The weekend that broke me open, and why I’m grateful it did
Please be aware this heart to heart might be triggering.
This weekend has felt brutal. I hadn't anticipated going into this weekend that I was going to experience an emotional ego death.
I found myself on Friday feeling exhausted, like I didn't want to live anymore. I didn't see the point in being here and I wanted my emotional experience of life as I know it to be over.
I found myself crying, not knowing how to hold myself through my emotions. I told John, and I scared him with what I was feeling. How do you hold space for a loved one sharing thoughts that sound like suicidal ideation?
He asked if I had thoughts of harming myself. I answered no.
I didn't have any of those thoughts. I wasn't depressed. I was feeling great on Friday morning, but come the evening I was curled up in a ball wondering if there was a magical way for me to escape my body and the emotions I was feeling.
I felt exhausted, over the performative nature of life as most of us are experiencing. I was tired of the constant proving and turning myself inside out all in the service of achievement. I was done and I wanted to tap out.
“You do not just wake up and become the butterfly. Growth is a process.”
— Rupi Kaur
Confronted with what I'd shared, I could see John grasping for the 'right' way to support me, to hold the space I needed, but I wasn't able to receive what he was offering.
Caught in a cycle of shame for being so vulnerable, I pushed him away and told him I needed space. Space to surrender to what was being felt.
All I could remember was the guidance in David Hawkins' book Letting Go – The Pathway to Surrender. I needed to not resist the emotions. I needed to allow them, feel them fully, and then gently let them go.
I fell asleep practising letting go. On Saturday morning I awoke feeling numb, not alive but not dead either. I was in the space in between.
The day was, frankly, a cluster fuck. John’s efforts to support and hold space for me emotionally fell short, resulting in a rageful vent. One that punished both of us.
I found myself retreating to solitude, telling myself I would be better left alone, that it wasn't possible to be understood in this emotional state.
Sleep overtook me, as my body, overwhelmed by emotion, needed respite. The hours passed on my own in my bedroom, crying, feeling, and surrendering without self-judgement. Not trying to understand, but learning to be with the emotion.
A friend checked in, the only one I know who has experienced her own reckoning. The only one I know who has fully met herself in the darkness and could fully understand and hold space for me in mine.
I didn't know I was experiencing an emotional ego death until I had the chance to witness what I shared with her. The speed of how the feelings of emptiness overcame me. How I lost all sense of joy and aliveness. I felt hopeless and in despair, but I knew I didn't want to harm my physical body, I wanted to escape it.
It's hard to explain to anyone who's never experienced this level of inner transformation what it feels like to go through.
I couldn't see how I'd feel myself again, and again I had to choose to keep being with the emotions that were presenting and letting them go.
I realised after a time, I was powerfully choosing. Choosing to let go. And that somewhere in the depth of the darkness, I could feel the light. It presented a small sense of relief.
A shower before bed allowed me to wash away the day, to clear the emotional residue. Journalling before bed let me process the day and get the thoughts out of my mind.
The emotional reflection questions I answered provided clarity. Somehow, through the confusion of the day, came clarity, truth, and a sense of peace.
I slept with the words of a mentor in my ears, reminding me of the errors of our human conditioning and what holds us back.
This morning as I woke, I felt myself again. A friend and I were booked to attend a half-day retreat, a space to be held.
Cacao ceremonies, essential oils and Human Design integration were the order of the day.
One of the exercises required us to speak for two minutes uninterrupted. I shared what I'd experienced this weekend and watched the gentle, knowing look my counterpart gave me.
After my time was up, she smiled and shared that she too had experienced many deaths and rebirths. I'd never heard it described like that before, yet it made sense. I felt seen, and she gifted me compassion and understanding. This was a breakthrough. I had the realisation I'd shifted a part of my emotional conditioning, that I was no longer trapped by the part of me that was seeking to prove and perform over being present.
This I know is giving me greater opportunity to become the writer I want to be. The one that has the courage to speak the truths that the world most needs to hear.
I'm seeing the pattern of my transformation. My purges and ego deaths to date have mostly been physical. This was the first one that was emotional. I'm told I have the energetic purge yet to come. I've no idea what this means or what it will look like.
But I do know writing this down and sharing it gives me the opportunity to test whether I've really shifted emotionally. The vulnerability doesn't feel like vulnerability to me anymore, it feels like transparency and truth.
I don't know if you've ever experienced anything like this before in your journey of inner transformation. It's brutal and the hardest work I've ever done, yet the most powerful.
I feel a sense of freedom in my self-expression I've never felt before. I used to be scared. Now it feels like breathing.
I realise now I could only know this feeling of lightness if I was prepared to meet and integrate the darkness.
As we come to the end of the second quarter of this calendar year, I can see how powerful this year is transpiring to be. The commitment to become who you are in a world conditioned to tell you what to think and believe isn't easy, but I'm beginning to feel it's worth it.
What are you ready to let go of - and who might you become if you do?
If you’d like to understand more about your unique design and emotional wiring, you can start by exploring your Human Design chart. It might help you see what’s truly yours, and what was never meant to be carried.
Keep going and keep growing.
Love Glin x
P.S. Three wins from my week:
1. Letting the ego death move through me.
I didn’t resist it this time. I let myself fall apart, feel it fully, and come back to myself without rushing to fix it. It felt like a turning point in my emotional healing.
2. Sharing the truth, not the performance.
Writing this blog felt different. Not like I was being vulnerable, but like I was being honest. There’s a freedom in my expression I haven’t felt before, and I’m starting to trust it.
3. Delivering a powerful negotiation and influence workshop in Sydney.
It was a reminder that I can hold both, the depth of my personal process and the clarity of my professional craft. The team showed up fully, and so did I.
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