Point of No Return - A Recent Revelation

 

When we ignore our well being, when we carry what isn't ours for so long, that baggage delivers a message we never wanted and often forces our hand.

None knows the weight of another's burden. - George Herbert

 

 

What's going on fellow outlaws? I hope this finds you in good spirits.

As for me, well--lets just say that I've had something uncovered that has shifted my life as I know it.
 

Something unexpected and yet, here I am getting ready to talk about it.

What you are about to get from me is something personal, and to be quite honest, scary.

We all know that existence and everything in it, comes with its own seasons, cycles, its victories and its losses.
Fate and Destiny.
Its guarantees and its surprises.
 

You get the idea.

For me, my life has been every bit of these things, and a whole lot of carried baggage that has led me to this moment.

What I reveal about me may not be ground breaking or earth shattering compared to other people that have so much more going on, but for me, this is my Point of No Return, where something has to change...and that change has now been forced.
 

No Stranger To Heaviness

I am a man that is no stranger to chaos...stress...survival...heaviness.
 

At times I felt like I have been born, raised, and bred for chaos to come and change my life, pushing me on to a certain level of greatness, authenticity, or prominence - whichever you prefer. In fact, generation after generation within my family have gone through the cauldron of strife, struggle,and transformation.
 

I am no different.

But this piece of news felt like a punch to the soul and forced it, and all my energy, out of my body.
And yet, it grounded me in a bitter truth - that this change is necessary.

I've been homeless as a child and an adult.
I'd been to War -- twice.
I'd been picked on going to school for my brains and how chubby, innocent, and sheltered I was.
I'd been raised in a low income, broken home by a single mother that strove to provide and claw towards God.
I'd been broken hearted many times and also shattered hearts by how I moved on a whim like the wind.
I'd lost myself in so many ways and found myself more with each discovery.
I'd carried the world - no - a multiverse of responsibility in my mind and its come to the point where my body said: 
"We can't do this anymore Max. It's time to pay attention since you ignored me."
 

Its my time to pay my debt to myself.

The News I didn't Want to Hear

I'd known about this for about two years. But I thought I could turn things around by sheer will.
 

I thought I could beat it.
If I just practiced positivity...
if I just worked out more...
if I just believed more...
if I could just wave away the darkness from my past....
I wouldn't be here...
But each time in those two years, I went back to the Doctors, the news was the same.

"You're Blood Pressure is a little high Max."

My first visit in Texas was no different. Sat down, appreciated the beauty and friendliness of the Nurse that weighed me and ran my vitals. 

But her demeanor changed when my blood pressure ran. The smile disappeared, her cheeks went white like she saw a ghost. Her voice no longer saturated with chill vibes and compliments about how simple of a person I was...and healthy.

She looked at my stats and said those same words.
 

"You're pressure is really high."

I sank my head back and sighed. I knew it was coming but still I couldn't believe it. 
 

"Not again. I thought I was beating this."

The Universe and my body said no...not yet. So I re-tested...and like last time...my blood pressure spiked again.

With a grim face and voice lost of its luster, she mentioned my stats, like I knew what it meant. But I translated the tone in my head...that my life was about to change in a drastic way.

She left the room and I leaned all the way back in the chair. Forcing deep breaths while my heart hit the speed bag in my chest. My pulse vibrating in my body like a cell phone ring from my shorts pocket as I waited a short eternity for my provider to come in.  

He walked in with a smile. Tall, confident...but not for what he was about to tell me. Those words again...he said them with a sigh.

"You're blood pressure...."

I cut him off as he took a seat, and it felt like I was knocked into the astral plain as in that moment, I identified all the root causes of my blood pressure being so high.

"So much stress...financial stress..I feel like I'm letting everyone down...between that and not being as active as I should be...."

I named everything that went wrong...including myself.  

He listened. He nodded. My heart pounded even more. My heart nervous and scared of what came next. I asked myself --

"Will I die the same way my Brother did? My mom has high blood pressure too...maybe from stress?"

He told me that so many people are going through that and it can be a cause, but there's so many factors that could be at play. What I heard next was, of course, I needed medication to help work it down over the next 6 months.

I wasn't pleased with it. 

Part of me was disappointed it came down to this...and yet...there was a part of me that said I needed to do something else on top of this. I fully needed to change. I needed to practice new things to make sense of the world. To honor my peace. To realize and understand that I don't need to be on edge so much anymore for the next threat especially financially.

I agreed, knowing that I failed myself...and also told the doctor my forked approach to getting to where I needed to be. To give myself back to myself. He agreed and encouraged me on, a bit of validation. But still I left, mind going back to the essence and analyzing exactly how and why I got here, and recommit myself to my overall health - perhaps the greatest and overlooked source of wealth I have. 

A "Forced" (And Necessary) Change

As I normally would do on the ride back, I would replay the scenario in my head...and every experience that led right up to it. 

As I sat with my Wife in the Lyft ride back and talked to her, it was as if I saw my entire life on monitors that flickered in a secret room in a Cyberpunk type of setting. 

I knew that financial stress of carrying the weight of myself and everyone was a big trigger that lingered not just in my mind, but also in the cells, bones, and tissues in my body. I felt that I had to be the rock in the middle of the sea...the responsible one for everyone...the strong one that could stand the ground and provide for and protect everyone.

But I ignored and pushed through a hidden truth, that the strong would always suffer frailty in another form. 

In pushing to be strong, I sacrificed a lot of myself. 
My inner happiness and peace.
My relationship with my family as I became more irritable and down on my luck because I was "it" and it was all or nothing. 
I snuffed away my feelings and thoughts on things, and like a radar, scanned for the next threat because stability, as I believed it to be, would never last in this situation of a one man show. 

I was breaking, and the diagnosis of High Blood Pressure confirmed it. 

Physically, I was ashamed of myself. 
I used to be a skinny and athletic teen that became a soldier.
I was the fastest dude on my block for quite some time.
I was often the fastest in my squad, platoon, or company.
Hell, at one point I was even an impossible ZERO PERCENT BODY FAT, maxing out my Physical Fitness Tests before they got more HOAH (um--ramped up, for those of you that haven't served or know someone that did).
I separated from the Army and shit started happening faster than I could prepare. I manifested scarcity and it embraced me and my family.
I lost my luster.
But my Physical Fitness was not the only thing to take a hit.

I learned and latched on to perceiving the world and my environment as a glass mostly empty. 

If I didn't prepare..if I didn't perform...if I didn't produce...if I didn't provide...then what good, as a man, was I?

 
I failed in that regard...by choice and by force...and I carried that weight, more than my actual body.
 

I carried struggle all the way from childhood, unprocessed and potent, into adulthood. 
Inherited, and yet unwanted...or maybe I did want it because its what I knew...its what I was familiar with.
It was what I grew up with.

My inner struggle...my inability to feel...decide...and act swift enough (or so I'd tell myself with verbal and mental bashing) led me to brood and isolate. To retract into myself. To inadvertently point the finger at my Wife for our (my) financial shortfalls, and yet it her situation was beyond her control...and I knew this but ignored it. I had to announce what was left like a subway train was approaching the station to take us away. I did it as a way to mentally prepare, but all I did was emotionally strip away what we were trying to rebuild -- our sanctuary.  

I had no outlet. No where to go. Sure I had people I could talk to but...they had their own shit going on. Who was I to dump on them when they were busy trying not to drown in struggle and scarcity too?

I could go on naming things, but I don't want to go on. 

In that moment of finding out about how I deteriorated, I committed to change.

Since that day, I started to look into, and practice breath work. It's wild how something so simple as breathing is overlooked when you are so used to searching for threats and conjuring the worst case scenario in your mind and body. 

I started somatic practices. Little things to engage with my body to FEEL where I have tension and work on releasing it. It is something worthwhile and is taking a bit to get used to. 

I wrote down my New Levels: Wealth Mindfulness guiding thoughts to finally take the fight against scarcity whenever it would rear its head to tell me that I wasn't valuable enough. (I'll hang these up here soon because I know there are others out there that need something like this.)

I signed right back up for Therapy and have been in close contacts with my new Therapist, who has been groundbreaking from the opening conversation (Although I regret not being able to keep the one I had in Delaware, but legally she could not continue on with me due to licensing).

Most of all, I have been actively paying attention to my negative automatic thoughts and countering them. For example, if someone says something, I would react instantly. Now I take a real time moment to pause, breathe deep, and retrain my thoughts until and if I am ready to properly respond. 

That is NOT easy for me,especially as a father with kids that think they are 30.

I've also started to lean more into my relationship with my Wife as far as communicating concerns, thoughts, feelings, and aspirations for day to day and the future. I've been focusing more on the present steps we can take, rather than a scary and uncertain future that I'd once felt would be a repeat of the past. 

It's been about a week since I learned that this was my fate. But each day, I've been able to forge a better destiny. With each moment such as this, I am reclaiming the life I never allowed myself to have. Where I could finally release the baggage I should have never been enabled to hold in the first place. 

Not only am I going to beat this and get off the medication, but I am going to actively live my best life, even if it is less glamorous than everyone else. 

I'm not ashamed anymore to talk about how I've gotten here, or my backstory of my winding roads that I've traveled. But I also have to give myself credit for finally standing up and saying to myself:

"Max this is enough. Its time we reclaim ourselves," and actually do it!

Sure, its scary because I don't really know how things will go, BUT I will say that I am grateful for the light it is shining in my life as I put one foot in front of the other...On this journey of ink. 

Notes from the Field: Thanks for being here with me. This wasn't easy to reveal or talk about but sometimes the hardest things to discuss are the most necessary.

I share this as a means to let you know to take care of your bodies. Don't hyper focus on your accolades or how much you have, but take care of your actual body. Its your permanent home until your time is up. 

Trust me when I tell you, the body keeps score. In the brain, the blood, the tissues, the muscles, the bones, all of it.

The more we treat ourselves as a second thought or expendable, the louder the message becomes to slow down, take pause, and change. 

There's some of us that feel morally or fatedly obligated to be more, to do more, because there is NO ONE ELSE. If we don't do it, everything will come tumbling down. But if you continue to grind through and ignore yourself and your needs, what do you think will happen as time goes on? What happens to something we own that isn't maintained and cleaned up? 

It breaks. 

Our bodies...our minds...our souls are no different. 

Until next time Outlaws. Thank you for being with me on this ride. 

#Unskrypted #StillHere #SocietalShadows #LettingGo #MentalHealth #SelfCare #Healing