Healing: Are You Alive?
Obviously from a basic physiological viewpoint, if you’re not alive, then I’ve somehow managed to attract attention from the afterlife (and if so, hit me up on Facebook, I’d love to hear from you).
But assuming that you’re one of the still breathing, I’d like to pose that same question with a slightly different context.
Do you feel alive?
Because having a pulse, a heartbeat, a blood pressure and a somewhat functioning nervous system isn’t enough. Feeling alive is a sense of joy, of hope, of optimism, and of happiness.
And while I feel like I’ve experienced those at some points in my life, I have to admit that there have been a lot of times when the majority of those have been in short supply.
Because I’ve been living with a lot of negative feelings.
As part of my journey into wherever I’m going, I’ve been trying to understand the genesis of many of these emotions, and I’ve started to recognize that there are some things I’ve felt that began as a result of things that happened to me, and other feelings that are a result of how I was ‘programmed’ to feel about me.
And I want to explain the difference, because I hope it can help you.
As a result of some events that occurred in my formative years, I have a terrible ‘perfection complex’, where I feel like I have to do things really, really well (if not perfectly) in order to have any worth.
While this sounds like a recipe for always becoming better, it’s actually the perfect recipe for creating avoidance, fear and anxiety, and a pretty bad case of ‘analysis paralysis’.
But then those emotions (the result of the events) cause more events, and more emotions.
Because there have been times in my life when I could have just ‘gone for it’ on something, and didn’t, and lived with the regret.
There have been many times when I have started or tried something, and ended up stopping early, not seeing it through, because the fear of not doing it perfectly was so bad that I just ignored it when I could have made it work.
So as a result of actions (inactions really) that were driven by originating emotions, I then felt a second set of emotions, based on anger, self hatred, and disgust.
All of which kind of fill up your emotional radar, until there’s really no space left for a sense of joy, or optimism, or hope. There’s just a sense of dying a little more each day, realizing that every moment going by was another one lost to a sense of sadness, to futility and to failure.
You feel bad about yourself, and feel worse because of what you think that means about yourself.
It’s a vicious cycle that keeps going around and around, until you figure out a way to stop it.
Which is what I’m working on right now. I didn’t expect it to be easy, but wow, I didn’t realize it was going to be this hard. I am making progress, but there are days when I wonder if I’m ever going to get to where I want to be, and find this thing that I’m searching for, this wonderful sense of amazement, of laughter, of hope, of gratitude, and of joy.
I want to feel what it feels to feel alive again.
Because I have people in my life who I stand in awe of, in the way that they express their joy of life. I hate to admit this, but when I see someone who is truly alive in happiness, there’s a big part of me that struggles against a very strong feeling of jealousy. I know that’s not a great response, but hey, I’m trying to be truly honest here.
Because honesty, especially self honesty, is needed now more than ever.
Along with large helpings of forgiveness, of acceptance, of love, and of change.
You see, the people who seem to be the happiest, the most alive and the most vibrant, all seem to be people who have mastered the art of forgiving themselves, of accepting themselves, of loving themselves, and of changing themselves.
So on my journey towards a feeling of being alive, I’m trying to give myself the gift of all of those.
Because I really want to feel joy again. I really, really do.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings