Morning Reflection: The courage to go deeper

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The courage to go deeper.

How much do you know about you? I’m confident you could tell me where you live, tell me who you follow, and probably even tell me the things you like and dislike.

But could you really tell me about yourself? Could you tell me why you do certain things that frustrate you, could you tell me why you react in a certain situation? 

Or would you simply throw up your hands in a gesture of confusion with that time-honored statement “I don’t know”?

I get a lot of that in my work. “I don’t know” is an answer that most of us have used at some point when confronted by the difficult reality that our actions make no sense to our rational mind but make every sense in the world to our emotional selves.

We seem to live our day-to-day lives unaware of the reasons behind our thoughts, our feelings and our behavior. 

Sentience, it seems, is not all it is cracked up to be.

But why don’t we go deeper? Why are we often unwilling to slow our minds, quiet our environments and spend time inside of our own consciousness, struggling for the answers that can bring us peace and clarity?

From my own perspective, it is because moments of self-awareness are often painful. Often the beliefs or the reactions that we live with were born out of moments of significant emotional pain and discomfort. These heightened emotions seem to be seared into our subconscious, producing behaviors that we struggle to explain or even understand.

Uncovering these truths often requires us to feel again those painful and difficult feelings, that we might see from a different perspective the situations that caused so much pain.

In my own life, I have had to confront the pain of emotional abandonment by my father, in order to finally understand that his behavior was driven by his own pain, and not a reflection of who I am. 

I still struggle with this on a daily basis, but without confronting the pain I would never have come to the truth that may one day bring me a small measure of peace.

My hope for you today is that you will continue to have the courage necessary to go deeper into your soul. 

While the journey is fraught with difficult memories, troublesome truths and often painfully paralyzing perspectives, I promise you that as you come to understand and forgive yourself, you can heal some of the wounds that beset you and try you.

May you “know yourself” at a deeper level, so that you may find the peace you seek and the serenity you so richly deserve.

Have courage, go deeper.

And become.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings