I have always felt one of my gifts is an innate knowing that I am meant to feel good. In the layered experiences that make up a life, this ideal has been shuffled in the pile, up and down, depending on the circumstances, always somewhere in the mess to be retrieved and put back on top. The ironic nature of life imbued me with tangible access to this truism, but simultaneously the contrast to it created feelings of pain and lack so acute that I felt I had no other choice but to search, seek, study, and process everything pulling me away from the inner knowing that things could feel better.
I’ve had success in the foraging only to fly off into the weeds again, wondering why I still struggle with the same old issues, and what to do about it. This has felt non-negotiable in the pursuit of a good life for myself and has me wondering why others don’t commit to how they feel more and undertake the search too. Is it overwhelm, full-scope distraction, or do they swim in the waters so fully that they don’t know there could be something else?
I am excited and heartened to see the collective conversation now including all manner of self-help, motivation, and tools to encourage growth in any area of life lacking, but much of it feels like—window dressing. Maybe a kinder way to say it is, it’s a start. In my experience, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a more accurate allegory for the journey to self. Gains, setbacks, monsters, hedgerow mazes. It’s all there.
I’m coming out of what I now term “an episode“. I don’t consider myself particularly manic – more than we can all be, but things go along, just fine, and something triggers the old worries or heartaches, and I am “in it“, again. It’s not my first rodeo, and rather than retreating fully into the cave of shame and self-loathing, I can finally remember sooner rather than later that single ‘yes, something is still here, and needs my attention but the entirety of the world is not falling.’ It’s a place in me that’s not fully healed or understood. It’s an orphan part of self that is still scared. I know it’s actually a natural response to what I have claimed I want. It’s attending to and reconciling what has blocked me from it in the first place. I can’t have the expansion of consciousness or life experiences until I befriend the fear of that expansion. Again, the irony! As they say; ’the only way out is through.’
As I mature and my own wounds unravel, I am becoming less incredulous about the journey of others, even though my general wondering remains. Self-actualization – to use a term, may be the ultimate goal for humans. Who knows? It’s my life‘s work for sure. I am getting it that it is my gift, not just damage control so I can get through my day. I love the idea of Chiron – the wounded healer. That the wounding and then the awareness of another way, and embracing of vulnerability and deep honesty is what brings about the healing – which, in many cases, is simply feeling better. Contrary to the svelte, glittering, images of perfection so rife on the Internet, the reason we seek might be to simply feel good. What is it to simmer down, look out into the space around us, and let out the breath we’ve been slightly holding and didn’t even realize it? Can we rest a moment, notice ourselves being, and then give permission to just feel better, if only a little?
