Hello my friend,
I previously wrote about my dark night of the soul experience, and in this piece I’ll wrap it up, bring it home, and talk about what I have learned.
It’s been a huge initiation. And how amazing (but also so natural) that it began as soon as my partner was pregnant, as soon as I became a father, you could say.
I can see now how life was calling me into manhood, and for me to become a father, there was a lot of inner work to be done.
Looking at my shadow
Early on in the journey, the first 3 months of pregnancy, Anna had intense nausea. As she suffered, I entered this intense phase of shadow work. I suppose that I was just facing up to what pregnancy and having a a child involves... which is a loss of a certain kind of “time-space—travel-escape-freedom”, a lot of responsibility, and pressure to provide.
Mooji calls them “mind-attacks”…. stories coming up to attack oneself. Things I hadn’t seen before came up with real intensity. I remember going through a phase where I felt super-judgey, cynical, skeptical… and I wanted to blame everything bad on someone else.
A lot of the time I could see the blame arise, and it was almost funny how much some part of me just wanted to put it on others. Other times I couldn’t witness it arise quick enough, and so I would project blame onto Anna, or others.
Blame is not a nice frequency. It comes with a side serving of resentment, and lashings of victimhood. It is a very dis-empowered state, and yet here I was, knowing all this in theory… yet marinading in the stuff.
I came to understand that this energy of blame was lurking in my shadows and it had always been there. But I hadn’t experienced the necessary conditions, or the depth of suffering for it to be brought into the light.
Suffering really is the best teacher, for this reason. In my suffering I remember feeling like there was this kind of invitation to wallow… like a hippo wallows in mud… and I went for it.
I went to wallow-town. And so I let my blames fester, and my feeling of victimhood strengthen, and I discovered how people get bitter and twisted… for the first time in my life I began to feel depressed, day in day out, the joy sucked out of my life, and my entire perspective of life began to darken.
Thankfully… thankfully… thankfully… I had tools, practices, teachers, friends and my deeper self that was able to witness the process. Most of all… thank goodness Anna was there to hold the mirror up to me, and to help me see my projections.
And thank goodness I had the grace (just about) to say, “yep, you are so right… and I’m so sorry… I’m gonna take a look at that”.
And I did. Again and again.
I saw how I this state of being, or this suffering I was feeling could calcify, if I identified with it. And so I let it move through me… felt it all, wailed, and grieved, and found all the things I could take greater responsibility for.
I went on a journey into all of my past relationships, and I took responsibility for everything. I wrote letters of apology. I honoured all that had been.
It softened me. Humbled me. And the journey went on.
Facing fears head on
Mid way through pregnancy I was invited to an ayahuasca retreat. I was hesitant to go because I had been moving through the darkness, and the idea of taking strong medicine and finding myself back in darkness was, quite frankly, terrifying.
Yet, I found myself saying yes. 🤦🏽♂️😬
It was harrowing: which in case you were wondering is defined as “acutely distressing or painful”.
On the first 2 ceremonies I experienced depths of darkness and fear I didn’t know existed, head in the bucket, purging non-stop, wanting it to end… but yet it had only just begun.
I was having vivid scenes of Armageddon, death and destruction, trying to save my Anna and my child from suffering and death. Gnarly concentration camp scenes, and being locked up, and taken away from my family, unable to support them… and death… dying… lots of that… again and again plunging into an infinite void of black.
So, hope I havn’t put anyone off who was thinking of working with ayahuasca. :) Go for it! You’ll get just what you truly need. 👍🤣
In hindsight… those ceremonies were intense on my nervous system… at one stage I had a story that they were too intense, and too much for me.. however I can now see how valuable they were.
I faced my fears head on. There was no escaping them. I became aware of deep fears I barely knew were there. On the 3rd and final ceremony, after being dragged through the absolute pits of hell… I popped through the other side.
The fears I speak of (as opposed to say the instinctive recoil from a snake, or a knife at your neck), are fears of the mind. As a young child my mother and her religion incepted me heavily with fears of a hellish, fiery Armegeddon.
During the covid lockdowns, my fears of being locked up, or forced against my will to do something were triggered. These fears needed facing head on, to become free of them. And so that experience was a potent initiation, and powerful opportunity to see the fears, face them head on… look at them squarely, feel them move in my body, feel the nausea, feel the intense panic, feel the horror….
… and yet… I still remain…. as the light of awareness… witnessing it all… playing out in my mind, feeling it in my body… moving through my body.
I became more deeply anchored to the truth of what I really am, and the mantra I have worked with before returned into my consciousness:
I AM THE LIGHT… I AM THE LIGHT.
Guiding me home to that which I am. Infinte love. Pure consciousness. It took me months to process this experience, and I’m happy to say that my fears of Armageddon and death are soothed. Sure, I want to live a long life with my loved ones, but that cold edge of terror is no longer there… there is a far greater knowing that nothing ends.. beyond the conceptual… a knowing in my core that softens the edges of mortality, and requires no belief system or faith… its a knowing beyond belief.
Learning how to hold space with love
The greatest lesson of this chapter of life… has been the opportunity to hold the frequency of love, in the face of my fear and the fear and suffering of others.
I have learned that fatherhood and manhood is about providing nourishment, support and protection.. but beyond putting food on the table.
When a new baby arrives, the man’s role, I have come to discover is primarily to look after Mama.
In all the ways. The obvious stuff is food, nourishment, making sure she is comfortable. The deeper levels of support are emotional, psychological and spiritual.
A huge part of this journey has been learning how to hold the feminine: how to be loving… NO MATTER WHAT.
Sometimes I have found it extremely challenging to stay in my heart. I want to solve the problem, fix it.
When my partner goes into the darkness, when she is in suffering, or fear, when she feels sick, overwhelmed, exhausted, like life is unfair, like her burden is too much…
what then? I used to be able to hold it a bit. Then a bit more. But I must admit that I wouldn’t often reach a threshold… where my energy would change, and Id be like “right, thats enough, let’s shift the story, change the perspective, lets sort this out”.
Energetically this was experienced by Anna as a closing of my heart, which is exactly what it was.
I’m still learning, but I can say hand on heart my capacity to hold has expanded through this humbling journey of death and rebirth.
My instinct now is to listen more deeply, to open my heart so I can empathise and feel what she is feeling… and to soothe, and reassure, and hug, and cuddle, and stroke, and hold and be love.
I’m still learning how to have full energetic mastery, and Im becoming aware of so levels of mastery I didnt know existed, learning to take responsibility for my energetic field (mood) in every single moment, as everything is felt in our house.
Everything.
And so here we are. This is some of the rich material I’ve been working with and expanding through. Theres more, but this has become quite a long letter.
Sending you all so much love, as you ride the waves,
Jiro
p.s: If you’re a man, and you’ve read this far:
Im calling together a brotherhood of men who want to do the deepest work, to live from the heart, to be heart-centred fathers, lovers, uncles, and brothers…. to learn in brotherhood how to heal our wounds, face our fears, support the sisterhood, honour the womb, and serve life itself.
Message me if you feel the call to this depth of work. x
That's Good, Keep Going! "The best thing we can do for the world is make the most of ourselves. -
Wallace D. Wattles,1860-1911"
Beautifully written Jiro. Having been through a similar journey around the birth of my son 16 years ago I want to thank you for putting this into words that can help others facing this challenge.