The Work is Never Finished

Let me address the elephant in the room, and get it out of the way, because I have quite a bit that I need to say. So here we go. WHEW! It has been a long time. AGAIN! I know. Nevertheless, I am here and that feels good to me despite how I have felt as of late.

When I started this blog, I thought I was in a different space than I am in now but truthfully, I was not. I was in the same place of transition and growing up into who I needed to be for that season. I had found a way to say what I needed to say to my past, present and future self. I was able to share with individuals my perspective and simply hope it would resonate with someone.  I will be honest; I did not realize just how much I would be speaking to my future self since I was navigating through life with as much accountability and self-awareness that I possibly could at the time. It had not always been that way.  As naïve as it may seem I thought I had endured enough to get to a place of ease in this life. I was very wrong. When I say ease, I do not mean absent from moments that stretch you. Those will never go away. What I am referring to is a sense of peace. Peace will always outweigh happiness. I realize now more than ever before that happiness is a choice. Yes, it is something we must be intentional about securing for ourselves. However, peace encompasses everything we are, what we do, who we associate with and how we respond to all of those things regardless of the circumstances. Happiness is a stimulant in this life; peace is a state of mind. Any war with self disrupts your peace.

 I have always felt compelled to share my perspective because whenever I would read blogs or even certain books intended for women’s mental and emotional growth I would often leave feeling like there was something missing. Which was my perspective. What drove me to this blog was the simple fact that if I needed it then perhaps someone else did as well. Therefore, I began sharing with the intent to give space for others to begin asking themselves the hard questions. So that they too can begin to form a healthy perspective that would be built on a foundation of authenticity and accountability.

Authenticity for me has been crucial to my personal development because I have never been able to fake who I was. There were times I wish I could have faked it because it was not always glorious. What that has taught me is that by living an authentic life there must be accountability. Just because you are, the way you are does not mean you are the best version of yourself, but what it does is place you in a position to become that if you are willing to do the work. When I would read about women specifically and their journey to overcome certain struggles, disappointments and heartbreaks what was missing was the balance of the two: authenticity before and accountability after. In addition to that, there was a lot of blame and self- loathing used to aid in the recovery of what had been endured. Some women lie to themselves in order to convince their mind and their heart that they are “ok”; and for a little while, it actually works.

Over the past four years, I have shared as much as I could without compromising my privacy level of comfort and to the best of my ability, my understanding of what I have experienced. Without experience, you really cannot speak to certain situations. I may not have the educational background to diagnose myself and fully comprehend what is happening but I have lived and I have survived this life. There is no greater teacher than experience. Only if you are honest with yourself about what has taken place and in return, the way you feel can you truly overcome what you have experienced.  Feelings are not our friends but they are not our enemies either. They are not our friends because they are fleeting. We cannot depend on them to lead us however; they are not our enemies because they will aid us. I am a person who feels everything deeply, even when it is nothing. So to deny my feelings has been almost impossible my entire life. I did not even think it was possible for me to feel nothing at all. Our creator has designed this life to show us ourselves by any means necessary.

I cannot pin point exactly when I began to suppress my feelings to the point that I never went back to retrieve them. We all ignore our feelings to some degree simply because it can be too much! It is like putting away laundry. You just keep telling yourself “I’ll do it later”. Next thing you know it has been two weeks and you have just been grabbing what you need from the pile of clothes never really addressing the issue. That is how we treat our feelings. We take what we need to get through the moments and then ignore the rest. This may not be the best practice but it has its efficiencies. On the one hand, we are not ignoring all of our feelings and on the other, we see the pile reduce a little bit. That is until we realize the dirty clothes hamper pile has become bigger and bigger. The task of putting the clothes away immediately much like dealing with our feelings at first onset is now clearly the best decision we could have made.  Hindsight is always 20/20, right. 

Let me be clear I realize now that it is not always easy to deal with certain feelings immediately because we simply do not understand them. The human experience is complex every single day. Even the days that we flow through effortlessly without resistance to what is taking place still present a challenge.  I have spent the past three years doing the most in depth soul work that I ever have, even though I am no stranger to hardship. However, this was different. I had no end date. I went into with the mindset that whatever it took I was going to learn how to stand up for my own heart. One day turned into a week, a week into a month, a month into a year and here I am three years later.  So much has taken place that I need several pages and whole book to share it all.  Fast forward to earlier this year I thought I was good. Complacency can be a great hindrance to soul work if you are not careful. You will begin to think the work is finished. The reality is that the work is never truly finished even after you experience some healing. There were so many victories over the course of these years and I will never diminish them but I did begin to get relaxed. I was tired of doing the work. I will be honest it was lonely and uncomfortable at times and any sight of light at the end of the tunnel was a sigh of relief.

As much work as I had completed and the results it yielded there were some feelings I completely ignored out of ignorance. I did not understand them. No amount of accountability helped me move past them. They were the ones I left in the pile as I selectively chose the ones I needed to get through the days. The ones that were good feelings of accomplishment, confidence and joy were those I always selected first. Those that were tedious like socks that needed a match and shirts that needed folding perfectly to fit in the drawer were the ones I ignored. These were shame, confusion, fear, and anger.  I do not need to tell you that when you allow things to go unattended you begin to resent the fact that it even exists because now the work required has become a chore. There is no fulfilment in even completing the task. Despite grieving the passing of my father and the end of my relationship with my daughter’s father simultaneously, I still had not addressed my biggest feeling that has crippled me for so long.

I now know that is the need for outside validation. Not from all but from certain individuals. I believe every human experiences this to some degree. Confidence does not exempt you from the need to feel validated or approved by someone other than yourself.  I have lived my life for so long to please others and to do whatever I can to make up for any wrong I have done, to support and simply make others feel good about themselves at the expense of my own self-worth. That was my wager. Retrospectively I can see now that when I finally stood up for my heart and chose my own vision for my life no matter how difficult, it was an act of rebellion against that and I am proud of it. There is not a soul walking this earth that understands the courage it took for me to do that and the words to adequately describe it always seems to escape me. Perhaps there will come a day when I am able to. Nevertheless, what came with that was this duality of both courage to face and insecurity of what the future will look like. For the past few months, I have experienced all of the feelings I truthfully was hoping I would not have to. I foolishly thought life would spare me that.

 The result is that I learned more than ever that to become the best version of myself there had to be some moments of complete overwhelm in order to accomplish that. I faced the ugly truth about myself, circumstances and other individuals as well as sat with the feelings that came along with that. Here is the thing about committing to soul work; you must endure and endure well because on the other side of the convictions and discomforts is a life that you deserve simply because you exist. On the other side of the fear, of rejection is the realization that you can embrace your feelings as “Frienemies” and allow them to aid you with your healing. I naturally absorb the feelings of others. This has been a huge hurdle for me. I guess I am an empath.  I insert myself into their situations and begin to process what does not belong to me. This has kept me in the business of people pleasing even those who have hurt me.  I try to understand why they are the way they are. For those who choose not to understand me I would blame myself for any misunderstandings. This self sabotage only lead to deep sense of inferiority and paralysis. Sure, I was resilient but I was also stuck.  As I type this, I am in an unfamiliar space. It is heavy and somehow I do not feel like it is crushing me for once. The wars we fight against our past, present and even future selves will either lead us to the light or prevent any type of awakening needed to be victorious. We can either be our greatest ally or biggest enemy.

The tunnel does have a light at the end despite the pile that at times looks more like a mountain, but instead of getting complacent and ignoring the task, one day at a time I am choosing to take ownership and do the work. The work may never be finished but I can definitely keep the unaddressed feelings from again piling high. Nothing has been linear about this journey. There have been many highs and lows, twists and turns. All of which I look forward to sharing more about, as well as what this new life I have been so graciously ushered into will look like.

XO

B