I’m coming so close to everything I’ve wanted, so, true to form, I’m doubting myself.

I’m freaking the fuck out.

I’m not seeing myself for everything I’ve done, for every bit of energy I’ve exerted and changed and morphed and grown to get to this point.

It’s amazing how I can go from feeling on top of the world and totally capable to feeling completely incompetent and weak and incapable of putting the simplest sentence together.

The second I achieve something I’ve really been yearning for, I freeze up, get so fucking scared and scattered that I can’t write a single thing. I obsess and lament over not being able to write, beat myself up for this weakness, this deer-in-headlights response to growth and success and expansion. My mind swims, buzzes, coagulates. Again, sleep evades me, adding to the ensuing madness and chaos and confusion.

But I keep moving. I walk, put one foot in front of the other, but close my eyes. I literally did this today through the woods.

I went to the woods to clear the energy from an altercation I had earlier. I was energetically attacked, cornered. I had a finger pointed in my face and abusive words shot at the most tender spots of my psyche. I was the target of misdirected anger…a position I’ve found myself in far too many times.

I was cornered.

So of course, I go inward. I ask myself, “Why?” But not, “Why me?”, but more so, “Ok, what lesson haven’t I learned yet? Why do I keep circling around to this point, this juncture in my cyclical path? Why do I keep attracting this? What do I still need to release here?”

I dragged myself to the woods after a sleepless night and a three mile run. I had no energy left, but I knew I couldn’t stay where I was, so, like I always do, I sought solace amongst the trees. I literally walked the beaten path, closing my eyes at one point as my legs and feet continued to carry me.

I need to thank them more. I really don’t appreciate my extremities enough.

I continued to sleepwalk to the rapids. I found myself at the cliff of rocks overlooking the river’s edge. I put my notebook and pen down and took out my phone to snap some pictures. I didn’t like the way the sun was hitting the water and kept trying for better angles. By the time I decided to just give it up and get to writing, the original reason I made the trip, someone had joined me.

I turned around to see a man in a trench coat standing about 10 feet away from me. I said hello, he said nothing. He rocked back and forth and started to fumble with his sleeves. I said what’s going on, he said nothing, continuing to rock back and forth.

Again, for the second time today, I found myself cornered.

Victimized.

But this time, I remained calm. I didn’t start to tremble with anger, as I did earlier. I didn’t feel myself gearing up for battle, oddly enough, the way I had hours before. Maybe because I had already engaged in all the fight or flight emotions that I could physically and mentally handle for the day; maybe I was drained. Maybe, I had very, very little left to give.

I was scared as hell, but I was calm.

I picked up my notebook and pen and retrieved my phone from my pocket. I called a friend and began talking to his voicemail as I made my way past the man in the trench coat, figuring that if he did lunge at me, at least someone would know where to find me. In that moment, I was without fear. In that moment, I was completely calm. I walked past the man, blatantly explaining my every move and why I was making it to the lifeless voicemail at the other end of my life line.

I hurried up the path, constantly glancing behind me. The trench coat did turn around and head my way, but I was already at the top of the hill by then. I hustled, giving the void of voicemail my play by play, even joking that I was just trying to come to the woods to find some solace, but that there was “no solace for this girl today.” I made small talk, recounting an earlier conversation we had, telling the emptiness on the other end how fast I was walking, exactly how everything had happened…and then the voicemail cut out, as I knew it would.

I made it to my car and took one final look behind me. Nothing. I drove to another nature preserve up the street, parked and pulled out my notebook. I started to write, but that only lasted a few seconds as the tears started to stream down my face and I started to sob. This intense tingling and pressure started to rise in my face and at the base of my throat—this huge release of energy; rage, anger, frustration, fear.

Desperation.

A vulnerability that I’d been just barely holding at bay…every emotion I had pushed down that day just to get through the day—just to keep sleepwalking until my obligations were met—burst through my stronghold and took me down.

Looking back, that was probably my most honest moment of the day. The moment I let myself breakdown and release everything that wasn’t serving me; all the toxic energies I had been trying to repress just to stay strong and soldier on.

Today, the universe caught up with me. Today, the universe threw me in the line of fire so that I could embrace two very real, very aggressive and hostile opportunities to release some karmic baggage that I’ve been toting around for far too long.

We victimize ourselves when we stress needlessly. We victimize ourselves when we turn our backs and ignore forces that bellow and holler, louder and louder and louder until their frequencies smother our energy and scrape our insides raw.

We also victimize ourselves when we refuse to let these things go – when we continually personalize and internalize these outside attacks. These lessons are always a double-edged sword, slicing us with illusion and truth, and believe me when I say that deciphering the lines that differentiate the two might be the greatest riddle we’ll ever attempt to solve.

So, I am grateful today, in spite of everything.

Today, I am grateful for these eye-opening and soul-expanding experiences.

Today, I am grateful to be alive.

Today, I see myself in a different light, and that’s what release is all about.

Today, I am.

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Ed: Bryonie Wise