How Do We Find Our Way Back to Ourselves?
I’m lost.
I’m in the dark.
I’m drifting in a state of limbo and not sure who I am, what I want, or where I need to be - except right here. I’ve written about sitting with it before (the tough emotions) and I’m sitting in my own crap right now and am feeling terrible about it. I’m tired of being sad. I’m tired of feeling disconnected. I’m tired of playing the ‘game’ of what society expects. I’m just tired of these lessons and challenges. I’m tired of the darkness.
Two of my daughters have now said something along these lines to me: “Mum, you used to be a wild badass; you were a free-spirited hippie who followed your intuition into amazing adventures, but now, you’re a businesswoman/a shadow of who you used to be.”
“I’m in limbo and will continue to stay here until I decide to reconnect and move forward and let the past go.”
My daughters know me best, better than anyone on Earth. They have seen my darkness and light. They have known the various versions of me, from the child with her first baby, navigating a toxic relationship, to a woman who packed up her kids and hit the road with a 4WD and a home-made 1970s camper-trailer. They’ve watched my evolution; they’ve watched me grow up. And now, I feel like I’ve regressed, they don’t know how to receive me. They don’t know this self-depreciating, sad, and aimless little girl. I know her all too well. She’s always been there.
I am in denial. Of many things and have been for a number of years, probably close to a decade. I recently watched a video from Sonia Choquette about disconnection to intuition and alignment to true self. She said it was caused by denial. I sat with this idea of denial and came up with this acronym:
Denial is:
Disconnected
Energy
No
Intuition
Accepting
Limbo
That’s how I feel; a disconnection from my intuitive self and as a result I’m in limbo and will continue to stay here until I decide to reconnect and move forward and let the past go. Unsurprisingly, I’ve made contact with a psychologist and will be unpacking a lot of this deep grief with a professional, but I’ve already got good strategies for coping when it goes dark: journalling, exercise, time in nature, being social even when I don’t want to, crying until I’m done, working with a psychologist, dancing, singing, watching funny movies on Netflix and so much more. I even made a kit of strategies to cope - one for happiness tips and one for mental health tips. You can find them here.
I know how to get myself out of a depressive episode. But to get myself back to alignment with myself, especially when I feel challenged by the invitations to leadership, that’s difficult. It draws on my greatest triggers - that of being rejected and abandoned. But to step into a person who I’ve never been in-front of others, is causing me enormous anxiety and overwhelm.
But I own it. I’ve been in denial that I know how to do this. I’ve been shrinking myself because I’m afraid of my shadows being out in the open. I’ve never hidden the fact that I have depression - but I have hidden my symptoms and reactions from the outside world until recently, when I couldn’t hide it. My masks fell and I am filled with shame and embarrassment about that (another thing to unpack with the psych!)
I know that good leaders delegate. I know that leadership, well, the leadership I want to inhabit, is not like the old pyramidal model of leader at the top and the masses beneath. I know leadership is circular and if each of us inhabited our own inner leader, imagine the world we could create. But it’s also allowing others to inhabit their leadership. And I know, I am a leader in-progress - I’m still learning. I guess I need to be kind to myself for not being perfect and not holding the mask, of letting my darkness out.
To find the way back to myself, I need to:
Acknowledge all of the things I’m in denial about and reconnect with my intuition.
I need to be kind to myself.
Admit what I’m afraid of and face it head-on.
Trust and surrender to the universe/whatever.
Seek external and professional help.
Remind myself that gratitude and conscious intention helps.
Stay consistent.
Keep accountable.
Love myself the most - because I deserve a life full of miracles.
Give myself opportunity to make mistakes on this growth cycle.
It’s baby steps.
I see a way out of the darkness now.
