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Spiritual Emergence and Other Extraordinary Experiences at CIIS |
My story is your story even though you don’t know. Your story is my story even though I may never know the details. I may see them in your face, the way your jaw slants, hear them in your voice, how it’s hard for you to speak at times; I may sense your story as it screams out of you no matter how hard you try to keep it silent, but only because it’s my story too and we always recognize ourselves in the mirror, no matter where we are, no matter how far from home or what time it is or how much or little we’ve slept. I will always know my own story when I hear it, so I want you to tell it, even if you have no clue how, even if you hate the sound of your voice, you MUST remember it’s my voice too and just like you never wanted to be silent about what mattered to you, I never wanted my words to go unread or my voice to fall on deaf ears, or tired ears, so exhausted from the absence of our stories that they can no longer listen to, or hear, anything true. Truth is what I live for, even if it is a moving target, even if it doesn’t exist for more than a moment or a breath at a time, even if I’m living in an illusion which I call truth just because its tune sounds good to my ears and I see myself in its facial expressions. The truth is…all over the place everywhere, yet sometimes nearly impossible to find like a single green pea under many mattresses and feather beds, pillows and sheets, blankets and foam cushions and love and clothes and equipment and make up and grooming and terror and pain and fear and regret and temptation, all rolled up like a sleeping bag in the closet with so much potential yet currently in a state of stagnation, hiding, uselessness. Someday it will come out, someone will invite you on a camping trip and something in you will require that you say yes, even though it’s been so long since you’ve thought about that sleeping bag, all rolled up in the back of the closet with everything, and covering that green pea you forgot about. And when you say yes, someone inside you will leap up, ready to speak, ready to say everything you’ve always thought you’d say someday. Someday. Someday. And someday became your mantra until you started to pray to make someday today, to make someday today, and today again and again TODAY, not another day, not some other time and you started to tell yourself how much you love you, only it wasn’t like you were saying it, it was like someone outside you loved you so much, like a parent or a child, and you didn’t know who but you didn’t care either. You didn’t mind not knowing because this love was so strong and this love knew who you were and loved you no matter what; this voice was the realest thing you’d ever known and nothing or no one could drown it out or be too loud or oppressive for you to hear it. The love was more than anything you’d known before, so strong, so reassuring, so safe and solid, the security and stability you’d always dreamed of like a big slate rock in the woods, in the woods of your mind, your essence, which could get so clouded and uncomfortable and hardly even alive at times. Yet, once this voice of Love told you your story, you knew something else, even in your pajamas, even in the middle of sleepless nights, even after difficult times with family or times you wondered if others thought poorly of you or if you’d perhaps done something really awful because you are so human and have such weird habits sometimes, that don’t make sense, yet you can’t stop them, you can’t help yourself from looking the other way and hiding under your own hood because it’s too much sometimes and you just can’t deal you can’t deal you can’t…No No No NO, get me out of here no. I don’t know, logic can’t always explain our vague morals and logical morals can lead us astray in such an unjust world; justice is so much more confusing that any of us can admit or even come to terms with within ourselves or- If it’s simple we’re doing even worse crimes, the very worst, yet the easiest: lying to ourselves. It’s the very easiest felony; no one is innocent, no one will be innocent until justice has weathered us all and who can even begin to imagine how long that will take? Not you, not I, not anyone you can think of, so you settle for love, you settle to be loved anyway; you settle for being human and looking in this mirror, sometimes foggy, sometimes clear, sometimes steamed up and the window needs to be opened. But even if you don’t, even if you don’t do anything, the voice is there when you listen, reminding you you are loved. Really no matter what at all, no matter what, or what or anything, nothing at all makes any difference at all when you hear the whisper, “I love you so much.” Listen to this post: Audio PlayerDownload File http://chayagrossberg.com/my-story-is-your-story/ Chaya Grossberg is a writer, teacher, coach and group facilitator living in San Francisco. She teaches classes and leads support groups on coming off psychiatric drugs and alternatives to psych drugs, as well as coaching individuals in person and by phone. She has been working as an activist for change in the "mental health" system and worked in providing holistic mental health alternatives for the past 10 years, starting as a Freedom Center organizer for six years in Northampton, Massachusetts. She has worked with the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community, Massachusetts PAIMI council, Windhorse Associates, Alternative to Meds Center and Portland Hearing Voices. Chaya has taught at numerous conferences on Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs including NARPA, INTAR and Alternatives. She studied creative writing and experiential education at Hampshire College and is a Kripalu certified yoga instructor. Chaya is a psychiatric survivor and has publicly spoken, written and bloggedabout her experiences and perspectives. She has also written poetry and created art and performance pieces to open the public's mind to mental diversity and the importance of educated and informed choice.
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