We can all agree that life these days doesn’t carry the same joys and anticipations it once did.
Without the festivals, concerts and events we used to look forward to I find the days are blurring together and feeling kind of flat.
There is seemingly no escape from the deep lows life throws at us.
And let’s admit most of those lows come in the form of relationships that don’t live up to our ideals. Co-workers, friends, romantic partners, kids, all of our relationships have the potential to send us spiraling toward self-doubt and self-loathing when expectations are high.
A few weeks ago I was in a pretty dark place.
As an introvert, there were very few people I felt close enough to talk to (thank you Sis – I love you) and exactly zero who I divulged the full extent of my misery upon. Zero. That self-imposed isolation led me to seeking solace in two things: my self and my phone (the internet).
Here are some of the tools/thoughts/ideas that have led me back toward feeling life is actually worth living, even if I am going to live it completely alone.
“Life happens for me.”
I know lots of us end up wondering “Why me?” Why do I keep getting screwed over? Well this little message has given me some pretty clear insight on the answer to that.
Crying
Like big ugly crying. Taking space to listen to my heart and acknowledging how shitty those situations I keep replaying over and over in my head felt. I didn’t want to keep reliving them because they were wrecking me and so I entered “how to stop reliving the past” into the ol’ google search engine and found this article which kinda helped.
Now when those sad memories come up instead of leaning into what my head thinks about them I lean into how my heart feels about them.
Watching Schitt’s Creek
You can insert your favorite TV series in here but I highly recommend this one. It is so incredibly well written. It’s honest, funny, sarcastic, dark and warm and I can’t get enough of the characters. It’s Canadian comedy gold.
Oprah and Deepak Chopra’s meditation programs
A few years back my mom recommended their “Miraculous Relationships” program. Admittedly as a long time meditator I scoffed inside at the idea of following what I considered to be pop culture meditation. But it was something we were going to do as a family so I signed up. Three weeks later I bought the program so I could do it again. Recently they re-released a program called “Creating Peach from the Inside Out” and it is the best part of my day.
Reading The Ringing Cedars Series
These are a collection of 6 books about a woman living alone in the middle of the Siberian wilderness. They are easy to read, light-hearted, conversational and truly medicine for my weary soul.
Dedicating my life to the service of others
All of the above things have helped me get in touch with my Self; the deep fragile part of my self that has been so wounded and battered that it closed it self off to the world. They helped me to care for that part of myself so I could ask it what it really wants more than anything.
In the deepest part of my dark night of the soul I asked if the world would be better off without me.
Thankfully I have children at home so the answer for them is most definitely no but years down the road I wondered if maybe there would be a way out of the misery I was feeling. And no word of a lie Marie Forleo’s voice came into my head and said:
“The world really does need that special gift that only you have.”
Which led me to think about all the things that make me unique and what I bring to the table.
Yesterday I happened across an Instagram post that read: “in order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you.”
Those of us who have lived through traumatic and difficult childhoods only to end up in terrible relationships or abandoned, who struggle with things like self-care that other more stable people take for granted, we have a gift to offer the world.
Our beautiful broken fragile hearts.
We have the capacity for so much compassion and understanding and empathy. It is up to us to soften ourselves so that we may show the world how they must soften for others.
In a gentle way, you too can shake the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Metta to you.
