A friend on Facebook posted the following Pema Chödrön quote:

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.”

I’ve been thinking about this the past few days. This idea of annihilation. Self Immolation is an idea that keeps popping into my head lately too.

No, I don’t want to light myself on fire, ending it all in a spectacular way.

It’s a metaphor for what has happened to me the past couple years. Which started with the annihilation of a life: Doug’s.

I think back on how that event changed me so profoundly. It utterly and completely broke my heart. But it didn’t just break my heart. It also broke all the crap around my heart I’d put there as an attempt to protect it. Shellac is the metaphor that comes to mind. I have spent my entire life painting shellac around my heart  to protect it from breaking. But my effort wasn’t strong enough to protect it  from Doug’s death. And so it broke and I’ve walked around with this heart that has been completely exposed to the elements for two years. It has been both very painful and very exhilarating. It’s kind of scary but it feels right. Like I’m living life.

So I was led to meditation which has helped to clear away the cobwebs in my head a bit (some of them are still there). And by doing this I have been able hear my intuition and  trust it a bit more.  This practice has led me down a path I really didn’t expect. “Everything you thought was real isn’t” was something that was said to me by a friend and fellow meditator early on in this process and I’m seeing the truth of that statement in a big way. Along with the shellacking of my heart, I’ve created some really ornate facades that seem to be crumbling down around me.

My ego is one of those facades. I was telling another friend on Facebook today that it feels like my ego has been beaten down to a bloody pulp.

So according to this article, my meditation practice is working (horror film, indeed). Most importantly this practice has helped me see the truth. It  feels like I am burning up in a spectacular bonfire.  And that hurts. But in the end what is left is what is real. What is left is that which is indestructible.