WHEN YOU SUDDENLY LOSE ACCESS, GETTING STUCK

Episode 45: What Happens When You Can’t Feel Your Own Energy?
Finding Your Way Back to the Place Where Life Flows Again

Have you ever felt like you’ve lost access to yourself?

Not because you’ve stopped caring. Not because you’ve lost your dreams. But because somewhere between trauma, grief, ADHD, caregiving, chronic stress, and simply being human, your energy became scattered.

In this deeply personal episode of The Adapted Life: Finding Next, Julie shares the honest reality of what it feels like when life becomes an “anxiety salad”—when every responsibility, fear, hope, and decision lands at once, leaving you frozen, overwhelmed, and wondering, “Where did I go?”

Together, we’ll explore the difference between survival energy and life-giving energy, how our nervous system can temporarily disconnect us from our creativity and intuition, and why healing may not be about becoming someone new—but about returning to the most connected version of ourselves.

Along the way, Julie shares a deeply personal poem, reflections on grief, and the wisdom of the body.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, emotionally exhausted, or disconnected from your own spark, this episode is a compassionate reminder that you haven’t lost yourself.

You may have simply lost access.   It happens.  To all of us sometimes.  Gently we can follow the hearts guidance back to ourselves. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Adapted Life Finding Next with me, Julie Hasselberger. I'm so glad you're here. And this is episode 45. It's called What Happens When You Lose Access? So we've been talking about energy. And this one feels really personal because it's something that I deal with and have been dealing with even this week. And that is when you no longer have access to your energy. What? What does that mean? What does that mean, right? So, okay, let's get started. Um, I'm so grateful that you're here. And we've talked about protecting our energy, trusting our energy, listening to our energy, etc., all those things. Today I want to talk about something that is much harder. It's what happens when you can't even feel your own energy, when you suddenly become stuck. And you're stuck and you can't seem to find the motivation to do anything. You're just sort of in limbo or whatever it feels like for you. And it's not because um, it's not because you don't care, it's not because you're lazy, it's not because you've lost sight of your dreams, but somewhere between trauma and grief and ADHD and caregiving and chronic stress and simply living all the aspects of living life, you are thrown off the tracks. You

Introduction to this episode as part of the energy discussion

SPEAKER_02 1:46

are derailed, and you have lost access to yourself. So I've been thinking about this episode for quite a while, trying to think of the right way to put it into something I can share. And um it's it's it's pretty hard to put it into words sometimes when I I get these stuck feelings. I call them. I'm just stuck. I'm stuck. Sometimes I feel invisible, but I I can't kick in. I I don't know. I have been living this in the past few days. Um this is this is something that happens to me a lot, and I think it's just a result of having so much going on, and a lot of the triggers and traumas and things that happen, but some mornings, um, mornings, my boss is kicking in. Some mornings I wake up and I'm inspired and I feel great, and ideas seem to just arrive, and I might write or paint, I might clean my kitchen and then meditate, and I will pay the bills and manage things and feel positive. I'll have things to do. I'll get the things done. I'll also do things like notice nature, notice the birds outside at my feeder. I'll feel connected to God and pray. I will listen to my intuition. Um I'll become fascinated by things I see and be curious and do research. And I will hug trees, I will watch bees, I will take inventory of my crystals that I have. I laugh, I create, I listen to music, I'll play my flute, I'll do things positive. So these are like just little some of the many things that um become a part of my daily life. So I'll also perform acts of self-care. I'll put makeup on, do my hair, make schedule appointments, get the

Without warning a shift happens

SPEAKER_02 4:07

nails done. Life isn't perfect, but sometimes it just flows better than others. And the time is well used to some degree, which is challenging with ADHD. Ideas form, life is sitting well, things feel like calm and functional, and then without warning, something will shift, and another day I might wake up and I feel like I have been completely unplugged. Do you ever feel that way? Get up and you try to have coffee and you just you're somebody else. When I find myself in these times, I assume something is wrong with me. I've always been like, something's wrong with me. Must be some of my meds, or I must be having some kind of an episode, or maybe I'm not disciplined enough, and I have to push through it and push through it, or maybe I'm procrastinating too much, maybe I'm sick, maybe my brain is having problems, maybe I'm failing at everything. But none of those ever really feel true completely, because the strange part is that even when I'm stuck, I still remember who I am. For example, I remember that I love being creative, and I know that I'm compassionate, and I know that I have purpose, and I know that I have love, and I have ideas worth sharing and things to build and create. I know I still love beauty and nature and life and family and God, and I still want to help other people heal and be a good friend and be a good mom and be a good wife. But where do all these parts of me go? Do they disappear?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Or do I just lose access to all of them for a while? So this question is it just changes everything.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Everything is still inside me, I just can't reach it. I still feel calm somewhere, I just can't feel it. My dreams haven't disappeared. Uh all of this, my love for life isn't gone, but where it where where did it go? I just feel numb and stuck. And I don't hear many people talk about that, that stall, I guess. Um we hear all kinds of conversations about motivation and discipline and having routines and making lists and manifestation and abundance and gratitude and productivity and find your purpose and follow your passion. And what about when you just can't seem to reach any of those things? What if the problem is not that you stopped caring?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

What if you just lost access to it?

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Like I feel like when I'm watering the flowers and there's a kink in hose, and all of a sudden the water stops.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

That's how I feel sometimes. Like I just can't do anymore. And sometimes that's when the grief suddenly appears and says, you know what? It's time to cry. Anyways, can anybody understand this?

SPEAKER_02 8:07

I'm I'm trying to explain it, and I don't even really fully understand what I'm talking about. It's not a complete loss, it's not a complete dissociation. It's like I just get stuck because intuitively something else needs to clear, but I don't know why.

Describing the overwhelming chaos

SPEAKER_00 8:28

It's like a roadblock to the traffic in my life. A few days ago, I sat down with a notebook.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

I decided I was finally gonna get organized, right? You know the feeling? I'm gonna figure out my life today. And um I started writing all the things about me. This is one of those mornings where I was really heated up, I'm turned on, I'm like, oh, today I'm gonna organize everything and I'm gonna focus. So I start writing in this notebook, become a coach. And then when I make lists, I put little boxes next to them so I can check them off when they're done. Because that's good. You gotta tick the box, become a coach, and then next to that enroll in uh the coaching educational program I find. Build my podcast, write more poetry, sell more on my Etsy shop, Daniel's special art Etsy shop, declutter my house, pay off the bills, should we move? Should we stay? Make plans? Should we rent in California? Should we still look at houses at the beach in Delaware? Should I become a Reiki master? Should I go back to yoga? Should I join a gym? We have a new gym in town that's for people 40 and older, and maybe I should join that. Should I ride my bike more? Should I take better care of my body? Get my doctor's appointments all lined up. Do I have them all on the calendar? I need to journal more. You get me? It goes on. Go to church, water the plants, figure out dinner. What's for dinner? Help my dad. My dad's 83. Support my family. Whatever they need. Keep healing. Take care of myself. Build a new career. And as I kept writing, the list keeps growing. I have a lot of these lists, right? Until suddenly I just couldn't breathe anymore. And I'm like, not because I didn't want all of those things, but because I wanted all of those things. Every single one mattered. You know what I'm saying? Every single thing on my list deserved my attention and my energy. And every single one felt urgent at the same time. And then suddenly I just broke down and started crying. I just started crying. Because I'm grateful that I can think that way, that somehow I'm in this post-traumatic growth period of my life after the death of my son, but yet it just feels overwhelming. And I wasn't hopeless. I was just listening to my body say to me, listen, this is too much. I can't hold this today. And then I start to realize, yeah, this is I'm causing myself to have this shutdown. I need to find a way to like figure it out. How am I moving forward? How am I where am I where's my path going and which step do I take first? And how do I know which one? And I wasn't looking for another planner or another productivity system. I wasn't even looking for motivation. I was just trying to understand why. On some days, I lose access to the very parts of me that make me feel neat and alive. And that's when another phrase came

Anxiety Salad, what's in your bowl?

SPEAKER_02 12:05

to me, and I started calling it my anxiety salad. Maybe I'm just giving myself anxiety because it feels like all of a sudden everything is just in a big bowl. The grief, the trauma, the ADHD, the dreams, the bills, the everything, the family, the good stuff, the bad stuff, moving, purpose, fear, healing from grief, living life now. What does it look like? I'm getting older, and hope and love and joy and being triggered, and betrayal trauma, and all of this stuff. And it gets chopped up into all these tiny little pieces. And then I can't tell one thing from another, and so it's too much. My nervous system is overwhelmed, and the circuit breaker kicks off. And nothing has perspective, nothing has order, everything lands in just an enormous pile inside my brain. Oh, is this ADHD? But I just freeze. Maybe yours includes parenting children or caregiving or chronic illness or divorce or burnout or loneliness or uncertainty about your future. The ingredients don't matter nearly as much as the feeling. The feeling that suddenly everything has landed on top of you and you can't find your way through the pile.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

That was me failing and losing my mind.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

But today I wonder if it simply means my nervous system is overwhelmed and my intuition is saying, cool it.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

And then it shuts me off. I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

It's me saying to you, life is not black and white and in certain linear lines because grief is not linear and trauma is not

The body knows, sometimes, before the mind does

SPEAKER_02 14:41

able to be explained.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

You know, triggers happen and stuff happens.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

And anyway, my body will tell me before my mind does lately. So the more I pay attention to these moments when I'm stuck, I notice something lately that I never really noticed before, and that's that my body always seems to know before my mind. And I don't recognize that I'm being overwhelmed, and I don't even feel anxious sometimes, but my body does, and I can literally feel it like in my gut. Sometimes it's heaviness, sometimes it's a fibromyalgia flare-up all over me, or a knot in my stomach. Sometimes I'll even have like intestinal upset and stomach aches, and I feel sick and sweaty, or I'll have hot flashes and I get flushed, and I'm like and I thought these were all separate experiences for so long. Things in my physical body were separate from my emotions, and now I realize they're actually having a conversation with each other. So I'm starting to understand this language of the emotions connecting to my physical body and my brain, and it whispers to me before I'm even aware of it.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

You're carrying too much. You reached your limit, Julie.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

You need to slow down, and I don't say that because every stomach ache is caused by stress. Sometimes a stomach ache is legit a stomach ache. Our bodies are beautifully complex. Our health deserves thoughtful medical care when something is wrong. But I begin to notice a pattern in my own life based on the intensity of the adversity and the trauma and the grief. That when my nervous system becomes overwhelmed, my body joins in. And it's like when I had ischemic colitis back in April. I was before that happened, I was very dysregulated. And my body was dysregulated, and I found myself in the hospital because of dehydration, which was caused by being upset and stressed out, and I couldn't eat, and I wasn't paying attention. All of that. So maybe you experience this too, like when your body starts to feel what your emotions are feeling. Like for me, like my shoulders get really tight, my lower back hurts. I don't know, I can't sleep great, my stomach gets icky, I don't know, I get sweaty, I don't feel right. Your body isn't uh isn't your enemy. It's just saying, hey. Listen.

When I realize I'm STUCK

SPEAKER_02 17:51

So where did I go? Uh when I wake up and I'm stuck, and I tell John sometimes I'm stuck, I'm I'm in a funk, I'm I'm in a a bubble. I don't I don't know how to describe it. Um when I'm in that stuck, numb, associated-ish phase place, uh it's usually not too hard to get me to cry. Um, anyway, where do I go? Because I I don't know. Like, where is she? And I can't. Sometimes when I'm in that, I can't think of anything. But I know that I'm still in there. I know I'm still in there. I'm still me. I'm still creating and dreaming and curious and compassionate. And I love beauty and I trust my intuition, and I love nature, birds, and I laugh, and I paint for hours without realizing that time has passed. I'm trying to build something that carries the love and wisdom that I learned from my son and the experience that I've had overcoming incredible trauma and building resilience. I find wondering how old my crystals are. Like, some of honestly, I had this like aha moment the other night where I just could not believe that I had purchased a crystal, which, hold on, for those of you watching, I'll show you. Like, I got a lot of them. I got some really beautiful ones, but like this is um what's the name of it?

SPEAKER_00 19:59

I'll think of it. Hold on. I'll show you one I can remember.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

This is called Troll Trollite T-R-O-L-E-I-T. I just got it. It's a beautiful sphere sphere. And it's probably possibly in the millions of years old, millions of years old. And I'm looking at all my crystals and I'm looking it up and I'm like, how old are these things? Thinking to myself, my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

This thing was here before dinosaurs. Isn't that cool? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

That's how I am. That's the kind of person I am. I don't know. That's a new thing for me. I've I've been collecting them. I I really do enjoy the crystals, um, especially as I'm working on Reiki and doing stuff. Anyhow, sorry, I got off track. I love poetry. I love just letting the words flow. And uh yeah, I love trees. I'm very, very fascinated with trees, especially pine trees and fir trees and evergreen trees. And uh I've been known to touch trees randomly, like when I see one and hug a tree if it's huggable. I'm just one of those people. So uh I know that sounds funny, but that that version of me that's so deeply connected to awe, wonder, nature, beauty, love, and life is is who I am. I am deeply alive. And I call it the woo-woo me. Like, oh, she's in her woo-woo mode with um reading auras and feeling spiritual and and just really connecting to higher purpose and uh the whole divine element of existence, right? Connected to God, nature, beauty, and enjoying being in stillness. And just feeling energy connected to creativity and intuition and wonder. She is the version of me who remembers that life is not something that we need to conquer, it's something that we need to experience. And here's what I notice when I'm present, things flow, ideas form. Life sits well. I seem to know what to do next. Not because all those problems disappeared, but somehow I I don't know. My my flow is different and the grief is still there. It's enormously there. And the trauma is still there. And the PTSD is still there. And the ADHD is still there. And all of the anxiety is still there, right? None of it magically leaves. So what comes back inside me that comes into alignment? It's as though my mind and my body and my heart and my spirit all of a sudden hold hands and start walking together again.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

So that's why when like all of a sudden I don't feel that I can feel that. When I don't feel that, I can feel that. And I get stuck.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

And I I used to say, like, I'm not motivated today, I'm procrastinating today. And I would really beat myself up. I'm failing. I'm I'm lazy, like just so much self-deprecation. But now I don't think that's true. I think I just lose access to my energy, my self-energy, the the real essence of me.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

I just lose that electrical connection. Like the power gets shut off or something.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Um I I'm not gone. I'm not missing. I didn't change. I just lose access. But I don't understand why. So anyway, those are two different things, right? Just completely losing yourself completely, like not having any purpose, or just losing access, but but understanding that you still know who

When trauma takes away our access to who we are

SPEAKER_02 24:25

you are. Um trauma does not always take away who we are deep inside. I think sometimes it just temporarily takes away our access to who we are when you get triggered and your nervous system puts you into dysregulation and fear. I think that can really shut things down. And grief doesn't erase our gifts, it can make them feel far away. And ADHD doesn't take away your intelligence or your goals or your dreams. Sometimes it just makes it really difficult to organize, prioritize, and begin. When all those experiences start to overlap, this is what happens to me. And and I I'm very excited about talking about this, and I've been trying to think of a good way to put it all together for the past week. Like, how do I explain this, right? How do I explain this? Because it's not like oh, I'm dissociating today, and this is why. It's why can't I get myself to do things or know what to do, right? So instead of asking myself really hard questions, I've I've started being softer and gentler with myself. Instead of saying, hey, what's wrong with you? I start to say, okay, what is my nervous system telling me? So I I did this yesterday because I was feeling kind of lost in myself. And I I really had to think about it. I'm like, what is my nervous system saying? And it feels more compassionate and it feels more honest, and it feels more expansive because I I don't believe I disappear completely.

Survival is my energy drink, explaining my poem

SPEAKER_00 26:28

I mean, I think I'm still here, but sometimes I can't reach myself.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Does that make any sense? Right? So a few months ago, I was I had just visited some some friends. One of my friends lives in Georgia by the ocean, and I was just thinking about the beach and the ocean and how it makes me feel. And she lives in an area where there's some kind of wild brush and nature prior to getting to the ocean. It's really beautiful, and you walk through a path, and um there's nothing built there, uh, it's just nature and then ocean. And I wrote a poem, and I I think I thought it was about resilience, and then I read it again, and I realized I had written about something that I don't really yet understand. Um, in the poem, which I'll read after, um I am wandering through thick tangled brush. I'm scratched, I'm bleeding, I'm exhausted, I'm sweaty, I'm unsure if I'm ever gonna get out of this entanglement. And then I wrote these words well, survival is my energy drink.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

And when I read that line again, I was like, whoa, whoa. And then I I had a little crying moment because I realized it was true.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Surviving is what I did for so long. Survival carried me, it carried me through 26 years of caring for Daniel and everything that happened along the way.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

It carried me through trauma, it carried me through betrayal, it carried me.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

The turning point wasn't when I finally reached the beach and the ocean. The turning point happened long before that.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

It happened when I wrote the words I can hear the waves, and I can smell the ocean.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Not I see the ocean, I smell it, I hear it. My body recognizes the home before my eyes ever do. And that stopped me. Because I think that's exactly what's happening in healing. We don't always think our way home. Sometimes our nervous system recognizes it before our mind does. Sometimes our soul recognizes it first.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Sometimes something deep inside us gently whispers, Okay, this way. Over here. The wind shifts, the waves. Oh, they become louder, crashing, glorious waves, rhythmic and just eternal.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Before we can explain it, something inside us will start to wake up. And this ocean, the ocean for me, has never been just a destination. I want to go to the ocean. It is a metaphor because not all beaches are magical.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

Not because every answer is waiting for me in the water, but because when I stand there in front of the endlessness of the ocean, nothing asks anything from me. The waves don't care what I accomplished this week. The sand doesn't ask, have you figured out your future? The birds, the seagulls, they don't need me to solve their problems. The ocean simply says, be here, come sit, breathe. Come remember. Remember how you are not only a drop in the ocean, you are also the ocean. Remember who you are. So I just long for it so deeply because it really just connects with my soul, that feeling. Um I thought I was searching for a beach in my poem. Now I'm wondering if I've been searching for the feeling that I have when I'm at the beach, that spaciousness, that stillness, that wonder, that peace, that home, that home feeling. That realization led me somewhere unexpected. I began to say things like, uh,

What happens at the beach that is different

SPEAKER_01 31:50

well, what happens at the beach if it feels so good? Like that can't happen here in my house when I'm overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

The answer surprised me, honestly, and I journaled and wrote. These are things that were coming out of me while I was writing. When I'm in a situation when I'm in that kind of awe and just acceptance, I become present. Not halfway present, not checking my phone every three minutes, not making tomorrow's grocery list, not solving all of my career goals, not wondering where I should live.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

I just become fully here. And I begin wondering, like, what if presence is the doorway? Because there's a doorway to getting out of that numb state, right? When I become to notice when I when I'm able to be truly present, I begin to notice things again.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

The warmth of the sun, the smell of the salt, the feeling of things, the breeze on my skin, kids laughing. I don't know, the rhythm of the waves, and life is slowing down enough that I can actually witness it. And this can be true inside my house, in my backyard. You know, I don't know, walking the dog at the park. And perhaps that's what mindfulness has been trying to teach me all along, not to empty my mind of everything, but just to become present enough to notice. Just simply notice what is right now. Stop all the spinning out, right? I have discovered um a lot of things on this journey to being me where I am now today. I'm turning 60 this month. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

I just I don't feel 60, but I I've discovered that you have to witness before you can truly see.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

And and I think when life is moving too fast and fear is driving us, and trauma is shouting, and anxiety is screaming, and we're stressed out. We can't witness much of anything.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

We don't pay attention. We just react. We just endure, we just survive. But when we're able to become present, something uh shifts, changes.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

I I don't know. We begin observing. Instead of judging ourselves, we become curious. Instead of asking, what the heck is wrong with me? We start to say, Well, what is happening inside me? That single shift is changing my life, and it's happening every day, and I still go back and forth, and I'm still all over the place. But um, curiosity is so much

When curiosity is so much kinder than criticism

SPEAKER_02 35:08

kinder than criticism, so just remember that. I have spent years and years trying to fix myself, but now I'm learning to witness myself with kindness and grace and compassion, patience, and love. And it is remarkable what happens when we begin to witness ourselves from a place of love. We begin to see things differently, and when you get to this place, you can't unsee what you've seen, and I don't even know if that's the right way to explain it, but you can't go back, and it's really beautiful. Um, so as I sat with all this, you know, I finally began seeing things that I may have missed for years, and I noticed that every time I do this, when I lose access to my energy, my life becomes scattered and everything lands everywhere, and everything feels urgent, and I become confused and lose perspective and lose flow and lose access, and then suddenly I begin to slow down and I get stuck, and as I'm stuck, I'm beginning to say what is happening inside me, and then now I don't stay there for very long. I will just sit and start painting, or I'll go outside just to change my perspective. I'll listen to some beautiful symphony orchestra that I love, and it'll fill my my head with gorgeous music, or I'll pray, or I'll just pick up a photo of Daniel and

WHAT IS THAT?! The mystery of the shift back

SPEAKER_02 37:11

I will just cry and cry because I love him so much and I miss him. But almost without noticing, things just begin to flow, something reconnects, and somehow I'm back on track. What is that? What is that?

SPEAKER_00 37:38

The problems don't disappear, I just return to the most connected version of myself, and as you can see, it's really emotional, and I don't I don't know how it happens.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

I wish I could just say to you guys, here's a five-step plan. Um, go go do these five things, and you'll be good when you lose access, right? Um, I wish I could just do that. I could promise you if you meditate 20 minutes every day, everything will change and you'll be perfect. But that hasn't been my experience. My experience has been much more mysterious and much more gentle. I don't manufacture my way back to productivity. I slowly, almost quietly, sometimes not so quietly, but I I always find my way back. So maybe that is what healing is all about, right? Maybe that's what it is. We don't have to become a new person, we just have to return. And remember, you don't disappear. I don't disappear. We just lose access for a little while when it becomes too much, and it is complicated because trauma and grief and all of these things that have really impacted your nervous system and your mind and your heart are like things that can complicate like a trigger can just throw you. So when you get stuck, maybe just remember like okay, I have been here before in this stuck, numb space. Um somehow I seem to always find my way back on track.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Sorry. Maybe waiting quietly, without judgment, without shame, without any of that, just waiting in stillness, waiting, feeling will come back, compassion will come back, and and you'll start to feel like yourself again.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Yeah, I think we all get there where we're stuck at the beginning of a path. I have a lot of things that come up for me, and they always seem to come back to like a path in my journey, or a path through the woods, or a road up the hill beyond sight, right? Or a river that goes around a bend. You know, the endlessness of the ocean, where does it go? Like, wow, what's on the other side? It is a journey that I'm on through some pretty difficult, complicated things, and still I am determined to find the wisdom in it. Um, I'm gonna read you my poem, and then that will be the end

Trying to understand why being present helps

SPEAKER_02 41:18

of this. What has been kind of a difficult episode for me because I just wanted to share my experience um of what it feels like to just lose access to myself because it happens a lot. It significantly happens when I experience triggers um from grief and trauma. And then I yeah, I just I just am trying to understand why I can feel so amazing sometimes, and other times I'm in this stuck state, but then I know I always seem to get myself out of it. So I've been trying to really understand that a little more. And I think the whole being present and just witnessing as it is and going inward is is the answer for me anyway, and maybe for you too. So this is the poem I wrote, and this will be the end of the episode. And thank you so much for listening, you guys. I mean, this is a lot, but I feel like a lot of people might have this confusion too. This like, life

Conclusion and reading of the poem "Surviving" by Julie Hasselberger

SPEAKER_02 42:34

is too much, and then all of a sudden you're like, I can't, I can't just can't carry it today. But I I know that maybe I can later. I need a break, you know. The name of the poem is called Surviving. I wandered lost in thick, prickly brush, reaching blindly to make a way through, bitten by bugs, bleeding from scratches, bruised and soaked and sweaty with and sweat and tear, bruised and soaked with sweat and tears. It feels endless, this ache of knotted vines, this wilderness, it pushes me further. I don't know how I'm even still breathing. Will this be the way out? Will this be the way that I die, leaving me to absorb back into this earth? Damn, the stings and the pricks from cruel thorns. I am not dying today. I refuse and then I move. I hear the call in my soul. It isn't over. Survival is my energy drink, and it gives me respite. Beyond this mess of twisted old trees, I can feel it in my bones. The wind picks up. I'm almost there. Breathe. Scream. The phases defining me flash before my eyes like a colorful, fast-moving train. What was it all for? Why didn't I just quit? Where am I actually headed right now? I hear something beyond my gasping, like a rumble and a crash on repeat. I smell the ocean and I hear the waves. The sound of being called home. The birds are calling and crying, gulls and plovers and skimmers. Then one more step over the fallen wood. And just as if spit out of the darkness, I land wobbly on the warm, soft sand, collapsing into a pile of mishap. Gratitude is then followed by hysterical laughter. Like, oh my god. I throw my shoes and I run into the surf. The cold water makes me feel revived. The salt stings the wounds on my legs, and I return to the sand to rest my battered body. The sun fills my heart and it heals my pain. And my soul celebrates my survival. I celebrate your survival, my friends. I love you very much. Thank you for being on the adapted life finding next with me in my very non-conventional journey. But I am so grateful. So we'll see you next time. Bye.