Author's note: I wrote this entry in May. Now it is September. Update at the end.
May: I turned 34 last week. For some reason I am experiencing feelings akin to those that accompany me around New Years. Wistfully looking back while hopefully looking forward. Yet trying to remain in the present.
I feel like I am standing on the edge of a foggy cliff, looking forward with one foot in the mist, not sure what I will find when I take a step.
A year ago I had entirely different plans for my life right now. I was supposed to be embarking on a year spent volunteering around the world.
I decided in Fall to cancel the trip and instead take a trip inside myself. In the form of psychoanalysis. Embarking on intensive therapy has been overwhelming, but something had to happen. For most of my life I have lived side by side with depression and anxiety, and have tried short stints in therapy to no avail. The only thing that I found helped was escaping. Running away from family and myself.
In addition to therapy I have started taking a Mindfulness Meditation class. The basic premise behind this is to center oneself and practice kindness and being present.
So 34 brings a lot.
Present: Here I am seated on my couch, September the 2nd. Reading over the post that I never posted. Afraid of others comments and judgments. Mostly afraid of my own self judgments. So there it is.
3 months have past, my relationship ended within days of writing that post, and thus I did step off the cliff. I am traveling roads I have never been on before, practicing sobriety to bring mental clarity, applying to school for a new career, and facing the world with the feeling that life is full of surprises.
Buddhism teaches that out of great loss & suffering comes great wisdom, and I have found this to be so true.
I do not know what is around every corner, and I am slowly giving up trying to figure it out, instead trying to have a gentle acceptance and open heart to all that presents itself.
Fall is about change, renewal, and introspection. I enter this Fall as wide awake as possible, with a curious mind and heart. Come on world, throw at me whatever you have, I am ready for it.
1 comment:
One of your strongest traits is Courage-or more simply put, Epic Bravery as it takes much of both to share inner qualms and fears, publicly, so to speak, and potentially suffer the disapproval of well meaning friends and family-keep up the good work Jess! You're a unique individual in constantly seeking to improve yourself....the world needs more like-minded individuals...
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