When the Guru Speaks the Student Listens

When the Student is Ready the Path Appears

At The Yoga Institute, I am told that there is a way toward liberation from suffering just follow your dharma. Surprisingly, I didn’t come here thinking that I was going to find that. I thought I was just going to expand my healthcare practice and live the digital nomad life I dreamed of. Dreams, what a funny state of mind. They can change like the switch of a channel on TV or the next scroll on social media. On the other hand, when you have a vision that makes your whole soul quiver with life, purpose, and meaning, the mission gets cemented in your subconscious and becomes a north star for your reason for breathing.

Witnessing this type of vision get strangled with clouded ambition at whatever-the-cost only makes the strong-minded accept that their mission suffocated at their own hands. A murderer to their fairytale and now they unconsciously live life halfway in the grave. Its like going to bed at night with a fantasy you know you will never wake up to, but you cant let it go because it became the very foundation you built a life worth living on. I am not only the villain in my story, but the villain of others that I harmed along the way. My heart plays victim at the trial. Filled with good intentions, I show my wounds in defense, but I still have blood on my hands that matches the deceased and the double-edged sword that became the murder weapon. I tried to explain, "I was aiming to strike trials and tribulations!" I think in defeat, damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Now, I spend my sentence living locked in a trance. Consequently, this vision becomes a dead dream haunting my reality.

A Wilted Tulip's Evolution

These types of dreams don’t die as long as you’re alive, and that part of you that’s attached to the dead will necrotize whatever life that's left. Is this what a dying star feels like when it turns into a black hole? Oh, how the circles of suffering keeps spiraling. Where is this vortex going? The dizziness of my emotion-powered thoughts makes me want to hold on to something real like a wall to stop the room from spinning. However, the walls in my mind break with the slightest pressure. I have no support and even family can only watch with all the embodiment of love they can offer. Why isn’t their love ever enough to pay my bond, so I can get out of this hell, or at least end the suffering that is in my heart?

Time passes and the room stops spinning, but the motion still makes me sick in my spirit at everything I look at with these half-dead eyes. Everything resembles old memories, desires, and wishes. Oh no, here we go again! I am on another emotional rollercoaster and I can't get off. I hold my breath and I feel I am about to pass out. When I became conscious again, the ride was approaching to a halt. Finally, I get another break.

I remember those skills I learned in therapy, they keep me afloat like the door frame Jack Dawson held on too when the Titanic went down. It didnt save him from dying in the end and these skills didn’t save me when I needed them the most. I try and be grateful and talk some sense into my spirit, I am still alive, but my logic asks at what cost? Why does healing feel like it comes at a price, like my life is worth saving proportionate to as much as I can spend?

Therapists have a funny career, a duty to do no harm, but harm comes anyway. I feel guilty for even being in this position and start to empathize with their efforts. We are all human, and I get reminded by that familiar voice deep in my subconscious that says I am the problem, not them. The nausea is coming back and I feel like I am going to throw up. GAAKKK!!!! I puke guilt built up like bile in my stomach. My stomach is cramping, and I have to go back to work to keep paying for this cycle called life.

The Sprout of a Firebending Sunflower

I need some bread or crackers with no butter, and I think let me create new dreams, as the remnants of the dead dream I held so dearly are scattered in the dark room of my mind. I forcefully think, "Let me ignore this mess or I might end up lost in my thoughts." To ease the pain of reality, I think to myself this mess serves me no more, let me just hide these skeletons in my closet. As soon as the words enter my conscious, I know I spoke a lie. These skeletons are remnants of magic that awakened my soul and stimulated it to grow like nutrients to a sunflower.

The sun rises outside and its rays burn making me sweat profusely or am I crying? I don’t care anymore to tell the difference. I sweat tears slaving away to build a home to put a single photo up—the remnets of that vision reappears. Then I feel sweat fall from my tear ducts from the emotional work I have been putting in to stay afloat. Somehow the efforts from these excreting fluids are helping this sunflower grow.

The moon is up now, it's time to go to sleep. If I don’t wake up, it will be a break I can finally be grateful for. Damn! My alarm just went off. Back to the grind, but I am feeling different with slow progress, however I’m still seasick from emotional instability. I refocus on the new goals I have now. Dreams don’t matter, when you can barely see beyond tomorrow. Like a mantra, I only think of my next step to get to the end of the next mile of this rat race. I think, "If I do this, that will happen. That’s how I am able to reach milestones. I’m smart and capable. Wait, what did my mom always tell me? I remember her say, "Alicia, you’re so smart, but something isn’t right." Thanks, Mom. Just keep praying for me. That helps, right?

A Sunflower's Untrained Mind Burns

I was born a survivor. I live and thrive on the edge immune to the sound of alarms when taking risks that lead to danger. However, I’m tired of survivng. Can’t I just rest? I don’t know where my soul is, and the last time I had a genuine good sleep feels like a Marvel movie blip ago. Oh, the dizziness is back, but I don’t need a wall, I just need to take a few breaths and let this emotional wave pass. I am getting the hang of this emotional instability, but deep down inside I know the next trigger is right around the corner, turning an angel into a dream killer, one unstable temperament at a time.

Smoking weed is an adult pacifier. A nice rolled blunt with my favorite strain: Blue Dream. It’s the only time I feel like a chaos controller. I’m not dizzy, just high like a kite. My problems and inabilities look so small from up here. I feel the adrenaline of Icarus. I see miles ahead, and the sun is shining so bright, I don’t even feel the burns—this was also his plight.

Puff puff pass to myself and in too short of a time the blunt is done and it is time to get back to work half-awake. Atleast, I am not feeling half-dead. Work is the only place I can belong and keep my emotions in check. All I need to do is follow the job description by taking care of my tasks, be faster and smarter than my peers, and show my boss I can be a productive member of this team.

What?! I’m fired! Now, I have to sell my soul searching for a job on Indeed again?

I’ve changed jobs more times than I care to count. I’m a certified hustler. It’s in my nature. I have the ability to adapt to these types of conditions. It’s humiliating, however I can't show weakness to strangers, I'll take out my fustrations when my loved ones don’t meet my expectations or even worse they are going to complain about any of my efforts. Their complaints irritate me and I view their communication as a lack of consideration for how hard I try to be the best person I can be. "I’m doing my best!" I scream. Oh, this is just a memory, an interpretation of today's emotional impressions of past recollections.

"Wow! You are so aware of yourself", new strangers say as we find common ground to let deep secrets out. I hide credit where credit is due. My awareness only took sacrificing my favorite person. The only one that actually care enough to reach through to me. My favorite person is the one I left in control of my self-growth. I have a new T-shirt idea, "I don’t trust myself. Favorite person, take the wheel." Years of support, love, and care deeper than anything I felt maternal. Lets not dare to compare the love of a so-called brother. It’s okay I reassure myself. I don’t need them. I have... that’s right, my favorite people are gone. The ones saw in my vision.

Fireflowers are Meant to Grow from the Biggest Star

That vision of the house on the mountain facing montains where we were all together. Now, I am just a stranger. I’ll be fine. I’m fine. I’ll work so hard in my life, I will guarantee I will be fine. Nothing I can do about the past. On the contray, if I had the power, I would spend my life searching for a time machine. Oh no! My stomach feels twisted with emotional sickness. I think to myself like my own best friend and say, "Just breathe. No, take a deeper breath, and then go drink some water. Look at you, you’re a pro and I will always believe in you."

I’m a professional entreprenuer, and that’s the only thing I can go all in on. Which is why I am here at The Yoga Institute. It’s a month in, and I feel like destiny has brought me here. Isn’t it amazing how, when you let go, things fall into place? Well, I feel my promise to God is getting cashed in. Universe I am at your service. I am a slave and you are my master. With everything I am learning, I remember the promise I made with the big man upstairs to help people like me get out of their personal hell. If I do good deeds, maybe I will finally get redemption and get to fly to the place where my dead dream comes back to life even if it is a little differently. God, I got the to-do list. First, I need to break generational curses. Then help people like me who are suffering. Last but not least, work through the black karma I created when my mind was most corrupted.

Everything looks clear and the edge is coming up. I will soon jump and believe with all my might that wings will sprout and I will fly as far as my sight toward the big shinning vision on the horizon. It's time to go to the guru. She is wise and caring, with the wisdom to be free from suffering. I need confirmation, because this doubt in my mind keeps me grounded. If I am going to fullfill my deepest wishes, I need every bit of help I can get to see this through. I’m scared though, not of fighting to get the right answers, but becoming another murderer.

The guru spoke, and I have heard these words before from another reliable source. Before I have enough time to catch my breath the wind picks me up and crucifies my will to a cross. I’m hurt and in pain, but I am not desperately suffering hoping to be just dead. It starts to rain as lightning stikes my cross. My eyes are on fire, but they dont burn. My sight is getting purified and see the path of liberation clearly, it looks like Rainbow Road. I look to the sky with a crown of thorns from a garden of roses with a wilted tulip at its head, and I say God I have arrived to fulfill my duty.

Rainbow Road from Mario Kart N64