So much of the self love path is about learning how to come out of our story-telling mind and into the actual present moment.
It’s about learning how to tell the difference between living in a state of constant ‘what if’s’, constantly trying to become what we think we ‘should’ become, trying not to be what we think we ‘shouldn’t’ be and figuring out what’s ACTUALLY happening, who we ACTUALLY are and what is ACTUALLY important in terms of action, response and steps forward.
It’s about learning how to recognize where we’re being driven by past programming, where we’re overlaying past experience onto our present experience and figuring out how to reconcile what we ‘think’ is happening with our actual lived experience.
This sounds simple enough on its face - just live in reality!
Most of us likely think we’re already doing that. Most of us, if we were to be asked or if we were to ask ourselves, would say that we are reasonable, rational people who are living in reasonable, rational ways. Most of us likely truly believe that we are simply responding to what’s actually happening - and that the fears, anxieties, blocks and catastrophes we experience in our day to day lives are deeply REAL and TRUE.
But when most of us take the time to actually slow down, check in and be in real reality, we’re going to find that we are actually perceiving a LOT of things that aren’t actually happening.
We’re going to realize that we are living with voices in our heads that are telling us that if we don’t achieve this or that, if we don’t become this or that, if we stay how we are, if we don’t ‘figure out’ what we are here to do with our lives or become the perfect versions of ourselves that we have been trained to believe we NEED to become - that the world will fall apart.
Many of us may notice that we are living as though the world IS falling apart, when in fact, we are perfectly safe and ok.
We are living in fear of the future, we are living in a state of projection and from a place of ‘what if’ - and this is causing us to believe we need to be and do things that we don’t actually need to be and do, and it’s blocking us from seeing the things that are actually important and the steps that really WOULD improve our lives.
We’re going to come to see that releasing ourselves from our stories and figuring out what’s actually real and true isn’t so simple, and often takes a lot more time and effort than we initially thought.
But this doesn’t mean it’s impossible, or that we shouldn’t start taking the steps to do this for ourselves.
Seeing The Burning House
Due to the fact that most of us have experienced being told that who and what we currently are isn’t good enough, the fact that we have all experienced being shamed, blamed and guilted, the fact that all of us have likely walked through times in our lives where we were deeply abandoned and where family, friends or culture at large have told us that we can’t be what we are and must become something different - we have likely built up stories in our minds about what is happening in reality and what WILL happen if we were to allow ourselves to be who we truly are.
This leads us into a state of projecting onto reality in ways that we may not even realize that we’re doing.
We truly believe that if others are disappointed in us or don’t like us, that the world is going to fall apart and we won’t be ok.
We truly believe that we aren’t ‘doing enough’ and if we don’t figure something out soon, we won’t be ok.
We truly believe that if we stay how we are, that the sky is going to fall.
We fear not finding the right career or a better career.
We fear not being able to change our bodies.
We fear not being able to change our personalities.
We feel like there is an urgency to find our purpose, lose weight, find the right partner, have children, be loved or approved of by certain people.
We feel ashamed, guilty and like we are bad, wrong and to blame for our pain - and we feel like the only way to fix our pain is to fix ourselves - but it seems like no matter how hard we try to ‘fix’ what we think is broken about us, we keep getting pulled back into old habits, old ways of being, self sabotage, coping mechanisms, ways of numbing and checking out - and we can’t seem to figure out how to move forward or actually make long term changes to the way that we live - and most importantly to the way that we FEEL.
We feel a constant state of ‘this is not ok’ - whatever ‘this’ is.
And we are fully and deeply convinced that we are RIGHT.
This is not ok, we can’t stay here, we can’t be this. We must change and become ‘that’ otherwise…
We are living like the house is on fire.
Because it FEELS like the house is on fire.
Do you resonate with this? This feeling that life is not ok, that you are not ok?
From here, most of us are CERTAIN we know what the ‘answer’ is to that feeling of not being ok.
We are certain that the answer is - lose weight. Be more productive. Change our personality. Get rid of our negative emotions. Get rid of our bad habits.
We have our loops of feeling uncomfortable, assuming we know why we feel that discomfort, working on ‘fixing’ that thing we think is the source/problem, not being able to fix the problem, feeling the feeling of discomfort - lather, rinse repeat.
This is us living from a place of assumption.
We are SURE if we just got that approval, found the partner, got the job, found our purpose, perfected our bodies or got rid of the habit that THIS would lead to that feeling we want to feel.
But no matter how hard we try, no matter how many times we attempt to ‘fix’ the problem - we tend to end up back where we started, feeling that deeply uncomfortable ‘I am not ok’ feeling, wanting to fix the thing we think is the problem, having hope that we are going to fix it this time, not being able to and again feeling stuck.
This is what it feels like to live from a place of projection, not reality.
Slowing Down To Look At Our Stories
With this, the first step most of us need to take when we are feeling this constant ‘life is not ok and I am not ok the way that I am’ feeling - is to slow down and actually check in with the fear.
For most of us, there is a feeling that we ‘know’ that something bad is happening or that something bad is going to happen if we don’t change - but we’ve never really slowed down long enough to actually take a look at what we think is happening, or what we think is going to happen if we don’t change/if life doesn’t change.
In other words, we’ve never asked ourselves:
“If I am never able to change my personality into what I think others want me to be/I feel like I ‘should’ become - what do I think is going to happen?”
“If I never stop self sabotaging/doing my coping mechanisms, what am I afraid will happen to me?”
“If I am rejected by this person or these people, what am I afraid will happen?”
“If I never figure out my career/purpose in life - then what?”
We’ve never done the work of trying to figure out what we are ACTUALLY afraid of, and deeper than that, we’ve never actually done the work of figuring out what we WANT.
What most of us are going to realize when we deeply question the fear/urgency we feel - is that under it all we are afraid we are going to lose love and be alone forever.
We are afraid that our needs are going to go unmet, that we are going to be trapped in a state of struggle and suffering that we can’t get out of.
When we slow down and actually LOOK at our fears instead of feeling that urgency and assuming we know what the problem is and how to fix it - we are going to find that there is actually something much deeper going on.
It’s not really about the surface thing.
We are trying to fix the surface thing - find the career, find the partner, be loved, be respected, earn the money, lose the weight, get rid of the habit - in the hopes that in doing so, we will finally get that perfect LOVE and perfect SAFETY that we have always wanted.
We are hoping that it will bring that full satisfaction. That sense that we are ‘doing the right thing’ and living ‘the right life.’
We are hoping that it’s going to fill a hole in us. A hole we may not even be aware is there.
We are looking to the surface thing to be the solution to the existential dread - what if I’m abandoned and alone? What if I can’t get my needs met?
This is usually what we’re running from, without ever seeing that this is what we’re running from.
With this, I invite you to pause reading this and do a little exploration for yourself.
What happens when you question your fears?
What happens when you question your assumptions?
Can you ask yourself ‘what am I afraid will happen if I don’t change ‘x’ about my life?’
‘What do I think achieving ‘y’ is going to get me?’
‘What am I ACTUALLY feeling, if I am not feeling shame, blame or guilt?’
Discovering Our True Feelings
From here, we are likely going to start to see that we have a lot of unprocessed and unfelt emotions that are bubbling under the surface.
Many of us again feel that deep sense of ‘I am not ok/urgency’ or that deep sense of shame, blame and guilt - and rather than taking the time to dive INTO those feelings to see what we are actually feeling, we just run away with the surface assumption of what we need to fix or change in order to make that feeling go away.
We don’t take the time to slow down and actually FEEL what we are feeling.
We don’t take the time to witness those thoughts that say ‘you must change yourself, you must figure this out, you must become this or that, you must fix this’ - and rather than running ahead with what we usually do - stopping and saying:
“What am I feeling in my BODY right now?”
“Where do I feel these feelings in my body?”
“What do these feelings feel like?”
We don’t take the time to OBSERVE the feelings. To see that we can be with the feelings and not react. To see that the feelings are just feelings - and to then observe reality around us.
Many of us again, feel like the world is literally crashing down around us - but if we were to slow down, feel the feelings in our body and just observe them - and then observe our ACTUAL lived reality - we would see that we are, in fact, fine.
We can feel the discomfort of the feeling in our bodies, and we can allow that feeling to exist. We can allow the feeling to come up, to be intense, and then to naturally dissipate as we just witness it and have compassion for ourselves as we do.
We can then bring ourselves into our actual present moment and notice - we are just laying in bed. We are just sitting at our office. We have food in the fridge. A roof over our heads.
Most of the time, nothing urgent is ACTUALLY happening at the moment.
Rather, we were triggered by something that made us FEEL like we weren’t ok, that made us FEEL like we weren’t going to BE ok - and rather than being able to see that, to respond to the actual event, we are running off into a future of what if’s and hypothetical situations, responding with our self improvement and self fixing - without even seeing what triggered us and what we’re afraid of.
Rather than being able to see that we perceived our boss was mad at us and thus felt like we were going to get in trouble, lose our jobs, be homeless and never find safety again - we feel that deep sense of ‘I have to fix my broken personality.’
Rather than being able to see that we felt like our partner was pulling away and this made us fear that they will leave us and we will be alone forever we though ‘I must lose weight and I must lose it right now.’
Rather than being able to see that we were actually feeling sad, angry or upset by the behavior of someone else, we dove directly into ‘it’s my fault that I am not productive enough, I deserved to be abandoned because I am shitty and I must fix myself.’
Rather than being able to see that we got overwhelmed by an emotion we didn’t know how to process and this drove us into our coping mechanism all we see is that we binged on Netflix again, and that we are ruining our lives and have to figure our shit out NOW.
We aren’t able to witness our true feelings, to observe our thought patterns and to see where we are again projecting all kinds of scary things onto what is ACTUALLY occurring in front of us.
We are simply running down our familiar mental tracks, looking to fix ourselves before we even recognize what happened, what we are feeling, what is actually happening in real reality and what we need.
So again, I invite you to practice this.
Next time you feel that sense of urgency to fix yourself, next time you feel that sense of “I am not ok” or notice yourself going into your familiar pattern of self help/trying to fix yourself - can you observe what you’re ACTUALLY feeling in your body?
Can you observe the sensations and notice that you not have to react to them?
Can you witness your ACTUAL reality - what is happening right here, right now - and see if you can challenge the stories of ‘what if’ that are coming up?
Are you actually being abandoned? Are you actually being fired? Are you actually alone on the street?
Can you witness what triggered you?
Can you start to inquire into your emotions, to ask what you’re REALLY feeling if you’re not feeling shame, blame and guilt? If you need help with this, I highly recommend watching this video here.
Can you start to unpack what you’re feeling, and can you start to check with what’s ACTUALLY happening?
Moving Into Self Support
From here, the next most important step is to move OUT of trying to fix yourself and into a state of looking to SUPPORT yourself.
When you are doing this processing work, you’re going to come to realize over and over again that what you need most is love.
What you need is validation.
What you need is space to process the pain you’ve been through.
What you need is someone to tell you that you’re good enough and that you’re safe.
What you need is to slow down and to come into your actual lived circumstances, and then to ask yourself what you most need to do in THIS MOMENT to best keep yourself safe and happy.
You don’t need fixing.
You don’t need to become what others want you to become.
You don’t need to figure out your career or lose weight or make big changes to your life right now.
You may find that over time you DO eventually change careers, shift the way you relate to others, find new ways of supporting your body or learn how to work with your emotions and process in a way that allows you to not need those coping mechanisms anymore - but you’re going to find that you don’t ‘get there’ via fixing yourself.
Rather, you are going to start to slow down, check in, and really come into contact with your actual, present self.
The part of you that is feeling sadness, grief, anger or pain - and just needs to be given space, time and love to process, express, feel and move through those feelings.
You’re going to come into contact with the parts of self that were hurt, harmed, abandoned, shamed and guilted by caregivers and other authority figures/peers as you were growing up, that now need lots of love, compassion and time to reintegrate into your being.
You’re going to come into contact with your TRUE feelings about your circumstances - what is and isn’t working for you - and rather than trying to fix YOURSELF when you feel discomfort in life, you’re going to learn how to assess what is ACTUALLY bothering you and what you need to do to change that or to support yourself within what you can’t change.
You’re going to learn what it means to slow down, look at reality and see what you actually want and need in THIS moment.
You’re going to learn that the constant rushing and pushing ahead, the constant feeling that you need to ‘get over there’ was never true - and that what you have always ACTUALLY needed was simply love, presence and support in THIS moment.
You’re going to realize that all the changes you want to make that will ACTUALLY make you feel better, are going to come from a place of witnessing actual reality for how it is, witnessing your actual SELF in this moment, and just doing what’s most supportive for you right here, right now.
Over and over and over again.
Now, please don’t expect yourself to be able to just ‘do’ this because you read this article.
This process of coming into reality isn’t easy. It’s not something we quickly do. It requires a lot of time and practice with lots of different tools.
But this article can serve as a kind of road-map, a place to start, and from there you can dive into tools that will help you take each step of the process deeper.
You can check out my youtube channel here for more information
You can read books like ‘Finding Your Own North Star’ by Martha Beck, ‘ComplexPTSD’ by Pete Walker and ‘No Bad Parts’ by Richard Schwartz.
You can check out my Mystery School below - which is a 5 year program to help you dive deep into all the above tools.
There are many other avenues and resources - so stay open and curious.
Coming into reality so we can find our actual feelings, desires and steps is a process - but it’s one that’s fully worth all the effort it takes.
You are worthy of the time.
Our conditioning is going to work to convince us that the house is on fire - the nervous system is just trying to keep us safe. If you have been around here for a while and reading these blogs and watching the videos you know all about this. So please again be patient with yourself and know that just because you understand this stuff in your mind, doesn’t mean it’s going to directly translate to your experience.
The rest of the world is living from a place of urgent projection most of the time - so again, doing this and finding your way out is not going to be easy.
Give this time. It’s hard, but you’re worth it.
<3
Want more tools like this?
Check out The Mystery School Here
