Groundless

Brianne Vaillancourt
3 min readAug 1, 2021

The rug is pulled out. I stand on nothing. How can I choose, how can I live? My heart sinks, contracts. My throat tries to close. Tears pour out of my eyes. It’s like falling and falling and falling without ever touching ground. I am terrified because I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I don’t know how to live anymore. I don’t know how to get out of bed other then by obeying to “I have to get out of bed.” I stare at the ceiling and think: “it’s the morning, I should drink water.” That is one of my rules. Is it? I drink water when I’m thirsty. That is also a rule. Am I thirsty?

The world is strange. I can choose anything. I cry as I look at the trees, leaves blowing in the wind, sun shining through. The hem of my shirt is wet with tears against the skin of my chest. Trees, they exist without reason and yet they are so valuable, so amazing. They simply exist.

It is so beautiful. Life is beautiful. I want to scream and dig my fingers into the earth. I am furious. I have missed so much aliveness, so much Being-With. Innumerable moments flash before my eyes.

Staring into his golden eyes, ice-cold current running all over my body, “I can not be sad. I have to look strong. I have to be okay.

Walking down the street, “keep your shoulders straight. Look forward. Walk one foot behind the other. Do not look into their eyes.”

5:30 in the morning, I lay there listening to the alarm with “I have to get up. I have to get up and do yoga-asanas. Go. You will regret it if you don’t do it.”

I am suffocating. I don’t see. I am blindfolded with layer upon layer of pressure. I am not being. I obey. I can not listen to this kind of music. I can not eat this food. I have to say this. I have to be that. I am “not allowed”. If I don’t listen, if I break one of the rules, I am worthless. I am a piece of shit. Every time I try something else, I feel nauseous with guilt.

I look at their faces; they are on my Team but I don’t know how to be. I am a set of rules. I am a zombie, mechanical. I don’t choose. The rules choose for me. I don’t want to. I don’t know. I don’t know how to choose. I can’t.

I want to curl into a ball and hide under a pile of leaves. I want to bury myself in the depth of the forest and never see anybody again. I want to drink the smell of the earth until I forget that I am human.

But… there is something else. A flame. Inside me. It burns to serve. It burns for putting my bullshit aside so that something greater than myself can happen. So that Transformation, Possibility, Empowerment, and Love can happen.

I am tired of trying to make sense of it all. My mind keeps trying and trying to figure it out. It tries to hold on while I am letting go. It tries to find some semblance of reason while I consciously throw myself into the unknown. I am torn. I feel scared that I am going to break. I am breaking. I am insane. Life is insane.

Yet I keep going. Keep going. Breathing. I catch another rule and I write it down. I catch another rule and I break it. I am freaking out. I don’t know anything anymore and my whole world expands. Joy bubbles through my chest and I burst into laughter through the tears. Wow. What a life.

How beautiful; to take a stand for the unknowable. How beautiful; to take responsibility in every moment. To risk choosing consciously. To throw away the concept of “failing”. To choose something, not because it is right, but for no reason. Deciding to trust myself. Being willing to handle the consequence of my choice.

What brilliant ecstasy is possible in those moments of choice and consequence.

This life. This world. This Universe.

Being is groundless.

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Brianne Vaillancourt

I am a Life Catalyst, co-creating a new culture in service to the Earth and all Her Beings while living a fully embodied and adventure-full life!