In the Water
A couple months ago I sat seemingly paralyzed on my couch at home in space that once felt so peaceful and warm. My smile was drained from my face and my body flowed with cooled blood… only warmed by the unexplainable tears that rolled down my face. Numbed past the point of fighting… “My stillness will move me”… were the only words I was able to conjure in a moment so distant from all that once felt so good.

For anyone who is into myspace, my page as well as my bands page was completely blank… sometimes a fresh start and perspective is just the medicine you need in life. Im not gone, the band is not gone but the need for this stillness came as everything around me felt so wrong. I haven’t been able to write this column in months, look at the beauty around me, write my poetry or songs, draw or even open up to the people so close and dear to me. I felt as though my light had just shut off. Had age gotten me or maybe my abundance of energy just ran out?

Even though I am a total workaholic, my personal life always comes first. The result of how you are living inadvertently always effects what you do. The result of how I have been living, with my history of codependency, had completely sucked me dry. This depth of water that I slowly sank into was effecting what I do so much so, that my precious drive and passion floated high above my head and the weight of history hanging from my feet was so heavy, it kept them out of reach.

I was drowning in water that appeared to be the surroundings of what life had done to me and my will to reach this place high above it. Land I will deserve once I get there. I have had it in my head for years that once I achieve the difference and purpose I feel is so necessary out of my life, then I can really enjoy it, but until then I will wade as hard as I can.

As I started to examine some of these thoughts and statements that repeat like a broken record in my head, I could feel the strength of their damage cutting me. Drenched to a salt water scar, seen through keloid eyes, that felt like life. I don’t deserve to be happy now? I don’t deserve someone who treats me well because Im strong enough to help them through all they need? I will love something completely self absorbed enough and cant truly love me back because Im not worth it anyways?

Once the burden on my own weights jerked my attention awake, I first and foremost knew that change needed my full awareness on this cognitive process and anything that was part of the problem in my immediate life, needed to cease. Goodbye.

So what are we always hiding from with personal perception and separation from each other and truth. I decided to focus on the broken record created by history, turned with fingers for the future. I allowed this “thought” of who I am, what has happened, what I do/done or what I want to be completely unattached to the me that just is.

I spent the next couple weeks divulged in this idea of being aware of everything going on inside my head. Listening to every thought that passed judgment on life in general and watching the separation it inherently causes between people. I found that through this quiet there were two distinct voices in my head. The first one being all the thought process that thinks and interperpates every person, situation, feeling and myself based on my life’s experiences. The second one being the awareness behind all the judgment. The awareness that sits very collective in the reality that just is.

In my little experiment I found that as I made myself extremely aware of my thoughts turned reactions, they were undeniably conditioned by the past and driven by the future, in turn falling into the identify that begs to ask “who are you”. The “who are you” that is separation and judgement caused by an ego completely unidentified to the true awareness of who we are.

So here I am today… lounging in sand strewn across Venice beach shores. Paper in hand and a pen that wont stop. I have words, songs, ideas and passion sweating through every pour in my body. With a clear mind and heart full of light, all that is manifested and laced through my being has given me the vision of quality that each moment holds if I give attention to it.

In this time of stillness my love for wrestling, music, writing and life in general has graced its way right back into a heart it never really left. Things at TNA are great and I am continually learning so much with a company that has been growing faster than anyone ever imagined, including the launch of our new Midway video game, which is completely ROCKS! Musically the band is taking a new direction as a result of these “changes and realizations” but the outcome being that all these fresh creative juices are flowing their way into the studio in one week to record an EP for a distribution deal with Universal that will put us in Hot Topic’s, Target’s etc. Personally Im happy and in love with life again, so YAA awareness!

As the shore rises to kiss my toes, I brush my hands over the top of its glistening white diamond like tide. The sea water twirls around my fingers as we dance through the surge and my feet push through the ever shifting sand. As they are submerged in weightless water, they play in oxygen that breathes without thought and I have such ease with what I feel… Land never truly escaped from under me. I just simply chose to hover over my ocean floor beginning, suspended in emotional weight from the bottom and want for the top. When all we really have to do is awaken to the beauty of presence that can be every moment. All hardships and past experiences can be accepted because the reality is they are if they are there, its just us that feel its necessary to give them time or label them to who we are. Stress and worry can be eliminated because they are for tomorrow and take you away from accepting this moment your in and giving it the quality of your presence. The reality is we can change our position into living right now and not anywhere that land wont welcome the grace of attention our feet choose to give the footprints we make… as we make them.

We by nature make it so much harder on ourselves, so I am curious… if you took just a couple days off from the noise to be still and view your own thoughts, what do you think you would hear?