“I awake with deep feelings of being lost and the overwhelming discomfort of hopelessness…”
So began my journal nine years ago.
One of the lessons I have learned over these nine years is: As we ascend towards wholeness and become increasingly more authentic, our sensors of awareness broaden so that we experience more softness, joy and fear.
One cannot filter out the pain without sacrificing the joy. It is the proverbial Ying and Yang, black and white, bittersweet.
When coaching, I use the image of a spiral staircase to explain how our perspective changes as we go up the staircase; looking down, the problem is still there but how we see and experience it changes as we ascend. Gaining perspective is one of the tools of taking back one’s control.
If we have done our “work”, we are better equipped now to manage what used to be very stressful and frustrating.
So, here I am nine years later going through a period of deep confusion as I get closer to a HUGE shift in my life.
But, this time the feelings and gained perspective do not render me hopeless, on the contrary, I feel as if I am on the ride of my life.
These are the moments of choice; do I allow myself to continue to be filled with self-doubt, or trust it will be okay…as it always has been. Things have a way of working out.
My skill as a critical thinker has gone into overtime trying to sort out what my next step should be. The contrast between who I am and what I need to do puts me into a conflict of continuing to stay small or step out of the shadows and claim my birthright.
I said to a friend the other day: “I am an introvert masquerading as an extrovert.”
I am standing at the crossroads of either moving right into the next space, which makes me a participant in my life and puts me under constant scrutiny, or, going left, back to the dugout to be an observer of my life.
The two mindsets that are keeping me calm are compassion and patience, which lead to self-trust and acceptance.
Ah! The fundamental building block: acceptance. How all of us struggle with feeling is of unworthiness and the need to be accepted which sometimes eases with age, sometimes not.
Staying on the path to the right takes mindfulness, and for me, having friends with whom I can share the daily internal struggle, helps me keep perspective, which keeps me afloat.
I was poorly equipped nine years ago to be gentle with my sense of personal failure, but now I am fully loaded with the tools to stay in the boat, even when the rudder is lost.
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