Yesterday, I sat down to write after having had a conversation with the “Recovery Coach” I’ve spoken about in previous posts. One of the main things gleaned from this conversation is my desire to fully face the panic and terror I feel when I approach the sensation of “too full.” The fear of this feeling really kind of controls my life: I arrange my eating patterns, my exercise patterns and my life patterns to avoid this sense of being full.

I’ve got lots of theories about why this feeling brings such terror–none of them related to fear of getting fat by the way–yet despite the mental explorations, one thing remains clear: the fear of feeling full rules my life choices. I value the possibility that it may be because in past lives I was an ascetic monk/Buddha/fasting spiritual leader/single mother dealing with famine and plague, but another thing remains clear: I want to face this fear. I want to face it so many times that the feeling no longer has this much power over my life. I have faced this feeling many times already, still it has such a hold on me. I have lost hope in facing this fear, after it so doggedly reappears, time and time again. Yet for some reason, I keep trying.

Which brings me to Temperance. Before I began writing yesterday, I chose a card that represented what might occur if I chose to once again face this feeling of fullness and the terror it evokes: That card was Temperance.

(Now, just to be frank about my emerging proclamations of woo: I have a fairly loose attachment to what tarot cards are “supposed to mean,” and find much more value in what the image evokes in my mind at the moment I ask the question and see the picture.)

This time the image evoked a sense of facing an addictive pattern, finding balance as a result. And that there is a bigger force in me, my inner alchemist, that will help me do this if I choose to do so. Transformation through facing old, unhelpful patterns.

So I began the not so new pondering of my attachment to the feeling of emptiness as a sort of “high” (which is literally true as our bodies make endorphins to help us feel better about being in famine states) and that letting go of it is like putting down a drug for me. To wholeheartedly sit with being really full is like going through detox for me, strange as that may sound but it is true. My body actually seems like it sends me information that emptiness is preferable to fullness. Fullness is painful, nauseating, etc. Sitting through that feeling until it wanes (which I know it does, I just always wrestle with the unexplainable terror like it never will), is I think my task, my way of “sobriety” or at least finding something new on the other side as a result. I struggle with this concept of addiction, and 12 steps and all that, but for some reason the perspective really works here. To transform, I must go into the fear. I must stop using “nothingness, emptiness” and embrace what it feels like to feel fully in my body, feeling its pulsing, churning, yearning and sorrows. And all of what comes with that.

To realize that my whole life revolves around avoiding this is kind of embarrassing, especially in light of thousands that starve or can’t find enough to eat everyday. Especially in light of thousands dying on respirators from this strange viral pandemic. Surely I have some shame around this. Yet despite that, I can’t ignore that it rocks me terribly. I can’t ignore that it is my shadow, something I hide from others. I can’t ignore that deep in the layers of my unconscious and cellular matter, this sits in me. And this is how I know it is my work, to find freedom from this fear controlling me. To find why being full–and not just with food, but with sexuality, sensuality, pleasure, with life force, with responsibility–why this terrifies me so.

I look at the androgenous towering being in Temperance, and there is a peace on their face, a peace I want to have. A peace that comes from both being in a body–fully–and from being connected to the radiant lightness of the above. I feel my toes, naked, like theirs, feeling the cool waters and the deep, dark soil between toes. I feel the sense of balance and the path beyond that may be shown to me as a result of this tempering, balancing. I don’t know how I will do this, but somehow I feel this energy, this archetype, within me calling me towards it. Perhaps, this time, I won’t feel so alone in my facing of fullness. Perhaps this time I will experience true Alchemy. And maybe not, as my trusty inner skeptic reminds.

But for some reason, I keep trying.