I used to be terrified of the unknown the uncomfortable and the messy. Both in life and in myself.
I had practically no tolerance for sitting with discomfort. I wanted ease and I wanted it to last forever.
I was so scared of the unknown, I spent most of my time anxiously trying to predict the future to protect myself from the pain of not knowing.
Because even my non-educated, wildly negative guesses about the future felt better than not knowing.
But most of all I hated the feeling of being flawed. I felt like I was absolutely filled with flaws and it drove me crazy how difficult it was to erase them.
I felt like Lady Macbeth, obsessively washing away the spots, never quite succeeding and going slowly mad from not being able to control these things about me.
And that word, CONTROL, is what ties all these things together.
I wanted to control the unknown. I wanted to predict the future. I wanted to control my life so I could drain it from all the discomfort. And most of all I wanted to control my flaws and have the ability to erase them at will.
And what did this tight grip of needing to be in control bring me? What did resisting the unknown, the uncomfortable and the flaws bring me?
Anxiety, terrible self-worth and lots and lots of pain.
And I would LOVE to tell you that the journey of embracing the unknown, the uncomfortable and my flaws was filled with sunshine and rainbows. I would love to tell you that these days my life is exuberant and happy and I feel content all the time.
But alas, that’s not how life works. The journey to embrace the things I used to reject was hard. It took a long time. I made messes, I fucked up and I forgot. And I still do.
And none of this, absolutely none of it, has protected me from pain.
I’ve felt incredible, deep, piercing pain while on this journey. And I’ve learned that it too, can be met with acceptance rather than rejection.
Now ain’t that the sales pitch of a lifetime?! Come sit with all these super uncomfortable things and gain not freedom from pain but….
But what do you gain? Why would I be even talking about this journey if it didn’t protect me or save me or stop me from experiencing pain?
I’m talking about it, no RAVING about it, because it gave me freedom.
SO much freedom. Freedom from the constant worrying. Freedom from anxiety.
Freedom from constantly monitoring myself to be better. Freedom from constantly rejecting parts of myself.
Freedom of living in a constant state of resistance, which is pretty much living in a constant state of “NO! NOT THIS!” and I can tell you that’s a fucking exhausting way to live.
And so, for me, that freedom is everything. It triumphs over the unknown. It makes the uncomfortable seem like a small thing. It makes my flaws dissolve.
Because if I’m FREE, I’m free to decide that the unknown can be good for me.
That the uncomfortable can be food for my growth and for my exploration and for my creativity. That my flaws are guides to my deepest ability to love.
And I can’t say if you should take this journey. It’s definitely not fun most of the time. It’s not easy either.
But oh, the freedom at the other end? It’s fucking priceless. And it’s constantly there, just waiting for you to discover it.
And you WILL. If you dare to face the monsters you’ve created in your head.
If you dare to look at them with kindness and with acceptance and sit down with them, you’ll find that they’re not the terrifying things you thought they were.
They’re your guides towards your expansion.
And whoa, when I tell you there’s a lot of room for that. Infinite room. For your growth. For you to expand into. To contain not just the unknown, the uncomfortable and the flaws. But everything else in between too.