The Ultimate Vice

Addicted to being me

My favorite cocktail was a Chopin martini with three olives and twist-dry. I could down 5 in a night. I loved to wash it all down, after another night out prowling the town for someone who might love me, with 5 pounds of food from the 24 hour mini mart, until I broke a sweat from the pressure in my gut, and then upchucked all the disappointment into a toilet.

I could outrun, outspin, out whatever cardio machine I strapped myself into- anyone around. I sweat the most, burned the hottest, cold plunged the coldest.

All the while, my book shelves were full of holistic home remedies - Healing with Whole Foods, The Complete Book of Natural and Medicinal Cures, Nourishing Traditions, Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay, The Tao, Michael Pollan etc etc.

“If I could only eat this way or take that herb for my belly. Or, cleanse my liver- it’s definitely my liver causing all the pain.”

When I broke free from the 25 year binge- puke cycle, by way of a prayer, I was thrust into the healing arts and immersed in the mystical, spiritual, shamanic, animist and alternative paths to wholeness.

It took a few years to halt any desire for excessive alcohol (Ayahuasca fixed that one in one ceremony) and then the desire faded to mindful consumption- a small glass of well crafted Mezcal or a fine Spanish wine once or twice a year (it was never a drug of choice so it doesn’t trigger me as it does those who deal with that demon- bless them). I no longer slept with anyone handsome who paid attention to me, and then no one for long periods of time.

A hip replacement in 2015 stopped all physical running. It took 15 more years to stop emotionally running. In these last 15 years I have sat in all the ceremonies, ingested most of the healing plants on the planet, prayed at portals between the worlds, followed the red threads and danced in fires fit only for the Phoenix.

And yet-

I couldn’t see how every initiation and attempt to heal was also an attempt to fix myself and thus avoid feeling the pain of being me. My intentions were soul guided and brave, AND they were tainted by this incessant drive towards worthiness, validation and acceptance and fueled by a long standing fear of survival.

I was on the right path, as there is no other path to walk. I was actively excavating my life for the root of the trauma and doing the work to free myself from the bondage of illusions, the grip of the past and the oppressions of a wounded patriarchy. Every attempted dive into my subconscious extracted just enough shrapnel, from life’s explosions, until I had regained enough of my own holy, sovereign flesh, strength of heart and clarity of soul to face what I had been avoiding.

There is little between myself and my Self any longer but the last frontier, the most insidious of distractions and addictions…

…the vice of being me, all the many voices of the mind and the memories in my body that have been driving every impulse, motivation and action throughout my life.

With nothing to pull me away from this sobering altar, and nowhere I could physically run, I have been able to confront, curl around, and compassionately witness the underbelly of this disease that afflicts most every human on the planet in some flavor. I have been able to face and feel what was driving the tainted desires and why it is so hard for anyone to make true change, break free and find peace within.

Addictive behavior is not relegated to those who partake in egregious substance abuse. The majority of folks are a daily compilation of little habits/addictions/impulses to keep them feeling a certain way to feel safe, and they call it a healthy life. Addictive behavior is hyper intelligent and will hide in the most “approved of” personality traits because that is where its mask is the thickest.

However, the substance or habit of choice, regardless of its weight, is not what the body is addicted to, but it thinks so. The substance is only the menstrum to temporarily extract the pain.

The subconscious is what steers our ship when not integrated into conscious awareness. These personality grooves are canyon deep and in order to navigate this terrain you need the kind of gear you can only purchase from that old wrinkly woman who lives in the woods in a hut with chicken legs.

Beyond the food, the men, the running and the running away-

I was addicted to feeling bad. I was addicted to shame. I was addicted to being a better version. I was addicted to the rush of rejection. I was addicted to feeling big huge emotions after not feeling anything but the numbing effects of self harm for most of my life. I was addicted to my story, which I will keep telling with new flare for others who need to hear that their story is NOT who they are. Yet, buried within the life story lay the keys to our freedom.

I was addicted to being a victim and to all the many fears around receiving. I was addicted to seeking validation- which past the formative years of childhood- can lead to physical death as it eats the spirit and fragments the soul.

All due to a narrative embedded in the collective and ancestral DNA that paints God as a force that divides, punishes, destroys and favors one group of beings over another. And from living in a society that profits from pandering extreme fear and distrust of ourselves and Life, and erects itself upon bending our hearts and minds towards addictions that keep us from God.

Today, I have a beautiful relationship with food. It lands like love in my belly. I feel the codes it carries and a sense of belonging fills my body.

Can I get a Hallelujah?!

I do not consume any intoxicating or mind altering substances (I continue to fully support the therapeutic and ceremonial use of entheogens), including sugar (unless my mom makes me a bday cake) and caffeine, I sleep well enough for a woman in a mid life transition, I have been off social media sans a few moments for over a year and I have not lost connection with “reality”, I don’t watch the news, not even Netflix gets me. I scroll Youtube 20 mins a day and usually learn something relevant and inspiring amidst the egregious ads telling me I need something to be better.

Good men walk into my life.

My cravings for distractions have decreased dramatically and I do not feel restricted. Quite the opposite. I am learning to feast upon what all of those distractions were trying to protect me from and allow it to nourish me. Yet, as Vedic astrologer in the ashram said to me last year- Shira you are mystically wired for spiritual devotion so you risk becoming too ascetic- get a boyfriend in the meantime, play, allow the sensual, a little pleasure.

Is this pleasure enough?…

~I stand, breathe and allow the old pulsing impulses tendril into my tender places still seeking a long lost embrace. I travel to their root and each time, every time, without fail- I find love at the center of the storm.

I feel, I open wide and feel- the rage at being manipulated and I burn in it until that flame creates a sacred boundary that not even the devil himself would dare to cross. I cradle this oceanic puddle of grief for how it has seeped through time and water new life with my gratitude. A sunburst of compassion awakens for the hurt people who hurt people and why so many can’t break free from the septic terrors.

My heart breaks, widens, light fills my entire life, a prayer emanates from my understanding of this pain to those who suffer the same confusions. I feel the breaking, I feel the reason behind every birthing and then my Beloved’s timeless hand in mine and I stand in Love.~

It’s a terribly terrifying thing to confront this within ourselves. To face the depths of the addictions takes breaking the habit of being all of the things we were told to be to be loved, fed, safe.

In order to let go and empty out the subconscious lies on repeat about Life, there must be enough tried and true contact with a force that can provide those things unconditionally and fill the gap where the disease took hold.

With less of you there is more of YOU. When you let go of you, you can finally make space for YOU. But first you must love you to know YOU.

YOU are the one you have been waiting for, for that embrace, to feel safe, to know love and trust in life like a child in her Mother’s arms again. To know YOU is to know how you have traveled, undying, through time, to taste again and again the honey on the winds of constant change and evolution. Many have said this before. May I so humbly join that choir of voices in praise of Life.

Am I saying that You are God?!- Yes. No. There is no separation. Bow at the feet. Claim your power. Stay humble and pray. To what? Just pray. See what happens.

In my last post about the Guru and God, my friend, fabulous intuitive astrologer (her bi-monthly readings are medicine), spiritual guide and writer

ERIN REESE

commented on the post that it is the challenge of challenges to talk about our personal experience of God at this time and not be seen as proselytizing and therefore disregarded.

And so be it. I will lovingly walk with my old friend rejection and sing my song.

Blessed Be,

Shira Starfire

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