HAVENS OF HEALING Teaser:
Cassidy’s Quicksand of Sorrows
At one point, during my early teenage years, I was going through a phase of suffering from emotional self-harm. It eventually got so bad that I wasn’t even aware of what I was getting myself into that I unconsciously trapped myself into the Quicksand of Sorrows. I was so lost in my suffering that until I realized I really needed to get out, but didn’t know how… that was when I was conscious that I was stuck in the quicksand.
For a while, I didn’t even know how I got there in the sinkhole. I was just there. I knew that I had to get out somehow, but I really didn’t know where I was supposed to start. I just had all of these terrible beliefs and habits that I was developing in my self-worth that I just believed that I didn’t deserve to come out. Psychologically, I kept myself in the quicksand because this was my way of punishing myself for the troubles I felt like I projected onto others. Even though of course I took my sorrows of my wrongs to extreme levels.
Anyway, because nobody could see I was in the quicksand of sorrows, I came to the conclusion that I was forced to get myself out somehow. So that’s when I had to look at the quicksand piece by piece to really understand how I got myself stuck in it. Here’s what I realized:
Because the clay, the water, and the sand got so jumbled together, that eventually all of these things formed into quicksand. My Quicksand of Sorrows. The Clay of the quicksand was the pain of the people I loved most in my life who I disappointed. The Water of the quicksand was reacted self-destructively. The Sand of the quicksand made me believe that because I unintentionally hurt someone I loved, I deserved the greatest punishment of all. Like if I did something that hurt someone I loved, I would absolutely hate myself. I believed that if I didn’t show any presence to them, they would be happier. To the extant that I would sacrifice myself to sink in the quicksand just for them to feel better. The more burdens I carried in my mind, the longer I spent sinking in the quicksand of sorrows. This, as a result made me closer to burying myself alive in my sorrows and suffering.
The most difficult thing about trying to get out of the quicksand was the fact that the more agitated I was, the more I sunk deeper. It wasn’t until much later of this suffering that I realized it was a process of staying calm during agitation, and letting go of what is weighing me down. I realized that the calmer I was in my mind, the sorrows that were dwelling there began to reveal themselves more easily. I was able to see clearly where they came from, what caused them to stick to me, and what I had to do to let them go. After all, the more I pushed these things down, they would grab onto me and let me sink with them. There was the choice of conscious awareness I had to make. I was either going to choose to dwell with them, or to not let them affect me anymore. That’s when I chose to let them rise to the surface with patience to see what they could teach me. Each time I learned a lesson from the burden that arose, I then decided to set them free. With every sorrow I set free, I began to float higher and higher.
After all, the quicksand only wants to suck up those that suffer in sorrows. Until I chose not to take my sorrows personally, I gradually swam myself out of the quicksand and found inner peace within my being.