03/29/2021
I’m not sure who needs to hear this or why I felt compelled to write it, but I’m “going there” today.
Take what resonates (if anything) and leave the rest.
*
Over the past few years, I’ve been through a series of unspeakably heartbreaking experiences. Anxiety-inducing events that would make most people’s toes curl.
Challenges to my sense of identity. Ego-bruising realizations. And lots (and lots) of dark nights of the soul.
I know I’m hardly the only one who’s gone through this kind of life-defining period and, as most people say when they’re going through a difficult time…
“It could always be worse.”
The thing about hard times, though, is that, no matter what anyone else is going through, our own pain feels very real and very justified.
I’m not writing about this to share my pain, though.
Because the truth is, the experiences I’ve gone through over the past few years have shaped me in a way I never knew I needed.
My ego — my sense of self — used to be like a crystal figurine: intricately designed, carefully crafted, and terrifically breakable.
I often enjoyed being fully identified with that ego. It was fun feeling superior to others. Except for those times when I didn’t feel superior. Then it wasn’t much fun being trapped inside my fragile self-concept.
The main problem was that I felt superior to others maybe, I dunno… 2.1% of the time? The rest of the time, I pretended to feel superior while, inside, my ego felt shattered in a million pieces.
Mostly what I did was judge, criticize, blame, compare, try to get people to like me by doing and saying what I thought they’d find attractive… and lay awake at night feeling unsure of myself, wondering what I was doing wrong with my life, when things were going to come together for me.
I’d obsess over whether I was a good enough partner, a good enough mom, well-dressed enough, living in a nice enough house, making enough money. I hated it when people didn’t like me. And I always felt left out: of the “in” crowd, the mainstream, even my own family.
In my family of five I imagined that, if we were all on a boat together in the middle of the ocean and it was clear only one person needed to be cast overboard to save the rest… it would be me. By unanimous vote.
Everyone else seemed to be “important” and worthy of attention, except me.
And this led me to make some regrettable choices over the years, in an effort to gain people’s approval (including my own). To get the love and respect I felt was so glaringly absent in my life.
And yet, what I’m describing is certainly not unique.
Who hasn’t felt lacking, or alone, or unloved at some point? It’s inherent in the human condition.
But, particularly in this age of social media, it can be so easy to think someone is doing well, loving life, and having “only good days.”
Maybe you see someone posting images of their beautiful kids or their gorgeous home — or they seem to have the marriage, or the body, or the business you dream of, and you think, “Ah… now THAT person has it all figured out.”
I’m not saying anyone thinks that about ME, by the way. Those who are closest to me certainly don’t! (*Insert crying-laugh emoji*)
But I know that since I haven't shared the depth and intensity of many of my struggles, and mostly only posted when I had resolved my challenges… it COULD seem like my life is neat and tidy and conflict-free, when behind the scenes it’s been about as messy as a labor and delivery room right after a long and grueling birth.
And again, I’m sharing this because… I don’t know… because I think someone needs to hear it. Even just one “someone” — maybe you.
And because, also, I've seen firsthand how the hardest circumstances we face ALWAYS lead to something greater and more fulfilling than what we started with.
If we’re open to it, that is.
A big part of healing my own challenges has come through being more present and awake to my life.
More aware of that delicate, frail ego that tries so desperately to cling to its gossamer shape. To stay whole. To be admired.
And more deeply attuned to the REAL me that knows its power lies not in exterior gloss or in being “better” than anyone else, or even better than a previous version of itself — but in its willingness to crack wide open and reveal the messy, tender vulnerability inside.
A vulnerability that’s at once terrified and courageous. That’s driven by divine intention, however messily executed. And that cares more about how much love it expresses than about how much love it seems to receive.
That isn’t to say that I’ve always expressed love very skillfully!
Sometimes, the bravest act I’ve been able to conjure is to walk away from a fight rather than engage, or to sit quietly and let someone just “be” when I want to “fix,” or to silently send love to someone who seems to have treated me coldly, or worse.
And other times, the best I’ve been able to do is simply not lose my s**t when faced with some kind of “triggering” experience.
Most of the time, though, I look and act much the same as I did before. (All that ego-obsession was mostly happening in my mind to begin with!)
It’s my inner landscape that looks dramatically different.
There’s a lot more peace in here. A LOT more understanding. And the ability to move through the inner ego obsessions with compassion, and with the awareness that, y’know… we’re all basically a bunch of confused folks sleepwalking through an illusory life on a spinning ball of dirt suspended in space.
A bunch of wild genius spirits seemingly strapped into powerless, vulnerable bodies, locked in a Sisyphean journey we call life.
So no, I’m not writing about MY pain. But I am writing to reveal that it’s been there.
It’s still there, some days, although much less so, the more I’ve embraced ways of seeing into the miracles beyond it.
If you’ve felt this kind of pain, too... please know that I'm with you on the journey.
I’m pushing my own boulder up the hill.
There ARE miracles here, on the journey. There’s light in the boulder itself, and on the path upon which we push it. There’s light in you, and in me.
Let’s keep reaching for that light, however messily, however unskillfully.
You and me, we wild geniuses... we got this.
I love you.
xx Helen
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