(This post differs from the usual approach I’ve taken to my articles here on lonerwolf. It’s a more simple, contemplative, and reflective piece, with no necessarily “actionable tips.” Let me know if you enjoy this format in the comments, as well as your own reflections.)
In my attempt to try and make peace with the seismic shift that joyfully destroys all semblance of the old that is new parenthood, I was recently reading the book When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. Pretty apt name, wouldn’t you say? ;)
This verse struck me – and I managed to capture it in a photo complete with a magical-looking sunbeam and everything:
Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.
Take a moment to re-read that quote again, more slowly this time.
Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.
When I read this sentence, I immediately paused. It felt like striking gold. This is at the heart of the awakening journey, I realized, yet it’s so often glossed over, bypassed, or not even known.
The truth is that awakening is destructive. Growth is destructive. Expansion is destructive.
For a muscle to get stronger, its fibers must be damaged and injured first.
For a chick to hatch from an egg, it must peck free from the shell that was its original home.
For new stars and planets to form, old galaxies must collide.
For potato chips to be edible, they have to cook at absurdly high heat.
There’s very little discussion in the spiritual or psychological spheres of the topic of creative destruction. I think that’s because we’re scared of the thought, and it’s certainly not marketable or appealing to capitalism.
But the fact is that on the awakening path, we will all face creative destruction in the form of an existential crisis, a spiritual emergency, a dark night of the soul, or some other challenge that shakes the foundations of our reality sooner or later.
Life falling apart feels like:
- Not knowing the answers anymore
- Feeling disconnected from yourself and others
- Difficulty knowing “who you are” or “what you want” anymore (aka., identity crisis)
- Having the sense that you’re falling or the ground has crumbled beneath your feet
- Losing interest in what once excited or motivated you
- Finding that the things that once comforted you no longer have that impact
- Feeling lost, aimless, and adrift in life
If you’re experiencing any of these feelings or sensations, I want you to know that they’re a normal part of the awakening process.
Pathologizing this experience, in many cases, only tends to make things worse.
Ruminating on this experience, trying to resist it, or desperately trying to change it, also tends to add salt to the wound.
This is a friendly message today to say that awakening is not only destructive but it is inherently and fundamentally destructive, as the old must die before the new can emerge.
So relax a little.
Don’t take the process so seriously. Be a curious observer of this experience knowing that it too will pass. The only constant, after all, is change.
Of course, if you’re completely crippled by anxiety and unable to function, please seek help. Find a 1:1 trauma-informed guide or counselor, and be conscious of the amplitude of dodgy spiritual guidance out there.
However, if you simply have that unnerving feeling that things are falling apart – that your old strategies of self-protection, your finely tuned self-image, or your previously straightforward approach to life are no longer working – know that it’s going to be okay.
While it’s unpleasant to stand within the fire of transformation, to watch as the floor collapses beneath you, it is an essential part of the spiritual wanderer’s journey. (I explore this more in our comprehensive Spiritual Wanderer Course.)
There are so many people out there who will dramatize this experience and use it to fuel a sense of ego-centered victim mentality. It attracts a lot of likes and followers, you see. ;)
But in the end, that approach gets us nowhere.
This obsession with dramatizing creative destruction was incidentally one of the reasons why I was extremely protective of my mind and what entered it during pregnancy – a notoriously sensitive time where life often tends to fall apart in one way or another – and managed to stay relatively calm and healthy throughout as a result.
So embrace the in-between state of creative destruction. Poet John Keats called it Negative Capability, which in a letter from 1818 he defined as:
… when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason …
Here are a couple of questions you might like to contemplate or journal about right now if you’re going through a period of creative destruction, or things falling apart:
- What is being destroyed within myself or my life right now?
- How is that empty space offering a chance for me to awaken and grow more deeply and fully?
Do you have any thoughts or perspectives? I’d love to hear them below.
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Hello Aletheia Luna & Mateo Sol,
I’ve been a subscriber for quite sometime. Many blessings on your new bundle of joy. I agree with your statements in your email regarding life quickly falling apart. It’s like a ripple that slowly builds into a tsunami.
even when it’s good, it’s still hard to get acclimated to.
Your email arrived timely. As I recently decided to forgo a job that had me shackled in disrespect and misery.
Starting anew on a creative endeavor is scary to me. Both of you are so relatable and it inspires me to think I also have something to impart, but my trauma & pain keep me from venturing out.
So glad to have found your information. I know I’m a loner wolf and an old soul. That doesn’t fit in this world. I have peace understanding who I am.
I’m going to read the book you suggested.
best wishes for your family thru the holidays -Yvonne
First I want to say this article was timely, as it came right when I was having such a destruction period of the old. This was accompanied by the feeling of my life in this world not being real, like it was a dream. I used to get this feeling a lot when I was a kid.
I’m kind of still in a daze right this moment. So I don’t have much to add to your article. Other than to say that the two contemplative questions are s very useful tool to help bring clarity.
Oh, so it’s not just me. Awesome. Even though chaos reigns, I try to remain grounded.
I tell others to remain focused on what’s in front of them and take each day as it comes, despite the shifting ground beneath their feet. It feels like vertigo.😯
A PERFECT post this week. Creative constructive destruction – that’s the key. For everyone working through hard times, we are here for you sending blessings and positive energy to recharge you. Keep going and we will all get there together.
This arrived at the perfect time for me
I am still all over the place.but mostly confident and know i have no choice but to journey.
At the moment i am st4uggling to trust my good friends and family. They seem to be delibrately making it harder for me. I wonder if its me doing it to myself.
I think maybe people are trying to teach me to be strong even when alone. Practically i realise that everyone has there own motivations.
I am confused often in pain but in the most part love what im becoming, whilst mourning my previous ignorance. I know im on the right path for me.
Thank you
I hope Sage and the two of you are well and happy.
This reminds me of Rebecca Solnits description of how (necessarily) aggressive the transformation from chrysalis to butterfly is. Belated congratulations to you both
Powerful insights!
And isn’t parenthood amazing! No matter how hard we try, nothing really prepares us for it 😅
Much love 💖
To answer your first question: yes, I like this format / textual style :-) Feeling: started 2 days ago (trigger was 2 days of treatment, won’t say more here) – I felt shattered, like a sheet of glass or a mirror, with a thousand cracks in it, but somehow still held together as a whole. Then it began, slowly one splinter of glass fell, I watched it “from the outside” as if in slow-motion, then another, and another in an avalanche cascade – but in slow motion. 1000 shards… Then this article turned up in my Inbox… synchronicity! Right article at the right time. Love the work of Pema Chodron BTW – quote couldn”t have been more fitting. Two things occured to me when reading this article: (1) the concept of liminality e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality#Depth_psychology (yeah I’m very much Jungian, which is why I chose the Depth Psychology sub-topic on that page), and (2) a German group I liked for a long time already… industrial music -> using material from e.g. building sites -> de-construction followed by re-construction -> name of the band Einstuerzende Neubauten (no I don’t expect you to read it out loud ;) ) -> translates as “Collapsing… Read more »
My life has been a series of destruction and rebirth since 2015 when 4 years after a divorce of 17 years of marrige everything around me disintegrated,9 years of ups,downs,destruction,and rebirth. Its gettin old,it cant phaze me anymore,i have to just accept it.
Not to sure about these destructive components or dark nights of the soul. Sometimes life is just shit. We die from cancer we battle mental health for many years. There is no light except maybe a cessation of illness. Lucky you might guess.