Learning to Land and Falling Again

There was a time when the sensation of relaxation incited near panic attacks. There was a time when I did not have the comfort bred from trust to venture into the unknown, to explore the dark with only a flashlight.

There was a time when I suppressed the side of myself that I’m now embracing. There was a time when I focused on the logical and tangible in life.

There was a time when I disregarded the things that couldn’t be explained, avoiding anything, whether it be weed or church, that made me feel like there was more out there, that made me question the physicality of the path we are all walking.

There was a time when I was unable to explore my experience outside my physical body or embrace the sensations that accompany letting go. There was a time when I simply couldn’t let go.

My grasp on this reality was so tight. I was white-knuckling through life, holding onto all the things I should hold on to — a stressful job, anxiety resulting from efforts to maintain the illusion of control, money, surface-level relationships.

A deep-seated part of me knew that releasing my grip on those things would leave my hand open to explore what I knew was beneath the surface: the desire for more and the knowing that it was there.

As I’ve slid deeper into yoga, I have had the blessing of learning from teachers who have made it to the other side of their awakening. Seeing their light has given me comfort that there is another side to this discomfort.

One of the most essential things I have learned is that as ‘awakening individuals’, we cannot force people to awaken with us. We cannot push them or try to show them the light we have found if they are not ready.

If we are awake, it is our responsibility to lead by example and offer nuggets of guidance as it is asked for. Awakening can be scary and incite existential crises of sorts as the questions compound and what was known disintegrates before our eyes. People must venture down that path in their own time.

We have to make sure they have their own parachute before they jump. Although support is ever-present on the path, it is largely an individual journey. There are many, many times where you are floating without anyone around you.

If you are flying through the air without your own parachute fabricated of trust and coping skills, it can be a hard and abrupt landing.

A parachute must be crafted over time, each question asked or perhaps answered, intertwines to create the parachute that will eventually catch you. It’s our responsibility to ensure, trust, and know when our parachute is strong enough to gently carry us to the ground.

Our teachers, friends, and like-minded individuals can offer fibers of support, but they cannot weave our net. They can await us when we land, but they cannot jump with us.

I liken the awakening to jumping out of a plane.

For a while I was in the plane, sitting and flying through the known, believing what I could see inside was all that existed.

Eventually, I left my seat and saw there were windows. I began looking out, seeing that other things existed. My curiosity carried me towards the door. At some point, I realized the door could open — that I could open it.

I stood in that space for years, wanting the comfort of the plane and the freedom of the air. I would place a foot over the edge before tucking it back in, getting a taste but being overwhelmed by the air swirling around me, the wind, the vastness of what I would be falling into.

At some point, I saw a parachute and attached it to my person, still unsure if it was strong enough to carry me down. I would look back from the door now and again to see the life I had built filling the seats: all the people that knew me or thought they did, the job I thought I wanted, the milestones I thought I needed.

My eyes would go back through the doorway. I would see something down below. I would see that I could land but I couldn’t see what or who would be waiting there, if anything.

Eventually, the discontentment with the known and the desire to discover the unknown led me to jump.

Now, it’s been eight months of falling.

The fall has been fast and miraculous, soaring through the sky and strengthening my parachute along the way with each manifestation that comes to life.

I’m at the part in the landing where I still have the speed and velocity of my jump. My surroundings are blurry. I am not in the air nor am I firmly on land.

I am bouncing between the two, knowing I will not slow until I am comfortable and confident in who I am landing as. That is the work that faces me now: becoming and embracing the woman whose feet will land on the ground, as she is so different and unrecognizable from the woman who jumped from the plane.

But, perhaps with the awakening, I will never really land.

As soon as my feet touch the ground, I realize the beauty of the expansive journey before me. The pure potentiality that reveals itself each time I touch down. I gather a person, an experience, a lesson and they begin to bounce with me, softening my landing.

But, perhaps with the awakening, I don’t want to land.

I don’t just want a surefooted landing and a completed parachute — I want to experience the joy from the adventure as each lesson builds into the next.

As it strengthens, I become more and more comfortable with my chute.

Lately, it’s been all I want, to soar through the space of questions and answers, exploring the air of my true being. I want to quieten my mind as I fall and read and ingest all the things that bring me closer, all the things that add strength to my parachute and clarity to my vision.

I know I will land, but I think the beauty lies with there always being the option to get into a different plane to experience a new fall.

There are endless adventures. Learning and evolving don’t stop.

With each lesson comes answers but also more questions.

It’s natural to have a hunger for discovery and a discontentment with complacency.

Once you realize you can step out of the plane, the sky before you is limitless. Build your parachute, and fall when you’re ready.

Learn, land, then fall again.