by Jess Kolbe
So, I needed to change my relationship with fear. To move from fearing everything and everyone, to determining for myself what fears are real and warranted and those that are not. Which fears are those that my monsters convince me of, like, “People only hurt me.” We are like a representation of how we feel and deal with emotions in our worlds and, like everyone, I’m trying to find my own way in this.
I like to think of it as our inward emotional temperature matches the outward experiences. I handed my temperature control to others but now I’m setting the temp. I’ve learnt ways to trust myself, and to do things that help bring me down into my body, so that I’m not caught in the fears of my thoughts and allow the emotion to be expressed in my heart. I developed a way of making sense of what happened to me and how I could learn to live with my past. There is a part of me that I picture as a scared little girl. She’s the one that requires to be nurtured and protected as I get stronger. She is the part of me that suffered, her spark snuffed, but she endured. This beautiful, delicate part of me, holds all my hurts and damage. When I’m frightened or in the depths of my darkness, she comes out and freezes us both, which helps me to disconnect from the world that is hurting me. Together we found safety in the dark, and I truly began to have a relationship with myself, in a way that acknowledged what happened. She and I have been together for a long time and she has protected us in the dark. She has also taught me to love my darkness as much as I love the light. There is pain and safety in my darkness and sometimes a comforting solace and I am thankful for all of my aspects, as they are all me.
Occasionally, my warrior self has shown up in the deepest of places to protect us both with her armour. Sometimes, my little girl has complete control of me. She’s very irrational and scared of the world and this literally means fear owns my mind, body and soul. Now, I fucking know this is my imagination! It is my way to make sense of what is happening to me and my thought processes, giving my fears a face to work with and become strong, for fuck sake I’m crazy, not psychotic! Perhaps debatable with a professional. I do have to have a relationship with my hurts, fears and torture. I learnt to listen and trust my voice by responding to myself with love and a gentle heart. Often I’m scared, and I need her to comfort me in the dark and then there are times that I help her from being terrified of the lightness in the world and you know what, altogether we are a stunning mess.
The mess that is life for me is truly about practising living with my demons, learning how they show up and how to overcome them. Opening and closing ourselves to the world, based solely on what feels right, on our past pain and hopes for the future. We all exist within the past, present and future of ourselves, but the key to being human is managing the balancing act. I feel like within us all is a spinning hot mess of chaos and we spend most of our lives hoping no one will see the depths of our mess when really, it’s this mess that makes us fit into this world. I accept myself, in mess and wonder, in knowing that it is all of my experiences that make me unique and the woman I am. I don’t want to live defined by pain. I’m trying to show up in every way of my choosing.
I practice choosing to see the good and kindness in myself and the world around me. I try to be present with accepting and liking myself, so I am most happy to hum to my own drum. I’m the one that smiles and says hello to everyone, even though this level of exposure was complete torture for me at first. I wanted to learn to be comfortable with all things uncomfortable to me. You smile at the world and the world smiles back, it mirrors you. It’s how I began setting my own temperature, practicing the type of person I wanted to be before I was taken from me. I knew I wanted to be kind, and someone who was strong. So, I practiced being that person and noticing it when I saw it in others, even when I didn’t believe I was strong. It has been an ongoing relationship with me, and writing has helped so much.
My relationship with Sam is different. I’m struggling with some powerful parts of me, including my trauma. For the first time, I’m wanting someone in my life as an equal, and I need help. I’m doing just fine, but love, a giant wave of love is chasing me. I’m caught drowning in the breakers, gulping salty air and need someone to reach down and help me tread water. To teach me to not fear the next wave, to read the waves and make it through the current, not return to shore. I don’t want to live a “fine” life. I want this, I want extraordinary! I’m petrified, not of drowning, not of being swallowed by the abyss, but of not loving. I want to learn to love and be loved safely.
A moment on the street, a glance, a smile, a man organically saying hello and for a millisecond, we are frozen in time. A single moment of possibility beating through your body and before you know it, you feel it, without even seeing him. The heat rising within your body bringing forth, the first wave of chemistry, the soft scent of him dangling within reach and that stunned recognition of meeting another passion. I don’t want to run from him. I don’t want to sabotage. I force my feet to stick to the ground. It’s not the first time I’ve felt this, felt eyes, experienced that want. It is the first time, I don’t want to run from that level of intimate chemistry, where words have not been shared and yet the intensity is overwhelming. That fire ignited within you, equally matching the fire that is searching for you, desired in his want.
Attraction reciprocated in this way is the love at first sight real deal. It’s the stuff of magic, not fireworks around you, but if you’re in tune with your body, your heart creates fireworks within you, every cell in your body switching on and alive. In one moment, his want and need for you pours out all over you. The intensity of that one second, freezes me in time and into a state that I have not known. For me, a man who is equally confident in his strength, his manliness and ability to express a softness at the same time, is a very sexy man. When a man can be manly, and authentic in his skin while also completely comfortable with being uncomfortable at the same time, he feels different, more genuine. I think our internal temperatures matched the external and we both took a chance to show up even if our voice shakes, with the same emotional vulnerability, the same level of self-acceptance. Not running from the emotional expression of that moment, instead meeting it head-on, feeling the excitement and the nervousness in the emotion, and facing those sensations, not running away.
Sam embodies this and has one of the best swaggers I’ve ever seen. His slight natural hip swing rhythmically calls to my womanly desires. A man who takes my breath away as he moves in balance with himself. He puts on a sexy show of ‘this is what I’ve got’ and loves my eyes on him, as I encourage him to express his rhythm. Before I’ve even had a thought, I’m walking towards him. Our bodies tune to each other, making their own decisions, as they feel the chemistry and react to the energy whirling between us. Immediately, there is an instant recognition between us. A glance turning into childlike giggles at the acknowledgement of the connection, as he feels important in some way. It is like our bodies have a hidden language I’ve never heard before, and I’m allowing it to lead me. A true reflection of two individuals living life on their own terms, allowing to be caught up in the wonder of someone else. Succumbing to our emotional experience being expressed, with our fears somewhat conquered and our chemistry driving us toward each other.
For as long as I can remember the way a man carries himself has been important to me, either a complete turn on or off for me. You can tell so much by the way someone carries themselves in truth, not being anything but themselves. I had to become an astute study of people for self-preservation. We all have varying degrees of confidence, self-trust, self-worth, resilience… things I’ve battled with my entire life. If you’re a good observer, you can tell when someone has mastered the art of self-confidence by the way they authentically feel comfortable in their skin. To, simplify they trust in their own ability to show up for themselves. True confidence is someone who sincerely has trust in the love of themselves and is ok with not having it all together. A value I attempt to live by every day is that my best is enough. I feel that someone who is ge
nuinely happy in themselves, is humble in their confidence, feels right for me.
The character of someone is important to me. I want a life lover, not someone to live my life for me. I’ve battled a hell of a lot to get to where I am, while I will continue to show up for me, I would love to have someone stand next to me. I don’t want them to do life for me. Let’s be clear, every human being is an incredible work in progress. You never really have it all together. We all have had hurts and worse.
I do think it is character that defines us as being willing to be genuine in our mess while understanding that the mess is what makes you authentically beautiful. Being happy in your present-day story working with all aspects of yourself. Perfection by design is decided by you after all, created by you, you make meaning out of things, you write your own story to things.
I’ve grappled with understanding what happened to me, and believing I am bad. I have worked on and battled, surrendered and celebrated, freed and accepted the mind, body and heart of me. It has been an epic battle between all those parts of me, trying to never be hurt again and to feel my pain. Petrified to completely lose control, to feel torn from skin and buried in fright between demons and freedom. Battling letting go and being lost, to realising how much my thoughts are lying to me but how my body never does. How stepping into my abyss to allow expression was my salvation, I learnt to trust myself and that this came from my body and heart, from within. It was not through thinking; it was feeling expressed. My trust built out of my bodily emotional expression, in that, I felt more in control the more I let go of control on what I should be feeling. Learning to love and embrace my darkness led me directly to my light, because my darkness was a protected place for me. I battled with it so much that I failed to realise that for me, my darkness was also a place of safety too. I do not have it all together, or have all the answers. I just stopped fighting to ‘get over it’ and felt with my body. I opened to the perspective of living with and stopped fighting with myself to get over what happened to me.
I think we all have this ability to go into surveillance mode to predict our environments. To what degree each of us can do this probably depends on what has happened in our world, and I really feel that every human needs this ability to protect themselves. Some of us have developed special forces tactics to survive. I know when it began - it was the first time someone hurt me. My unconscious and conscious brain both went into protection mode and hammered that survival button into overdrive. I knew then that I needed to protect myself in order to stay alive. My hurts spilled into all aspects of my life. I was at the complete mercy of what my fear response decided was a threat, often everything and everyone. I naturally became focused on never ever being hurt like that again. My threat detection stood in between me and everything. So, becoming strong, predicting people and situations became my survival tactics, even if I didn’t know that then. People who have had to survive also had to find a way to actually ‘do’ the surviving and the ‘how’ is probably unique to each person. Yet we are similar in our evolution of survival strategies, and how we hurt. I learnt, I listened and practiced ways of knowing myself, building trust in me and developing a sense of self, which, of course, enabled healing and self-trust, as well as understanding that I am and continue to be a work in progress.
I have noticed that when I am in the grips of darkness, my negative thoughts and painful experiences become so loud it’s hard to see a way clear of it. I’ve learnt the tricks my mind plays, always in the same voice in my head, reminding me that I am unlovable or weak. On a bad day, I suffer an assault of thoughts screaming ‘you are not even worth living!’ If you hear this enough, you begin to live your life according to that lie from the shit show that your anxieties bring out. When bad things happen to you all the time, all you see and experience is bad things, so you must be worthless. This is one of my shit shows favourite attempts to keep me locked in the darkness. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a conscious thing I did to myself. It is an unconscious habit we do to ourselves and for me is at times, even now, so exhausting and so loud. I try to be a witness to these thoughts, often sobbing in the background, attempting to not get on my shit show train ride of worthlessness. I have grappled with my shit show and it has owned me before. By accepting the ride and not moving through my own emotions, I was previously stuck in the stories of my pain. Until I learnt to navigate my shit show, changing this story was so hard and I am still working on it. Although, I now know how it behaves, I try to be several steps ahead.
I’ve always been trusting, and, I hope, kind. I can be gullible at times, but I have always had a stubborn streak that I did not understand. Finding my breaking point showed me how much fight I actually have. I didn’t understand why some adults were mean and hurtful for no reason. As an already impressionable teenager who had bad things continually happening without reason, I began to believe that this was normal. If enough people hurt you, your new normal becomes hurting yourself to ensure the ‘normal’ continues, as this makes you feel safe. For example, you get called a piece of shit long enough, you will begin to believe it and act like it. Then you’ll walk through life with this belief, and never really show up for yourself, because why the fuck would you? You are a piece of shit after all. It doesn’t matter what that core belief is, or what was said to you, or done to you, in that one moment where you needed kindness and got a piece of shit, scars run so deep. Often, it’s about making themselves feel better, or abuse, or just fucked up people. As a child you only end up thinking bad things about yourself, adults can’t be wrong, you are. I had to learn to take my power back, to gain my control and get their voices out of my head.
And I did! Oh, and how life has opened for me.
I also committed to never living my life by what ‘should’ be. I’m excluding bullshit, mediocracy and drama. I’m fighting for real authentic connection.
I’m getting lost in the telling of my story and forgetting to tell ours. My point is depth meets depth. The strength of his character, the feel of his manliness oozed out all over my body, in that one moment, our first moment, never have I ever, experienced that before. A gift of being more in tune with myself was discovered. I had desires, I had things that I found sexy in a man. That I could have likes, preferences, I could have needs as opposed to being unwanted, damaged goods.
Now, let’s refresh a little and return to the sexy glide of a man in complete self-acceptance. I was telling you how his swagger rolled into my life. There is a lot you can feel from a walk, if they are genuinely comfortable with themselves and unconsciously attempting to find a rhythm, instinctively trying to connect and find flow with you.
Have you ever seen a happy person walking, enjoying the flow of their walk? That moment of balanced happy, written all over their face in one of those lusty smiles? Your walk represents who you are, in movement through your senses and depths of realness. Like the story of the buffalo, running at the storm, not waiting for it to build, facing the storm and chasing it. A stampede at the storm, using the strength within you and the strength of the storm to rise. A buffalo has an amazing strut!
I saw a swagger in him, that said, ‘I’m here, watch me, feel me’, while his energy wrapped around me.
So, I rise up and chase my storm.
HIM | Two
I live between the farm and my business, frozen in time. Six weeks have gone by in a blur. I am surviving on adrenaline and feeling numb, shutdown. I don’t know how I’m meant to be or what to say. What am I feeling? I just get on with it, one foot in front of the other and don’t fucking think. I haven’t cried since that day, when I cried with my dad in his final moments. One day folds into the next. I move through the motions of what must be done - there is no one else. I think they call it backstroke in denial, or whatever. It is easier to focus on Mum and Ruby than me. That’s what men do, isn’t it? Get on with it, over it. Fuck. It’s like I’m emotionally vacant, zombified. The world is operating without me, a sea of sympathy smiles and the same sad, blank fa
ces, I’m blank. Everything feels useless.
I saw her. In that one moment she beamed colour back into my life, jolted me out of the greyness of the world, for an instant. She was sexy as fuck, with a full body, curves that would make a man stand up, dressed in business type with a side of flavour, bright red heels clearly more her style.
The intensity electrifying, she’s pulling me closer to her, drawing me in to her. I have no control. I want to know what that body feels like. I grow harder under the thought of her body squirming underneath me.
The world has stopped spinning. As if on cue she touches her lips with the tips of her fingers as if considering my thoughts, well at least that is what I am telling myself.
Could it be?
Her eyes are darting around the closer I get. I can see my impact upon her, as those powder blue eyes keep searching. I’m willing her to find me, to look at me, pleading with her. She finds my legs, shit she is fully taking her time. She slowly traces my body with those eyes. I’m internally encouraging her - come on, yes, a little more, fuck she’s a confident woman! She lingers at my groin. It feels fantastic and frightening. She’s openly enjoying herself and I love it. My walk naturally slows, giving her time. She averts her eyes, and I ponder how I could play with her.
I keep moving past the table she is at. The world starts up again, returning to a normal pace, did that really just happen? I stop at the shop entrance, trying to work out what I am meant to be doing. I’m staring at the back of her, hoping she will turn, willing her to give me a sign and some encouragement.