I have been breaking through a crust of limiting beliefs lately.
Once Upon a Time, I thought I had figured out the problem of this crust. I thought I had fit myself into a form smaller than my true self. And I was so fucking frustrated because it seemed like I’d break out, and then crust myself back in again, and then break out, and then crust myself back in, over and over and over.
Now, I think what I had really done was encase a relatively small but important part of myself in the crust. That part of me was trapped and disconnected. But it wasn’t all of me.
I was existing simultaneously inside and outside the crusty form. Caged and free in different measures. But for most of my life, my consciousness was mostly trapped inside. I mostly lived from inside the cage.
About five years ago, something happened to me that taught me to shift my consciousness out. And as I shifted back out into the light, I could be free, at least in part. And so I thought I had freed myself. And I feared that I had simply deluded myself.
Then about three years ago, something happened that shoved my consciousness back inside the crusty form. I never forgot the light, and sometimes I would visit, but mostly I was living in the dark, trying to find my way out, wondering how the Hell I ended up back here, aghast at my own betrayal, but simultaneously accepting that I must have simply been deluded all along.
I misunderstood what was happening. When I was free, I thought I was freed. When I was back in the cage, I thought I’d turned myself in. I didn’t understand that my job wasn’t to escape, but to reunite my imprisoned self with my liberated self. I was always bigger than the cage. I could never be contained. Only part of me could be contained.
All this time I’ve been trying to break out of this crusty form. That is what has kept me going back to the trapped part over and over and over again, thinking I’d re-imprisoned myself. If I could only locate the key, or convince my jailers, or scale the wall, or kick down the door. If I could only logic up a plan or find the brute strength I need. If I could only understand my cage, I could figure it out.
But the only way to free myself was for the enlightened part of me to break in. Only the liberated part of me had the power to break through that fucking crust.
So what I really needed was to realise I was already free (at least for the most part). I needed to embody the vast, liberated part of myself – the self who actually had access to the resources needed to get through that crust. I could only ever free myself by being free first.
It has happened. The crust is broken. I can feel myself spilling out. I don’t know what happens now, but I’m excited to see.