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Trust (your) experiences, not (your) words

Updated: Aug 30, 2022

Hectic.


Is the word that best describes it.

This feeling of having a lot going on. However joyful & inspiring, it's somehow progressively overloading in terms of energy cost. In this way making its expiration inevitable.


So many ideas start flooding around that I find myself not knowing where to start, whether it's in writing, sports, sight-seeing, creating & recording material... There's probably a tenfold of ideas relative to the time and energy available to carry them out.


What I'll often find myself doing, a bit as I do householdwork: I start with one thing, then start another before finishing the first and so on. At the end of the day you've done plenty, though it feels as if you haven't because nothing made it to the finish line.


A sensation of tightness in my throat and another of nervousness in my chest and belly sneak up on me. They're subtle and barely noticeable at first, until they reach that hinging point. As if they'd know there's no point in hiding anymore, only open space between them and their prey (aka me). So they decide to make a quick jump at me, leaving me overwhelmed with feelings and racing thoughts.


Am I -aside from doing too much at once- also drifting apart from the essence? Trying to excel at things that aren't my true strength? Am I caught up in the game of wanting to 'dress and impress', leaving myself behind in the process?


Picking a trendy song for a reel, because it's popular and people might like it. Neglecting the fact that I would've not chosen this myself. Me. The person who should be represented by it. Eventually being left with even more doubt & distress; coming from the knowing that this actually isn't reelly real, this reel.


Seeing -in my minds eye- and viscerally feeling the dismissal, the disaproval of others. The looks. The 'look at her, how sad, how ridiculous, how small and insignificant is she.'


Or even worse, the 'not looks', the not even getting noticed. Which has probably been the driving force behind de 'trendy song picking'. And so the circle is round and closed.


I've been trying to rid my shadow part without looking at it. Without allowing it to exist. Without really feeling & acknowledging its presence. Whilst it's more then ever present, the elephant in the room.


Every time I get overwhelmed my head tells me 'I can't take it anymore' and each time, my experience has shown me I actually can. Words lie, experiences don't.


My experience shows me, again and again, that I can feel this old pain, and still be okay. I can serve it safe passage. Let it run its course. Not block it, by not suppressing it. Letting it float upwards and outwards.


Not going in any debate with the words my mind is producing in its attempt to control the pain and the outcome.


Only navigating towards what it is that my heart is reelly caring about. Easier said than done. I've never been any good at finding my way, even when there was a -somewhat- reliable map. In this case there isn't even that, at least not a tangible one.





So where does that leave me?


With a growing need of learning to navigate my own internal compass. Luckily actually quite organically tied with those feelings and shadows I was once so desperately running away from.


Sometimes what we need most, feels worst. Sometimes doing what's 'right' for us, feels entirely wrong. Like a wire cross.


So then I'll give myself a bit more time to adapt. To tap into my inner knowing. To allow my first survival instincts to drop down. To give in to these uneasy feelings.


To experience safety and connection within my discomfort. Staying safely connected to myself, others and the world whilst experiencing distress. Feeling the wholeness of the kosmos run straight through everything. All the way to the stars and the moon, the current meteor shower.


When experiencing emotions like this it can feel as being on a plane, passing through the turbulent cloud deck. All of a sudden, when you've reached all the way through, stillness returns & with it this question spontaneously rises to the surface.


'Can I allow myself to enjoy life?'


It seems like an odd question, yet it's exactly that. Giving myself permission to enjoy life while others still suffer. Hell, to even enjoy life while I still suffer. Giving myself permission to live a free life. To exist and in this way have an impact. To accept that there's no such thing as mere positive impact.


Sometimes I'll be the one inflicting or triggering a pain in another, as others have done in me. I'm only now coming to terms with that. The realization occurs to me that a negative impact might sometimes be exactly what we need, the thing that makes us grow beyond the borders of our imagined cage and in this way it's not simply to be labeled as negative.


From living freely comes the discovery that we can all handle more, much more, than we think.


Trust (your) experience, not merely (your) words.


- Tat twam Asi




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