I decided to open up this very intimate and personal journey because God insisted. I don’t know about your path with God but mine is, ‘if I don’t do what God is asking of me it’s going to be forced in front of me and it wont be easy. The more I distract and ignore the calling the more pressure it builds! And once I have avoided the call as long as possible, the harsh reality is it builds like a volcanoe and then explodes. I can say from years of mastery in this, the volcanoe exploding is never easy, infact it’s a fucking volcanoe spewing hot lava everywhere, nowhere else to run, escaping the ash and lava is not really a choice … so death could be my only option? This is where I find myself now after years of pushing the call to death away.

Talk about the most clear facing of my truth. And what is this lesson? Why is there an overwhelming fear and terror in it? Why did I avoid and ignore diving into this topic for years? And what is that moment between living and dying, that time passing when I know I am leaving this world, not sure when, and how long but that moment will be here? It could be in another 35 to 40 years, 1 week, a few months or maybe a couple years. And it is that moment in between when my life as Dana Lynn is over and death is imminent that I most fear. Those hours, minutes, days or whatever time that I am leaving this world as I know it, returning to where I came, that is my greatest terror, and why?

Great question! Why is that the spot I most fear that harnesses an immense terror? What is this about those moments that produce such an avoidance and distraction that would force me to deny my existence and purpose so long that I would be wielded into the existential walk to face it?

As I have deepened into this part of being human I have experienced immense discomfort, some skin pain and burning, an itch that I want to scratch the top layer off and an incredible EXCITEMENT AND TERROR, all at once! I have endured an exhaustion that literally pushed me into stillness that no movement was possible. A depression, sorrow, sadness and grief so all consuming that I felt helpless and hopeless in. A world I awoke to and went to bed at night that seemed to have no value or meaning. I desperately hung in this for months, without a purpose, and passion. All excitement gone, vanished with no resource. Day after day passing, night arriving too soon, fear embodying me as I was swallowed by the darkness. Now fully awake wondering how I would get through this darkness when the light was already too much to bare. No tribe or community to see and be surrounded by. Just a home, which I am utterly grateful for, but still an unfamiliar environment that I wake up to everyday. Getting more familiar however a loneliness I have never experienced. Hours into days and then weeks and months, and now 2 years. A continuous day that turned into 730 days.

I tried to be creative, that worked at times, satisfying a little part desperate for a reunion with my old self. The one who was so dynamic, a creative force like a raging river, sensual, sexy, slinky, and so ALIVE! A WOMAN that was a woman!!! Now I live to survive, do my stuff that maintains my skin from infections, rashes that hurt like I am on fire, itching and cracked and bleeding, washing constantly, making my sprays for this upkeep and maintenance, making medicine, ordering all my stuff and making sure I don’t run out.

I had carried a joy and happiness with positivity for a long time and now a darkness has enveloped me. I feel broken, disappointed, enraged, frustrated, angry, ashamed and embarrassed. And that’s just the start. A lack of my creative life force pierced like a balloon. My food alchemy magic put out like a forest fire. My chest heavy with grief and depression. WOW SOUNDS UTTERLY FUCKING AWEFUL!!! AND IT HAS BEEN!

My life has plummeted into a dark world that knows nothing but more darkness, helplessness and hopelessness. I have visited the idea of suicide, just simply wanting it to be over, but again fearful of letting myself die and ending Dana Lynn.

I find myself at the end of this dead end street, pardon the pun 😂. And as I find myself utterly broken and helpless,😔 is there a dim light of hope over there? Is that what I am sensing, maybe not even seeing yet? I have heard sayings referencing ‘I gotta hit rock bottom before I can climb out.’ I thought I did that when I was on my path of sobriety. No one could have prepared me for this fall into this dark abyss. There isn’t a ‘how to manage’ manual, trust me on this one. And even if someone had the arrogance to write a self help book on dying wise, dying with grace or death and how to do it well, that would not have been my answer. I believe this is such a unique and custom process that only my history, wounding, lack of’s, stamina, tenacity, fire, depth and drive would be my guiding light and illumination.

Yes there are great people in the dying industry; sensitive, loving and kind souls. Even ones who have a mastery in psychology, death doulas, end of life counsellors, laymen services, palliative care and everything else. And I can say I started my death doula course, have studied the psychology of human beings, been a medicine woman travelling the deep underworld and nothing could prepare me to know, support, engage and be with this level of darkness if not to go through it myself.

I can truly understand why people suicide, why they lash out and harm others and become despondent, disconnected, dis-associated and severely kranky and rude. I have felt and embodied all of this and more. And in it all there has been is a voice and feeling to keep going no matter what. Get up everyday and seek for tiny miniscule rewards, small joys and little wins. Be a good person, stay to integrity, and be kind even when you want to bite heads off!!! I have had to go to the darkest and deepest underworld of despair and nothingness. It is here that my true sense of hope and a spark of wanting to live resided. It is in this place I find I will have to climb out myself. It is I who has to find a will to be here, a true excitement of this existence and what that looks like for me, how to see light when there is only darkness, getting up even when I have no will to live, and finding my true sense of purpose while debilitated and not at my best. That even when I can’t walk, I will crawl. If I am so tired and unable I can learn something new and when I want to create but don’t have it I can pick up my creative outlet and begin. Everyday is a gift 🎁… a blessing 🙌 … and a new moment to recreate.

I have had to travel to this place so far from where anyone would likely have chosen to be and it has deepened me, broadened my awareness, activated every dark feeling I could have only stood across from and now I am here, where to next? I can only wait for the next call, the next feeling, word, insight, pain and follow my intuition which will only be inspired by that unique moment… it is the dark abyss, the unknown that people refer to that I live in right now. I am not comfortable. And I am present to it, baited breath, heart racing and arrhythmic at times, terrorized, scared, anxious and curious.

Part of the incredible difficult lesson in this path has been to find a way to be with hardships, pain, sorrow, suffering, a place that it seems there is no way out only here. And when I am in this spot with what seems no escape it takes me to the brink of madness and such a massive depression that I am trapped here for eternity and how will I get away from this lived hell? The idea that I am a prisoner in my own body ignites my core wounding with a feeling of doom. And it’s here day after day after month. I am learning to be here in this and also find joy, kindness, acceptance, fun and creativity. It’s seems impossible, how can I be so utterly distraught and creative, happy, laughing and joyful? Well it takes alot of practice which I have had and continue to have to master this craft. It is a work in progress and I accept that and myself in this. ✨️