Sometimes we forget. Our forgetting leads us down old paths of pain and suffering. Our forgetting deceives us into believing this path is different or changed from the last time we walked it. Our forgetting allows us to believe that there is hope on this path when this path is really just a devaluation of self and what we know in our deepest soul to be true. This devaluation of self and forgetting of past experience is cause for yet another disappointment. This disappointment is as often internalized, as it is projected out onto the person or situation that we feel wounded by…again. And we suffer mentally and emotionally asking ourselves how could we be so stupid to allow ourselves to be so vulnerable with people or return to environments that have always been founded as unsafe and rejecting of who you are. This sense of insecurity and rejection feels raw and gut-wrenching. You feel uncertain, doubting yourself, doubting others, and then ultimately this leads to doubting the world around you…sucked into a vortex of paralyzing fear and uncertainty. Your thinking, feeling, and behavior is hijacked. You feel completely out of control. You go back and forth with yourself over and over again from rationalizing to belittling self. You feel stuck and it feels heavy to continue moving forward.
Can anyone relate to this? Are you struggling too? How do you keep moving forward? What practices help you to tame your mind and tend to the wounds, so you can feel some relief from the day before?
For me, it’s meditation and taking time with MAXX to reflect. I sit, I think intentionally about my current state of being, and I begin to collect information about myself, my thoughts, my feelings, and the impact on my behavior. Our thinking dictates our external reality. So when my thinking is rooted in pain, suffering, deprivation, and lack my external reality mirrors this.
I was recently reminded through a guided mediation that we have the power to release ourselves from this mental and emotional pain and suffering. I often share with my patients that we place ourselves in mental cages of suffering.
Please don’t misunderstand, I am not diminishing that very hard, scary, or painful things are happening to you. We all have our own version of what hard things we are living through.
I pose the question: If our external reality is already hard why do we decide to pour gasoline onto that suffering with low quality thoughts rooted in disconnection, shame, guilt, and deprivation?
How does this trajectory of thinking allow us to show up in our lives and for those we love?
Bottom line, guys…it doesn’t.
I’ve been there too. In fact, this writing was sparked because I’m walking through it right now.
Here’s what I know in the depths of my soul. I am good. I am a child of God and yes, I am riddled with imperfection. But so is everyone else. Attacking myself based on my fear or insecurity of what other people think of me is senseless. It is a devaluation of self. It dishonors my integrity and robs me of the opportunity to live into my best self. I can’t be the best mama, wife, therapist or visionary at The Maxx Co. in this state. So what do I do?
I pull the “key” that’s always in my back pocket out and I unlock the mental cage I’ve put myself in. I shift my thinking towards that of connection, love, abundance, and joy. I allow myself to think of all the ways I am truly supported, appreciated, and loved. I remember that I am on purpose. I remember I am intentional and that I grow myself daily. I remember that I am enough, right now, exactly as I am.
I don’t know who needed this today. But I certainly did, so thanks for listening.
Peace & Love,
Jessica
