To Survive or to Thrive?

I've come to a very important conclusion lately. Maybe it was meant to be this way all along, maybe I was meant to put this delicate puzzle together sooner or later, and my consciousness just happened to choose now. Or perhaps it was destined to find its way out of the depths of my mind at this very sacred time. Whatever the cause, whichever the method of timing, I can absolutely say I am incredibly thankful I figured this out now and not a minute later.

It all started with a philosophy paper. Being the anxious student I am, I planned to come up with my topic for the paper far enough in advance so that I'd have ample time to write the paper itself. So, months ago, before this sacred time of the most important epiphany of my life, I chose the topic of the Self. Are we an Atomistic Self or a Relational Self? Do we discover our truest, deepest Selves through introspection or extrospection? Is our Self discovered only within, or through our relationships with others? Little did I know, this topic would turn out to be a HUGE turning point in my life, bringing to my attention some aspects of me and my beliefs that very well might change life for me in the most miraculous of ways.

I won't get too much into my philosophical argument but I will tell you this.. Philosophy is known for teaching you the extreme views of beliefs of the universe. Religion, Ethics, Metaphysics, and Knowledge are the four main topics that most philosophies explore. The brilliant thinkers and ponderers that philosophize their way through life in order to pass down their beliefs, tend to pick a radical side of the issue and use reason to prove why their belief makes the most sense. But what REALLY makes the most sense, is finding a middle point between these extremes and taking parts from both sides of the spectrum that hold up to create one powerful, meaningful, spine tingling theory. That is what it's all about, I've learned. Studying philosophy may mean reading and understanding these radical theories, but practicing philosophy (which means the love of wisdom, by the way) actually means using these extreme ideas to form your own beliefs. Your beliefs and "aha moments" come from moving yourself closer to the center of these philosophies of life. Essentially, to philosophize or ponder is to inspire your own inner revolution. The real radical part is that sometimes, that movement changes your life.

I started creating my theory based on the topic mentioned above. I noticed that I was really adamant that all you need to discover and maintain your true self, is your self! How much simpler could it get? To be honest, that was just me being the person I have believed myself to be, detrimentally independent. Stubbornly alone. Angrily secluded. It wasn't until I presented my thesis to my Professor (who I highly admire for his natural wisdom and love for pondering) that I realized just how radical my beliefs were. About myself, about the Self, about people in general. Clearly, I still had some exploring and discovering to do. After he explained to me, so pure and simple, that we need both our Self and others to discover what lies deep within, I started to see the denial slipping away. It was time for me to shift my belief to the center, to give up my hard-headed, arrogant perception that I only needed myself to discover my Self, to better my Self, to BE my absolute Self. It's amazing, I mean truly extraordinary, how fast my perspective shifted and my mind opened up when I became comfortable with the fact that it would benefit me more in life if I didn't put my ego before my expansion. As a mind and as a soul. Philosophy has humbled me that way. After all, the first lesson of philosophy, stated by my favorite philosopher Socrates, is to know that you know nothing. Only then will you truly be able to learn something.

So after speaking with my professor, I realized that I was angrily defending solitude. I know from experience how necessary it is sometimes to pull yourself away from the rest of the world. After all, to heal a wound, we cover it from exposure. I have been operating under the notion that I needed to be on my own in order to completely heal. Only I could heal my wounds, only I could reassemble the shattered person that I was. That's true, but only to a certain degree. We are humans who are here on this planet to learn about ourselves, heal ourselves, and grow as we continue forward on our eternal journey. Part of that learning and healing can only be done within you, by you. You are the sole person who decides whether you heal, learn, or grow at all. You are the only one who has power over what state your soul is in and in what condition your heart lives. No one can break you, no one can fix you, except for you. However, an enormous amount of learning here in this great life is also done through our relationships and deep connections with others. How else would we learn about the parts of ourselves that we spend so much energy hiding and denying? Whether we are pained or loved by others, it is our relationships with those very others that can teach us about how we give and receive love. Do we allow ourselves to give and receive love, or do we deny ourselves those very pleasures and purposes of live? The only way you can know is if you connect with someone who is learning the same idea, which we all are, constantly. Also, we are all mirrors for each other. We are attracted to those who can help draw something out of us by just being themselves. To help bring something within ourselves to the surface and to our attention. Without relationships with others, our Self would be nothing more than what we can do on our own and as we can see from the way we humans function and live, it is more than necessary to have help, to have more than just our Self. You won't get very far on your own in this world, take my word for it.

In the end, I have found that there is equal and great power in pure discovery of Self and in our relationships with others. Therefore, the topic of my paper and the theme for my life that I have chosen, is the Mutual Self. The Self that can learn from both connection to Self and connection to others, seclusion and infusion. The Self that can fit both of those halves together in one divine piece that is our existence. Forming together imperfectly but extraordinarily, in order to teach us to the fullest extent, who we are and why we are here. We can survive with just our Self, but do we want to survive, or do we want to thrive? That is the question of a life time!

A Feeling is Worth a Thousand Words

It's been a long journey, this road I've been on. Ive found myself and lost myself more times than I could count. See, there's a difference between knowing yourself and finding yourself, and I learned that difference through trial and error, but mostly hard work.

There's a little voice deep within, just begging to be heard. It knows what you've been through and it knows where you're headed. It understands the parts of you that are swept under the rug without conscious consideration. The parts that hide away from the sunlight and live their days without a glance in their direction. But eventually that voice gets loud, so very loud that you cannot ignore it anymore, and the parts of you that hide in the dark crevices of your consciousness are revealed, slowly but surely.

I do believe that I felt things purely and deeply at one point, I do believe that I allowed myself to feel the entire spectrum of emotions. But that's where I went wrong. I believed they were something that not only could but should be controlled. Contained. Commanded. I was so very wrong. But I do remember feeling things, that I cannot deny. A heart full of emotions, a mind full of confusion trying to understand and control them as they flowed through me like an endless stream of fire. Then one day I felt too much. I felt so much that I turned it all off. I felt the end of dreams come crashing down, shattering into a million useless pieces. I felt my physical heart burn to ashes. I felt my thoughts give up and my body give in. I felt the weight of the world and I dropped it to the ground without second thought. I felt too much and I didn't want to have that God given ability anymore. So I closed my heart off and sealed it shut, until further notice. 

Time went by. Never, not once, was I fully numb. Rather, my heart contained what had once sought to destroy it and once my heart was sealed nothing new was to enter, nothing old was to exit. Like a deer in headlights, my heart's boundaries froze without sound. Just panic. I searched and searched for a cure, holding the walls up with my broken fingers. Days went by, weeks, months. Nothing in, nothing out. I held onto the hurt like the heavens were falling to earth. Worse than that state was the fact that it became normal. So much so that I began to look past the walls and the militia viciously protecting them. It didn't phase me, not once, that my emotions were always the same. It didn't have the chance to sink in because there was something more sinister at play than just denial. My mind was in charge and it was a dictatorship. The protection was ruthless and became the sole purpose of my thoughts. My mind took over for my heart, intellectually processing emotions, feeding my brain the words and pictures that went along with them but never allowing me to feel them. I was a prisoner inside of the walls I built, at the mercy of the mind I gave it all up to. I was in survival mode for over a year and I was never aware of it. 

But then something changed. My path was detoured and I went for the ride. I ended up in a strangely comforting place surrounded by incredible people, all actors on the set of the play that intended to bring my heart back into control. To tear down the walls that kept it from freedom. I was engulfed with reasons to care, reasons to feel, reasons to love. I was taken into the arms of angels and begged to breathe, resuscitated until I drew in that first breath of air after a long time of suffocation. But my mind was still winning and the walls were still up. Even worse, I believed they were coming down. Maybe they were slowly being chipped at, slow enough to evade my awareness. But the real test came when I was given all of these opportunities to open and I couldn't receive them. I just couldn't, no matter how much I wanted to. Like a scared little bird who was trying so very hard to jump and fly, I kept my eyes shut so tightly and told myself I could do it. I began telling myself I was doing it, out on my own, breaking out of the fragility of the egg and discovering my own strength. Profound and destined. But I was still perched on the edge of the nest, only watching the sights of first flight from the inside of my mind. 

It wasn't until those opportunities to open my heart and burn down the walls left my life so quickly that I finally broke free. Maybe it was the heartache from being plucked out of something great, something real. Maybe it was the breath of fresh air once I realized where I was. Regardless of the cause, the concrete walls I spent so long building, slab after slab, ripped down with the force of a lifetime. The dam crashed and the river flooded the valley, putting the angry fires of my mind out, filling my heart and soul in an instant. I floated. Nothing remained but the raw emotions that were there the entire time, trapped under the weight of an eternity of survival. It was only then that I saw the manipulation, the chains, the mode I was living in. I was fighting for my life to escape and I had no idea how deep I was. Not one. 

It has been only two months since I bulldozed the arena around my heart that I spent so many months building. In those two months I have seen life through new eyes, felt things I've never felt in my entire life. All the while wondering, is this what I've been keeping from myself? Is this what my heart vowed to give up on that hot summer day, the infamous day that my concrete walls were built? Is this what I couldn't bare to take on, what was sure to be the straw that broke the camel's back? Each and every day since I realizr how lucky I am to feel things so purely, so openly and unrefined. I feel connected to each moment and each experience grounds me closer to this life. Tough emotions will come and go, but I take the time and the courage to process and experience each and every one because that is what being alive means. That is how we grow.

I did what I needed to survive, and I will stand by that decision always. Never regret the strength that saves your life, no matter the cost. Although I missed out on a year and a half of living life with an open heart, experiencing and feeling the highest and lowest, the most beautiful, the most extraordinary things life has to offer, I will always know how necessary it was. For without the destined war between my heart and my mind, without the survival and protection, I would never be where I am today. Feeling the sun on my skin and the song in my heart. Feeling the love that dwells at each and every corner, the beauty in it all. I now shed a tear for the beauty rather than the pain and only because I surrendered to the pain first. Now it holds nothing over my head and I am absolutely, completely, and utterly free for the rest of my days, to feel with the entire existence of my heart and soul in this most wonderful life. And that, I will never regret.