This was powerful and impactful. Probably the most life giving thing I have ever done for myself.
I didn't even really realize how prolific this would turn out to be when I wrote it four years ago. I can almost bet you a month's salary that I wasn't even coming from a personal place. I feel like this is just one of those random musings that roll around my head. Sometimes my imagination can really get ahead of itself.
Last year, I went through something. That is the best and most forward way that I can put it. I simply went through something. I wasn't happy with my life. I learned several thousand lessons last year but one of the best ones was that money is not a measurement for happiness.
I was making more money than I have ever made, ever. I could go and come as I pleased and I was content with taking care of myself and others around me. I was pretty much set - good to go as they would say.
But there was a loneliness that lurked deep inside. There was pain that was indescribable and invisible. I was a broken person. I was just a mere shadow of the person whom I wanted to be. I wasn't trying hard enough. Truthfully, I wasn't trying at all. I wanted more, but I was too heavy to pick myself up and go searching for it. More of what, even? Definitely a much better question to answer. If I wasn't happy with what I had or with what I was doing, would having more of that make me happy? Hell no. So more....more what?
What I had to first realize was that it was beyond permissible to grant myself access to rearrange my own life. Who did I think my life belonged to in the first place? Honestly, I believe that I had to ask permission to do any and everything.
As teenagers, we fight for our right to assert our minimal independence. We want to be able to come and go as we please. We want to spend our own (parents') money the way we so choose. We want autonomy over our lives. Little do we know that as we grow up, that quasi-autonomy quickly vanishes into thin air.
We are told where to go, when to be there, how to get there and little as to why we are going in the first place. There are several burdensome expectations that beset us, unknowingly. These expectations become our cross to bear. These expectations become the cause of misery for so many.
Not once are we asked the question: "What do you really want?" Okay, let's be honest, you've been asked, but did you answer truthfully? There is so much that we think we want but we don't actually really want. Our needs and our wants are imposed on us at a very early age. Breaking that cycle begins with a full understanding of the source and consequences of your requirements.
I had to get that. I had to understand that I had absolutely no idea of what I really and truly wanted. I could trace just about every single decision I had made to date and trace it back to a value system of someone else close to me. I found that I was never being true to myself because I didn't know myself.
Last year, I set out to fix that. I realized people would ask me what I liked and liked to do, and I couldn't name one thing that didn't involve other people. I hated being alone. At this point in my life, I had no choice. I used that aloneness, that silence, that emptiness to fill it with oneness and peace.
When you ask a question, you have to wait and listen for the answer. I had to be in that stillness and that privacy in order to really listen for the answers that I needed. Being still is not one of my finest qualities. Actually, when you're describing me, still is an antonym. This was super difficult for me, but necessary.
From that point, I was able to rebuild. I was able to really go over my life's requirements with a. fine tooth comb. I threw out the parts that didn't resonate with me. I threw out the parts that I was forcing myself to engage. I threw out the parts that were adopted from someone else; they no longer served me.
I learned that I had the tools to create what I truly wanted all along. I learned how to use them. I learned about just how much power I truly have. Just writing this right now reminds me of that power deep within. It energizes me and fills me with purpose.
I had to rebuild myself, from deep within. I had to explore the dark parts that I have been successfully hiding for years. I had to upend all the furniture, dust every corner and flip every rug. If I wanted a new life this is what it was going to take.
In finding all of this power, I also found a voice. I am so glad I decided to rebuild.
best,
Aja Moon
Comments