How do you get out of the Swamp ?
Swamp article part 2
Maybe everybody has a swamp. A place where there are unresolved pieces of undigested emotions of shame, guilt, self-resentment. For there is a special place in your territory, an inner landscape called the swamp of shame, far away in the death valley of guilt. Well that’s a special place because it has a special consistency, smell and memories.
It is well known that we see what is coming from our purpose. The brain doesn’t think randomly for memories that hurt if it is not the purpose of your consciousness, or would you accept then that you are the victim of your brain ?
Take a breath, I mean really now, it’s not something I want to tell you brain by brain but more heart to heart. There is no such a place with moving sands, disgusting smells, mud and hollowness of past realm foggy memories unless it is in you inner landscape. This is an invention, yet this invention serves a purpose, and it has an effective reality on your life : making you small (bad, monster, ugly, or whatever voice you might encounter here).
What are you avoiding going in the swamp, beating yourself up ? Is that a unfinished mourning process ? Is that a huge emotion or feeling of anger ? I realized that most of the times when I go into the swamp of shame there is an unconscious emotional or feeling ‘reason’.
And it goes this way :
Beep ! You received a « bad » feedback. The alarm is on, your indicators are blinking everywhere one your instrument panel. You already feel that the fuel of your life is going away. « oh no, not that voice again » it smells the Swamp of Shame.
Then other companions in your spaceship try to help you (although because you’re the captain, you might have forgotten), saying “captain the engines are burning and we are loosing height”.
And you try to fix that up, and that doesn’t work because you’re thinking about the enemy you face : the ugly worst version of yourself, going down into this foreign landscape (and therefore the commands of the ship respond to that impulse).
Yes everybody has a worst version of oneself and a best version no ? It is like heaven and hell. But this time you chose hell — well maybe all is a matter of appreciation and adventure (and choices!), so let’s take it as an exploration in your underworld.
The temperature is dropping, even though the atmosphere begins to crush and overheat the structure of your vessel. “Captain ! Captain ! we are entering Marshmallow zone ! M’aidez Maidez !”. But you do not respond because you’re obsessed with low drama, like a starving creature left in the desert, hoping to get some juicy food that you didn’t get for a long time.
The vessel crashes and, stunned and flabbergasted you observe the disaster : your crew died, flight manager is dead, engineer is dead, kitchen supervisor is dead, well everybody’s dead mate.
You get out as you can from the scorching metal carcass of your past ship. But there is no such time for boredom in the realm of your inner world. And you remember your enemy : the worst version of yourself, hiding somewhere in this foreign landscape you’re surrounded with.
“Where are you ?” you’re yelling, intending to finish a job that you took years, decades ago and let waiting on your desk.
And you say to yourself “there is no such a thing as boredom, for boredom is a dreamy hatred” as said the philosopher Cioran. So let’s get that thing done and find that guilty bastard, Enemy Mine ! This is time to finish the job.
As the adventure is over now, and your best wishes had fade away then let’s take a sip of hatred and finish with this ‘problem’ : “I hate this buddy, let’s find it !”
For there is no such thing as Marshmallow zone — or more precisely it is a construct of your beliefs, thoughts systems — this is something that inhabit in your mind. If you look for something that you expect to be in your heart (like kindness towards yourself for exemple or sadness or whatever feeling) and you’re looking for it in your head you’re not gonna reach what you’re searching.
It is like searching for milk in a hardware store. Hopeless.
Ok, then, but you chose to have an ‘enemy’ which is the worst version of yourself — most people choose that option though, it must have something interesting in it no ?
It is skinny or fat, ugly and greasy, it has scars and is maybe really scary sometimes. It might change shapes — or have really unapproachable strategies. But at least you’re alone now. Your crew died. You have no vessel to return home, and you’re trapped with a monster in your Marshmallow zone.
Ok then ! Let’s finish the job. “Where are you ?” — and for the sake of his own life, he won’t respond, he’s alive like you and alone like you.
For better and for worse, you’re here entangled with this creature.
“To live! like a tree alone and free,
To live! like a forest in unity…” — paraphrased from Nazim Hikmet
For there is no such a thing as being guilty as it is finding a mushroom of mixed feelings of sadness, anger and fear in a forest of feelings. “Waw, a mushroom, how incredible” and you chose to eat it and be intoxicated by your own drama world.
“But I need to eat something!” or else I’m gonna die. Imagine how much of different food you can get from this swamp.
If you find your foods, let me know.
At least you find your enemy, hiding behind a rock, knowing that you’re gonna come (he knows everything about you). You try to kill it but he tricks you and you loose. You are the captive of your enemy, the guardian of your shadows, smiling with a full grin, pitiful creature victim of an incredible life force, now controlling you.
And you might say “ok” to save time and find a strategy to overcome this bad gateway on your map.
For there is no such thing as time in ancient aboriginal languages — but instead they use the word desire.
As you’ve been kidnapped by your life force and guardian of your shadows, you have ‘time’ now to think. And by thinking, I mean the original definition of it : feeling, for there is no thinking that is previously embedded in a feeling.
And then you think. And then you take back the resentments that you have towards the world and the worst version of yourself, and there you can heal. No more expectations about the world or people. It’s not about being ‘nice’ it is about how do you take the feedbacks.
That is evolution, this is not revolution. That is consciousness in action.
Feeling is the gateway out of the swamp. Out of marshmallow zone and guilt and shame. There is a full wild world out there. Get out now !
What do you feel ?
You can start with :
- I feel scared because…
- I feel angry because…
- I feel sad because…
- I feel joy because…
And question what is your desire ? What are you longing for with the ‘intelligence’ of your heart ? No more ‘judge-mentals’. Breathe. Be surprised. Observe. Let yourself be touched. Learn silence. Cry. Persevere in what you call the non-sense for there is no such a thing as non-sense (or non-sense is the other side of the coin of sense, attributing a sense to an event or receiving the information is different). Focus on your body, there are areas where you can find wellness, even if it’s your little toe. There are seed spots you can find in the forest and lay in connection to the ground and make a connection to Gaïa. There is direct connection to heart through your barefeet. There is beauty in the wandering for no reason.
When you’ve been kidnapped by your gremlin — guardian of your infinite abyss, you realize that you’ve been avoiding it, playing the nice guy or the nice girl to please others — or more straightly a slave of you’re ‘being good adaptive pattern’. You cannot petition your shadows with being nice. That doesn’t work that way. The real thing is that you’re majorly harming yourself, dragging heavy balls attached to your feet.
Slow down, observe. You might want to learn again how to walk. As the hot shower of aliveness comes back from a long journey into your swamp, the cold sweat of having escaped your nightmare is there. Your heart is beating. Your tongue is dry and your throat is still hurting from the constriction. You’ve just been out of Patriarchy, a mindfuck that many being on this planet are playing for staying small, adaptative, so little that they won’t disturb any space nor never exist. A perfect condition for the world staying as it is.
But here there’s an opportunity to change the game. As your taking a sip of what could be a life without a swamp but just feedback (from people or from Gaïa, whatever) then you can choose what you’ll make of that feedback. What will you create from that feedback you received ? What will you do from that experience or therefore what this experience will do of you ?
Have a safe return home. Unfasten your seat-belt. There are signs everywhere.
