There once was a quote, mostly popular with the go-hard rage-through-it types that was something like ‘blank’ is just pain leaving the body. I used to be able to quote this at anytime but now, it is inaccessible. I might say that this is due to my forgetfulness, or my memory fog, but perhaps this is in fact due to my head being somewhere else altogether, focusing on other things, on other, more pressing concerns. Perhaps it is simply busy trying to understand some greater, more pressing and important ideas. Perhaps it is working to understand holistic meta-concepts that I am not yet able to even conceptually articulate, no less express in words, oral or written. For now, I am occupied with bigger things, deeper things. For now, it is just the idea of pain leaving the body, and its many causes that might be.

Yesterday, I used cannabis for the first time in almost a year. I stopped last August because I felt that I was abusing it, using it to cope with a painful situation, and I do not want to abuse anything at this point in my life. I am no longer interested in simply coping. I want to face, process, and evict these causes from my body. I want them out, to be free of them and to live a life of enjoyment and gratitude, and peace. I waited the through the first three days of being here as I had promised myself that I would do. I finished the work I was doing and then decided that I would smoke.

I did, and it was interesting. Part of me was relaxed after, but part of me was anxious. At the time, I knew that I was having this reaction, but I was unable to articulate it. I asked permission to be my silly, permission to be stoned, but still felt it. I shared some things that I made but was unable to share them fully, to be vulnerable, to be proud. I shared at a distance, and didn’t sit down to share them face to face, instead staying safely removed from the sacred space of sharing. At the time, I was not able to do anything about this, I felt blocked from experiencing that intimacy. I felt anxious and afraid – of rejection, of being seen, of being judged as too proud and boastful. So I stayed removed, stayed safe, stayed isolated…

At several points in the evening, I felt afraid. Startled by noises that at other times would have probably done nothing to me, or not much. I was scared, like someone might jump out from somewhere. My heart and body felt low and unwell, like buzzing in a minor chord, in a unpleasant symphonic transition. When I lay down to sleep, when it was just me and my body, I felt it in waves. It was not just emotions, of fright, of threat, of worry, of edginess. No, it was physical. It was like shock waves of unwell-ness, sickness, pulsating down and out of me. It was pain, leaving my body.

I now know that it is not just thinking or verbalising or stretching or yoga that is going to help me to heal. Sometimes, the pain actually has to come out as a physical sensation. Like a demon finally getting exorcised, cast the fuck out of me. Next time I use cannabis, it will be with the expressed intent of tapping back into those so often controlled and denied feelings , suppressed so far that they are buried in my very tissues, and perhaps even bones. I will let them come up, finally, so that they can then get the fuck out of me. I will surrender to them, welcome them in, and let my worries know that they will too, be safe. They don’t need to hold on for fear of being seen, creating nagging pain throughout my body. No, they feel safe to be here, but the pain must go. Finally, I do not need it anymore.