Chapter 3
ACCEPTANCE
Dushanbe One Way
As time to graduate college approached, I was getting increasingly paralyzed by the fear of the future and the weight of the accumulated pain. I was engaging in risky behaviors, sabotaging classes, and felt detached from everyone.
After failing several classes and lying about it, I could not continue living like this.
Finally, I could no longer hold back the overwhelming shame, guilt, purposelessness, sorrow, anger, loneliness, disgust, contempt, disappointment, dark desperation, sense of incongruence, grief, and fear.
Trust to be Okay
Watercolor, Charcoal, Photoshop
A3
I was in bed in Minnesota before my flight to Tajikistan when I chose to no longer shield myself from these feelings.
I pictured a 2-dimensional black hole in my chest that I’ve been avoiding to look at.
What if I gaze into it, and just give up control, let the feelings happen, and not force myself to respond to them in a certain way?
In my mind, I saw a tiny self come to the edge of the hole, and take a step forward.
The agony of the fall was multidimensional. But it did not last forever. I let it scorch all the corners of my mind that were concealing discomfort. One by one, I visited them all.
Eventually, the tiny self inside the pitch-black hole of the chest started to see specks of light in the flat darkness.
Colorful nebulae and galaxies began to emerge in the distance. Some sparked near me, I was surrounded by them. Turns out it was an endless space in there. And it’s not just black and white.
Since that night, I felt alive. I accepted Anika’s death, began accepting the complex reality with its contradictions and paradoxes, and seeing value in it again.
Trespass the boundaries of ordinary thought,
Tear down the stockades of illusion
That you’ve erected to protect yourself
From pain and disappointment at all costs.
The choice was always yours to make, between
The numbing comfort and pull of endless roads.
The journey of the mind and soul takes nerve.
So tame, you choose to stay in chains, again.
You run in circles, pace inside your cage. Oh,
What stories you could tell through grinding teeth.
Something is missing. You suddenly stop.
A dark abyss
Inside your chest
Rips open.
Your heart falls in slow motion, coldly
It brushes everything in its descent.
The void grows larger, hungry, greedy,
Spreading like cancer, showing no pity,
Corrupting, numbing all that’s in its way
It trades in your colors for silence.
Then just allow it to consume you once.
Give up. Give in. Stay still, don’t run
Let in, don’t flinch, take breath.
It’s dark and cold in outer space
But if you float in spite of fear
It can be like a sweet embrace.
Bah! This rollercoaster is old news.
The world is s**t but hope still blooms.
Your spine is steel again.
Digital Collage Posters
Photoshop, Public Domain Images
Processing Series
Acceptance of Own Shadow
Oil & acrylics, canvas board
A3
The Path is Infinite and Undefinable
Acrylics, soap, canvas board
A4
Self Portrait
Pen, Gouache
A3
By accepting the dark sides of humanity, I was able to notice and acknowledge my own shortcomings. I started to investigate and integrate them, in order to control them.
I learned an important lesson - confronting tough truths no matter what, not deluding oneself, is key to living with integrity.
If I don’t want to make the world a worse place by existing in it, I have to be on a lookout for my behaviors and attitudes that are harmful to others, search for any feelings of superiority / inferiority in relation to other people, and I have to actively apply critical thinking to my conduct and beliefs, accept responsibility for mistakes, and take actions to remedy them.
All actions have consequences rippling through time, in often invisible ways, and by befriending our inner demons, we can better see what we are actually doing, and make a conscious choice about the next actions.
We are all contributors to this reality, all weaving our threads into the shared tapestry.
By accepting both the light and dark within, we can become the source of our direction, clarity, purpose, meaning, and happiness, instead of chasing it outside.
