I can spend a lot of time in my head. I’m either busy thinking about what the future holds, thoughts about past experiences, my fears, my worries, current life situations, etc. And when I finally get out of my head, it’s like coming up for a breath of fresh air and seeing the present for the first time.
Being in my head so often has affected the way I view my life, it’s like life has been filtered by all the thoughts I have in my head. And even though it was partly outside factors, like people, that affected my outlook on life, there were also things I thought about myself that had nothing to do with what anyone else did—thoughts about myself that that just popped up out of no where, and that I accepted as truth.
It’s those thoughts that I think are the root to some deeply embedded views that I have about myself and about life in general. These views might have been affected by the experiences I faced in life, but it all boils down to the truths I’ve accepted about myself.
Take Nameless, for example, I allowed myself to become emotionally attached to him, and found emotional security in his words and his views of me...but then he turned his back on me. So, that left me stuck trying to get unattached to his words mentally and emotionally. Since, my emotional security was clearly not anchored in something stable, I completely fell apart. This opened the door to all types of shame and heartache, and deepened the insecurities I already had about myself before Nameless; which effected my outlook on life. To this day, I still haven’t felt like I grasped true emotional wholeness after that, but I’ve been able to manage (for the most part).
Currently, there are more pressing matters that have been taking a toll on me mentally, and for now let’s just say that I’m at the point where I’m in major need of some emotional wholeness.
Just a few weeks ago, I was faced with the mental decision to either give up on my emotional state completely or to keep pressing forward towards emotional wholeness. Life has just been feeling like one heartbreak after another. And part of me didn’t want to keep going because I didn’t see the point. For the first time in my life I felt like I was facing the edge of a cliff—if life pushed me any further I was going to jump.
This is what happens when life brings you inner battles (not physical pain, mental pain) but you don’t have the necessary equipment to fight them. The reason I was so weary and ready to give up is because I put so much weight on myself to change things. I completely underestimated the power that is accessible to face these battles without losing hope in the process. This is going to sound cliche but, yes, I mean the power of love. There are many names of where the source of this love comes from—the general name in my community is God—but the name that I personally like to use for myself is Immanuel which means “God is with us.” God is love and apparently that love is always with me, even if I don’t realize it. Even though the thought of that is really comforting, to be honest, I really don’t think I have the hang of this realization just yet. Becoming aware of this love and relying on it is still a process for me, and I’m still learning how to accept this.
This takes work, I know, but here’s why I made the decision to keep going. Even though I wanted to give up, and there is still a voice telling me, “There’s no point to doing anything in this life.” There is also a part of me that feels like I wasn’t put on this earth to just suffer and give up. It’s that part of me that opens up the invitation to see what would happen if I just faced these dark parts in my mind, and overcame them.
What if I conquered my emotions instead of allowing them to knock me over and bend me to their will. I actually want to see what happens when I overcome the inner battles of insecurity, worthlessness, the pressure for success, regret, blame, and all the other stuff that comes with living life and allowing culture and past experiences to frame me.
We all know how the story ends when you give up, but what happens when you overcome and win? I want to see that other side. I’d rather put in the work to see the outcome of winning the war that’s in my head, than willingly give up and never experience the beauty of true peace and emotional wholeness. The path to emotional wholeness starts with us making the decision to keep going, and we’ll never see the other side of that if we decide to stop.
Until Next Time.
