Someone I really admire recently showed me this quote from Terence McKenna.
“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.”
About a month ago, I had a hypnagogic lucid dream. I dreamt that I was clinging onto something high up — a tree branch, maybe — holding on for dear life. I could feel the faint undertone of some unknown fear coursing through me, cortisol running through my veins.
At one point I told myself: “Let go. This is just a dream.” So, in spite of the fear I felt and the comfort I found in holding on, I let go. I braced myself for the terrifying fall into the abyss.
But instead of falling, I found myself floating in a comfortable ether. I was suspended in warmth and comfort from some unknown and unquestionably well-intentioned source. It was accompanied with the feeling, the unshakeable knowledge, that I was safe. I was safe in spite of having let go of the reins.
That dream has been a source of courage for me ever since. Because it reminded me that all these games I play in my mind, all these sources of mild discomfort and fear, are simply illusions. I hold onto them because they are familiar. I hold onto them because they give me a sense of security. But if and when I choose to let go, I'll inevitably be happier because of it.
This newfound knowledge was the impetus for me to let go of a lot of narratives I had told myself about who I am and what I am capable of. Narratives from the past, narratives about the type of person I am, narratives about the people I let into my life.
I don't believe that I am tied to people and experiences from my past in any way. I feel like an entirely different person from who I was a mere two months ago, and accordingly, the circumstances and people from that time in my life belong to that person.
In a lot of ways, this newfound knowledge frees me. I no longer feel chained to the version of myself that I embodied then. My identity is shifting to that of a person with confidence, clarity, and ambition.
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