have been called to hold space for you so that you too may remember;