Rubin - 37

They say change can happen in an instant, and it was in that moment I knew I had to make a life-or-death choice. The reason being that if I continued down my current path, my only salvation would come in the form of suicide. Spiritual suicide would leave me existing in my body, and physically committing suicide would take me out of it.

Which one was it going to be?

I’m not 100% sure, and glad I never had to find out.

You see, in that moment I had just relapsed yet again, after trying with all my will for years to beat my addiction. Only to be conquered and reminded by it again that I was just a squirrel in its world. 

Now the reason change can happen in an instant is due to Newton’s 3rd law, “a body in motion stays in motion until met with an equal force.” For me that force was an overwhelming and intolerable flood of shame. Feelings so intense they burned me to the 3rd degree, down to my deepest core. 

Life’s interesting sometimes, because as a teenager I made a strong decision to never be like my father. So how the fuck did I become a spitting mirror image of him, when I tried to be the opposite of him every breathing moment?

I had to come to terms with the fact that my father, one of the main contributors of my trauma, still controlled my every move. And to make matters worse, he no longer had to control the puppet strings through manual labour. He greased the machine with shame, and it was now running on autopilot.

Shame is the most potent emotion that can change the entire trajectory of a man’s life. Just a drop of it can completely rupture his identity, ensuring that no matter what he accomplishes, he will never be enough and worthy of love. The problem was I didn’t have just a drop, I was bathing in shame while I was in the womb. Sharing it with a mother in despair, long before I had a conscious mind.

Nowadays, I’m blessed that my body in motion was met with an opposite force, because it forced me to break my denial. Denial is the glue that holds the entire system in place and unfortunately the unexamined past becomes the future of the next generation with absolute precision. However, through God’s will, I’ve been upgraded from squirrel to lion. And as the ruler of my kingdom, I realize it all starts and stops with me.

I am connected to all life and can influence it in any given moment.

As I look over my shoulder now, on the horizon, I see the preceding generations of my family lined up in single file, stretching back for miles. There must be 100 generations or more. At the front of the line, I see my parents as children with their parents.

I notice the generations of my family passing forward a bundle. They move the bundle along by handing it off from one generation to the next.  I watch as the bundle moves close to my grandparents to my parents. The bundle is heavy and gripped tightly as one generation hands it off to the next.

The bundle is held at the stomach level as it is passed forward. As I concentrate on the bundle, I begin to recognize it for what it is. The contents of it are shame, trauma, abandonment, pain, and loss from the ages. It finally makes sense as I see my grandparents kneel down to give the bundle to my parents. I see with clarity, what my parents took possession of.

But after paying the labour cost of self love, I won’t be passing the bundle on.

I am free.

Music - Rubin’s music choices during our photo session included, Dr. Dre, DMX, Pitbull, and Biggie Smalls.