I am staring at the white (virtual) page and at the blinking cursor and I don’t know where to begin. I know what I am feeling in my gut and I know that I want to guide those feelings, thoughts and words out of me. To bring some healing to myself and also to connect with those who might feel the same. And I realize that the real challenge here for me is to allow this to get out in a way that makes sense, slowly, mindfully, or else the flood might do more harm than good.
In my work I have had to extract myself from projects I had entered with great enthusiasm and making bold plans. In my personal life I have had to distance myself from people I thought were with me for the entire journey. I do not do half ways well – not a compliment to myself. I go all in: the job or the relationship. And sometimes it strikes me that words that were spoken around “the way we do things”, promises made in the relationship were just that, words. The signpost is always the way these encounters make me feel. Do I feel energized, expansive, uplifted or drained, frustrated and defeated after the interaction? Do I feel free, positive and warm or is there something inside nagging at my heart, something amiss, something that just “doesn’t feel right”?
We are all coaches these days it seems. Whether in the digital or real world, we are all so very good at telling the others how they should feel, how they should act and react, what is “to be done” and what is not, what is right and what is wrong. In my fifth decade of life, after many instances of heartbreak, disillusionment, overinvolvement and too much care, I can see how this is actually an element of power over. It is very dangerous to let someone be guided by their gut feeling, to be embodied enough to realize something is wrong, something is not working. It is prefered, especially for those who look to manipulate and gaslight, to point out the way things should be versus they way they are. To point a finger rather than become curious and look to understand and do the uncomfortable work.
Every time I could no longer hide from myself that a project or a person was foreign to my values and draining to my spirit, a battle would be waged inside. And this battle always lasts the amount of time it takes to move me from “this is just me being weird again, I should just shut up and go along” to “even if this is just me, even if I am being weird, this is what I am feeling and I should go towards what makes me feel expansive and energized.” Regardless of my age, my life experience or however many times this has happened to me before, the battle has to be carried out each and every time. Every single time I start feeling like something is amiss I start by assuming that something is out of place with me, I go along for a while and at some point I start acting. Fortunately, I have grown enough to realize that is the danger zone. That is when I have to go deep within me, to that place where truth is the only option and ask why am I involved in this project or with that person and is there a cost to my wellbeing and am I making a difference in the world around me and is this the best use of my energy, of my only one wild and precious life? Is this time well spent?
The great thing about this process is that we cannot really hide the true answers from ourselves. We may avoid them and not be ready to hear them but the truth will always be there in the depth of us. That is not the hard part. The hard part is looking that truth straight in the face, grabbing to it firmly and letting it guide our actions.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
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