People keep asking me if I’m okay.
It’s a yes and no answer because ultimately, I know I will emerge intact, and I can literally feel my resilience at work, but holy mother this is a painful period of my life. And I’m so very tired all the time.
I don’t think I’m depressed, at least not by the big Pharma definition of the term, but I know this is the time for me to be in my shadows, so we’ll say I’m in the depression part of the stages of grief.
I stopped being one of those ‘love and light’ kind of people a long time ago. In fact, I can tell you that my fear of getting too deep into the shadows when I should have in the past has created the current upset that I’m dealing with now.
If I had allowed myself to go deeper, I would have been able to take back more of my threads when my family changed. If I had taken back more of those threads, I’d be more independent and in touch with myself. If I’d done that painful work, I would have had more of a fighting chance at building new love and family, and knowing exactly what I need.
What we need isn’t always the same as what we want. What we want can often leave us stuck in the past.
So, I’m not okay, but that’s okay. Everything keeps shifting beneath me, but eventually it will settle again. This time, I need to create as much simplicity as possible.
Yesterday someone told me, “We need to be okay with being okay.” I think this is a better goal than attaining happiness all of the time. But to this I would add, we also need to be okay with NOT being okay. It’s important to me to honour these painful feelings, and allow myself to fully feel them. It’s important to me to write, share, speak aloud the truth I find when all of the layers of protection and distraction have been stripped away.
I know where my love is. I know the mistakes I’ve made. I’m getting clear on why I chose things that are out of alignment with my values. I know I can do better.
It’s hard to not regret the decisions, attachments, tolerances. Perspective has granted me the opportunity to see my part of the equation clearly. Regret is a tough one. If we get stuck there, we miss the compassion we deserve.
I was where I was because of trauma and pain. I thought I was doing the best I could at the time. I needed time to see that I wasn’t operating at full capacity and in my full integrity. With compassion, I can forgive myself and be better able to evolve. With compassion for myself, I have compassion for everyone else.
This isn’t a place for making firm decisions about anything. I can share what I’ve learned. I can dig deeper on my own and with my therapist to understand what I truly desire, and how I can stay in alignment. I can lean deeply into the wild landscape of my heart and feel so fully that I am all that I really need. We are fine companions, myself and I.
The biggest lesson over these past eight months is that if I can stay more connected to self, and to my intuition, I know what is right for me. The heavy grey is shifting, but I’m okay to sit in the rain for as long as it takes.