THE PRICE OF AUTHENTICITY

Ramin Entry #41

6 February – 6 March 2023

What is the price of authenticity?
Too much to bear in becoming my own Self
When I am alone searching for my truth
Alone in the desert and downcast
Confronted with recurring loneliness
That of spiritual and existential in nature
Searching for truth of who I am
Searching for truth of my being
Searching for truth of my existence
Searching for truth of my essence
Searching for truth of my belonging
Searching for truth of my purpose
To hold space for a relationship with myself
To hold space for a relationship with my body
To hold space for a relationship with my mind
To hold space for a relationship with my emotions
To hold space for true self-acceptance in my heart
To hold space for true self-honesty dear to my heart
A simple virtue yet illusive and elusive to actualize
A virtue of such rarity in humanity

Found Me! I had so jovially thought
Transpired to be only a facet of me brought to light
A valuable fragment of great significance
To experience its reality and live the moments
To learn acknowledgement and validation of Self
To learn the empowering power of self-acceptance
To learn the gentleness of self-compassion
To learn the lovingness of self-kindness
To feel comfortable accustomed in my own skin
The very skin I had denied, abused, and disowned
To open hardened heart and mind toward changes
To strengthen weakened mind and heart with faith
To unlearn, re-learn, and re-parent an entire lifetime
To integrate, imbibe, and internalize learnings
To extrapolate and utilize the wisdom within
Essential pivotal life lessons as momentous growth
Until life’s cruel jokes played on me yet again
The facet I relied on no longer serves me
For deeper layers are begging to be processed
Unto those layers I ensue digging
Embracing what Self encourages and inspires
Willingly recover what emotions remain unresolved

These unsought strange emotions I feel inside
Burning, swelling, expanding, and exploding
Oozing out indiscreetly and precariously
Anguished for the toxicity of this world
Of the hurt and sadness of its automatic state
Of human sufferings and miseries
Of the obliviously invisible emotional cruelties
The helplessness of those unknowingly stuck
In the coziness of inner bitter world
What’s the message for me?
Of the nature and purpose of these emotions
When I don’t even yet fully understand
Why I am created to feel so much
And why I am created to care so greatly
When no one understands me
When no one is able to see me
When no one is able to feel what I feel

Oceans of tears too immeasurable to dam
Of which frequency ever growing and expanding
Pressures so immense I am powerless to withstand
Capacity to hold back or slowdown intrinsically ungraspable
To feel so much rawness of unfamiliar emotions
Imploding inside to flood this delicate heart
Sudden outburst of floodgates
Overflowing freely like fireworks
Distinguishable neither by time, space, nor thoughts
My soul cries out in horrendous agony
Ripping my tormented flesh apart into smithereens
Screams as loud as my clenched-shut throat could produce
Internal shrieks audible only to my soul
Of which soundwaves reverberate a distress call
To induce stiffened muscles to incapacitate my body
To send me flaccid to the floor in sheer hopelessness
Feeling undeserving of the bestowed goodness
Self-worth reverted to that of disregarded trampled mud
Feeling puny, paralyzed, and downtrodden
Often wishing for my life to simply cease
Pain so mortally wrenching only God could fathom

Spiritual and existential crisis confront me so faithfully
A prerequisite for the pursuance of authenticity?
Stripped away bare and naked
With nothing else to hide – or so I thought
To question myself through and through
To reexamine anything and everything
Yet still inadequately deficient
Giving up is a companionship of daily battles
Drawing on humility to continue living as a daily struggle
How much longer does this process entail?
How many more layers lay beneath to uncover?
How much more insanely do I need to feel?
How much more do I need to surrender?
In search of my true essence
To reconnect to my sacred Self

Sacrifices so great transcending logic
Forsaken, estranged, and stranded
Malicious friends and acquaintances
Contentedly persecuting, backstabbing, and gossiping
Enveloping me with sheer viciousness
The drama of hurting rather than uplifting
Emotional vampires sucking me dry
Unbeknownst into negativism I was dragged down
Emergency boundaries needed calling upon
Loved ones dear to me are nowhere in sight
Refusals and rejections their prerogatives
Only vague reflections in the rear-view mirror
Shadows left behind of what was fostered
Support systems to speak of simply vanished
Physical affections linger barely in my dreams
So distant mere faint memories reside
Of what was and what had been
Fading away like mist after the rain
Dried up and washed away into forgotten-ness

Memories cut deep like a double-edged razor
Preserved frozen in the vault of my brain
Survived to forever be hidden under lock and key
Accessed only in the most inopportune times
Treasured memories so real yet untouchable
Sheer illusions in a playback loop
To haunt me of what could still be
Had I only given up this pursuit of authenticity
To return to the fakeness of it all
What be of my life if not for owning my truth?
A meaningless humdrum of a damaged life
A life filled with self-lies and self-deceits
Daily horror of death from conflicts within
Waking up the dead to drive daily functioning
Toxicity crushing and eating me alive
Quality of life faraway in distant planet
A simple breath as a luxury of survival

The cruelty of life
The irony of life
The unfairness of life
The contradictions of life
The twistedness of values
What has the world become?
Where discrimination is prevailing
Where negativity is pervasive
Where betrayal is accruing
Where truth is contradicted
Where authenticity is skepticized
Where being one’s self is mocked
Where self-expression is repulsed
Where uniqueness is frowned upon
Where kindness is scorned and exploited
Where well-intentioned is misinterpreted
Where self-awareness is demonized
Where love is distorted as overbearing

Relationships fading
Relationships broken
Relationships shattered
Wiped away in cruel passing blizzards
Nothing will ever be the same
Nothing will ever feel the same
What happens to empathy?
What happens to compassion?
What happens to kindness?
What happens to unconditional love?

Acknowledgment of my uniqueness
A great challenge it has proven to be
The annihilation of self-worth
The rebuilding of self-worth
The testing of every nuance of my faith
The testing of every aspect of patience
To arrive at self-acceptance
To arrive at self-compassion
To arrive at self-kindness
Truly alone in this journey
In brokenness I gather myself
Into myself I hold my own hands
Above water I need to sustain my sanity
Feet grounded yet distant off the ground
Eyes wide open yet blinded by sight
Heart healing vulnerably yet crumbles it continues
Mind wide open yet images of old self lay squatter
Boundaries instilled yet infiltrated aggressively
Triggers setting off unknown internal explosives
Demolishing previously established peacefulness
Wounds so deep they’re deceptive and misleading

Firmly uphold healthy boundaries I must
Recalibrating deeper levels of self-awareness
To maintain the regulation of emotions
To consciously cultivate mental wellness
To preserve me from running off the cliff
In giving away what I don’t yet have nor am ready for
Remain centered I must sustain
Remain grounded I must stand
This journey too important
My soul oh my lovely soul
In need of saving from demise
To be freed from persisting chains
Free to actualize
Free to exist
Free to be

This journal chronicles my trauma-healing process and progress. If you’re interested to read in sequence in its entirety, you may jump directly from >here

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