delaney collins

I have no idea what I want to say. I feel so many things and then a wave of nothing at all. Often times, I feel broken. But then the people around me will say I'm brilliant, that I'm one of the smartest people they know, that they've never met anyone like me. How can all of those things be true if I don't feel it?

It is very hard to have so much knowledge in your brain and all it's beautiful interconnectedness but then also be overly humble and anti-narcissistic such that you feel uncomfortable leaning into it. There was a time within the last year where I was certain I could achieve anything I wanted. I no longer feel that way.

Even though I have a partner, I still spend most of my time feeling alone. I don't want to sound dramatic, I don't want to sound like there is nobody who will understand me or that I am above or beyond other people and that's why I'm all by myself in the clouds. I spend countless hours perfecting the words I say and the feelings I express to best represent me so I can connect with others in an authentic way. Even still, I find myself bending to the energy of the environment and sometimes I get mad at myself for doing so.

When you are partnered, when you spend your time loving someone else, it is also important to love yourself in the same way. I know how to love myself, I think. I do things like this – I write. I try and believe in myself and root for myself in all that I do. I want to believe in the things I say and feel firm on the foundation I stand on. I feel like having a partner can make that harder if they don't love you in the same way you love yourself.

I am incredibly emotional and sensitive. Not sensitive in the way of being easily offended, but sensitive in the way of empathy. If you are upset, I will feel it viscerally. If you are happy, I may cry for you. It just comes naturally to me. It can get confusing when the people around you will say that's impossible and the only feelings you can have are your own. But... of course. I have feelings that are activated by way of you. The only way I am able to feel you is because I feel me. If we don't feel ourselves, we can't possibly feel others.

Sometimes I wonder if my partner feels me. Like truly feels me. Because sometimes I think she doesn't feel herself. How is the way I feel going to penetrate her soul if they have to go through her own feelings? How can she possibly understand what I truly feel if she isn't calibrated on her own plane? I hate asking these questions because I feel like it makes me sound like I don't think she's emotionally aware or intelligent. It's simply my own fear of not being understood. I will usually find opportunities to notice her lack of understanding of my being rather than her affirmative understanding. We've been together for awhile now and sometimes it makes me sad how I don't think she deeply understands the things that really matter to me. But she loves me in the way she knows how, and for that I am grateful.

Here are some feeling words to express what's in my body right now: fear, stress, overwhelm, nervousness, sadness, loneliness, anticipation. I tried to think if there are any happy words I can put in there but I honestly can't. Right now is really hard. It's really really hard. I feel like I am in the deep trenches of some deep ass shit and it's hard to see the sky. But I have to trust, ya know? This is the lesson of the century. How do I know that I know that I know? Because I am aware that everything waxes and wanes and these feelings in my body will transmute into something new by the nature of my actions and the world around me. I am excited for that. Oh hey, look – I'm excited. Pretty cool.

I want to make a difference. But I believe that statement is lame. I don't want to make a difference because I think the world needs differing. I want to make a difference in people's lives in a way that just makes their souls feel at home. We live in an uneasy, increasingly fast, chaotic, stressful world. And to feel relaxed and at home even for just a few minutes can really change somebody. I want to be that for others because that's what I need for myself. And I don't have it. I've been endlessly searching and putting myself out there in a radically vulnerable, authentic way but I have yet to feel safe, heard, and seen in the way I truly think I need to expand and grow in the way I want. I have had to be that person for myself. But there's only so many things one human being can do. It can get a little cramped in here.

To care deeply for all that surrounds me takes a toll. To care less is inauthentic and painful because it isn't me. To walk around as not-me, although perhaps energetically easier in the moment, ends up putting me in much more energetic debt to realign to my true nature. Sometimes I wish I were naive and ignorant. I know that is selfish, but a girl can dream.

I can't really write much more today. My head might fall off my shoulders and roll down the street. Thanks for being here and I'll talk to you soon.

Delaney Collins

Me again.

Quote from my girlfriend just now: “Everything is context dependent. If you aren't experiencing it, it doesn't even matter.”

So... true?

It was 90 degrees today. I am waiting for my somewhat mother to come home from getting her nails done because they were “too long to type” which, I understand. My dad made a salad for us, and for that I am grateful.

I will miss these moments. Although I do live in my parent's basement and I am being booted out soon for renovation and reselling purposes, I am very grateful that I currently have a place to call home and where I have been able to do so for my whole life. Once my parents leave here, my home base will be obliterated and I will no longer have a place to return to in times of crisis, danger, or angst. Of course, I will always be able to visit, but will I be able to stay?

I've been writing a lot of deeper poetry lately. I sometimes get scared to share it because I don't want the people around me to think I'm delusional and send me away to the mental hospital. I was quite emotional last night thinking about the way I've had to carefully curate my emotional expression to feel safe in the environments I find myself in. I know it seems dramatic, but I very much resonate with the idea of a modern-day witch hunt. The people around us always seem to be looking for things that are wrong with us, rather than things that are right. What does it even mean to be right? It's all relative anyways.

I recorded some complex ideas today that I hope to share with others soon. I struggle to find a path forward in starting my own self-healing practice. I don't want to succumb to capitalism and since I've deactivated all of my social media accounts, the only way to get the word out will be through word of mouth and authentic connections. I suppose maybe that's best?

Maybe I should manifest that shit, ya know? When people ask me what I've been up to I can just tell them I am starting my own self-healing practice where I will be working with individuals to help them cultivate a new level of awareness with themselves and truly feel their way through life. However, I do find hesitation in that form of phrasing because is feeling your way through life reallllllly better for you? Quite frankly, it seems a bit unsafe. When I was feeling my way through the world I was led to such beautiful abundance and alignment and self-love to be spread throughout the world, but it also landed me in the mental hospital.

I like to believe that the lessons I have learned from that experience were necessary to understand the precautions of seeking the heights. More importantly, I don't believe we are supposed to seek the heights alone. I tried to, and I rolled back down the hill. Even if I ended up not entirely back at the bottom, it certainly is still a long way up. I question sometimes whether I will ever get there again in a sustainable, healthy way. I also question whether there is such a thing. Are we meant to experience genuine ecstasy in this life on a consistent basis? I assume then it wouldn't feel very much like ecstasy at all.

The biggest awareness is that of contrast. To have experienced one of the highest of the highs and be brought down to the lowest of the lows is quite the trip, literally and figuratively. I've been through that cycle a few times. We all go through this journey on a smaller time scale everyday. When we get “triggered” for example, we go from a higher frequency to a lower frequency and the world around us will feel negative and scary. However, if we pull ourselves from those feelings with support and love, we are able to cycle back to a higher frequency. This isn't always easy nor is it always possible, and it's sometimes how we get to feel “stuck.”

My brain moves very quickly. Ideas move ceaselessly through me in a way that I believe can be dangerous if I don't reign my creativity in with a lasso. We are here on this Earth to create. Not necessarily tangible things, but beautiful energy as well. The world of form has it's limitations, we all know that. My vehicle that is my body can only take me so far, but my feelings and my mind can take me to more dimensions than anyone can count. Infinitely many. How fun is that? How cool is it that we take countless trips every day? We time travel to places in our past and feelings in our future. But often, it's painted as scary. We experience the other dimensions with anxiety. I know I do.

Because of my past experience, when I find my mind moving fast in an increasingly complex direction, I get scared. What if I can't stop? What if I am moving on an infinite treadmill and I energetically explode again and nobody can understand me and I sit in a psychiatric facility given countless drugs to “stabilize my mood” when having emotions is the only compass I have? How would I be able to navigate my life in a way that is truly fulfilling and take the path of least resistance if there is no resistance to feel? That is my nightmare. So I hide. I hide within these words. I hide within my journal. I hide within my video diaries, my audio diaries, my notes. I feel safe with myself, most of the time.

But paradoxically, I also believe it is important for my ideas to be shared. They are good ideas. They are complex ideas. They draw from areas of my own lived experience with psychiatric diagnoses and medications, psychedelic therapies, mental health facilities, all kinds of therapy, spiritual teachers, and moving through and transcending above anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, and now, “Bipolar disorder”. My intellectual and academic background encompasses vast information on anthropology, linguistics, cognition, physiology, physics, philosophy, psychology, nonlinear dynamics, consciousness, hypnosis, and evidence-based research. My employment history has allowed me to be a teacher, a tutor, a peer mentor, an administrator, a liaison, an advocate, a salesperson, a podcaster, a photographer, and a researcher. I am only 25 but I have touched many areas of life.

When I was 24, I had the opportunity to connect all of the things I've ever learned. It taught me that I have infinite wisdom and I am deeply in touch with all that is. Now, everything I see and feel is a relation and connection to something else. There is no day that goes by where I don't reflect on my state of being, the state of the world around me, and the state of others. It is important for me to do this. I don't know why. I wouldn't be me without it. I wouldn't have purpose without it. But, it can be isolating. I often feel alone. Not because I am “smarter” or “better” or “wiser” than anyone else, but because everyone is unique and I have yet to find a community that truly hears me in a way that I can connect through this complex dimensionality.

Through this writing I seek beings like me. To coalesce. To connect. To share. To love. I believe that is needed right now.

Til' next time, Delaney Collins

Ah... the blank page stares once again. Um, hello I guess. I've been thinking about doing this for awhile. The people surrounding me have indicated that I have quite a way with prose and that I should publish books, give Ted Talks and lectures, do psychic readings, you name it. I have yet to land on one goal of mine, but I do know I want to share. But I don't want to share who I am. I don't want to make this about me as a person, with a particular identity. That's not what this is about. In fact, I want everyone reading to feel apart of them in every word. What resonates with you? What makes you angry? What do you strongly disagree with? What would you have done differently? The truth is in our feelings. Our feelings guide our way. My feelings led me here.

Before I sat down to write this, I went and put a load of towels in the laundry, as one does. It's about 8pm and my somewhat mother is upstairs scowled over her laptop anxiously flipping through pages of academic journals to find the one paper she wants to read. Because that will scratch that itch! So, I'm downstairs and can't find the OxiClean. You know – the one with the stain fighting power! Oh, the horror. Now, it's usually right by the washer with the other detergents and I planned on using it to freshen up towels (because ya know, they get build up I feel like, I don't know that's just in my mind). I can't find it, right? So, even though I know she's stressed, I politely yell upstairs to her, “Do you know where the OxiClean is?” ... pause ... “Yeah I do, you don't need it. You use WAY too much, I spent so much time cleaning it out of there.” Hmm. How patronized do I feel, you ask? Very. I am an adult, and my parent literally HID an item from me that she did not feel I could properly use rather than verbalizing to me that I was using it incorrectly and perhaps giving me a heads up on how much is the “correct” amount. Should I have been privy to the exact beneficial portion of OxiClean? Maybe. Am I embarrassed? For sure. But it's the way she communicates. She said “she doesn't see me everyday” when I expressed to her she could have just told me that instead of hid the thing. I don't know. It frustrated me. I am now expressing my frustration calmly here because I recognize that writing papers and being in graduate school and cleaning the barrel of the washer multiple times probably does a number on people. I have grace for that. I am thankful for her presence in my life to allow me to feel resistance and frustration that I wouldn't otherwise know. Amen, am I right?

Okay so, now that that (repeated word... always feels wrong when I type it but never when I say it) little anecdote is out of the way. The way I roll is I do not have a plan. I do not have an agenda. I am a free writer. I often found myself struggling to write scientifically in school because my thoughts would be all over the place. ADHD some might say, but I like to think it's my expansive self-aware conscious mind that likes to do gymnastics. My mind likes sports but my body, historically, has not.

I'm not entirely sure what this blog will become. Quite frankly, I don't really enjoy the word “blog.” Honestly, I don't think most words capture the depth of meaning they are meant to. Communication can be so difficult when people are not on the same page. The meaning in my mind of the word “crazy” is different from every other human being's associated meaning of the word “crazy” because no experience is the same. Kinda cool, kinda frustrating. To master communication we must always be asking questions, we must always be curious. We must always learn the meaning behind people's words – learn their language. And translate from your's, to their's.

I like to think I'm a translator of people. I quite enjoy understanding others through their gaping open windows while they keep their doors shut. They protect themselves behind locks and keys but little do they know there is a beautiful breeze coming in the upstairs window of their humble abode. We are always receiving energy, it's a matter of how we want to feel it – how we want to experience it. I try to let my energy slip through the window, lovingly. Maybe sit on their sofa with them and have some tea and cookies. Get to know their passions and desires and allow them a space to be authentic and safe. We all need that. Now more than ever.

I suppose this is my space to do that. Share things with the world anonymously. I don't know if a single soul will ever see this but that is the beautiful silly fun of it all. I am deeply expansive. I always have something to share. I always have a perspective on everything – the good, the bad, and the beautiful. As I enter this next chapter of my life I hope to cultivate more authenticity, love, and soul that can emanate amongst those closest to me, and hopefully, to you.

My first love has always been the universe. I used to look up at the sky when I was very young and reflect on how beautiful it is. It scared me, deeply. But it made me infinitely curious – both a blessing and a curse in this culture. I know now for certain that not only am I apart of something infinitely greater, but that I am infinitely great. And so are you. How amazing is it that my first love was actually me all along? How silly is it that it took me so long to find out?

I hope you'll join me on this journey. I hope you find the most beautiful, loving, safe, vast depth within yourself and the world. It can be challenging. It can be wild. But it is always worth it. The physical world can sometimes feel like we are walking through molasses. The drudgery and self-hatred. The “I'll never be good enough” or the “Why even try”. We are programmed this way. We are meant to be kept small. We are a people born into oppression. Every one of us. I hope we soon can connect and find a loving way forward. For everyone. For love. I will join you there, my friends.

Until then, Delaney Collins