Finding Yourself: Part 1

     So here I am, finally gaining the sense of clarity and redirection, that I have wanted for a long time now.  I thought I had it all figured out a year ago, but boy was I wrong.  I made many mistakes along the road to get here, but I'm happy that I am exactly where I am at this point of time.  I think when we strive to truly understand ourselves, facing all the fears that have held us back, and confronting the mistakes from the past with an attitude of acceptance, we are thus allowing our minds to enter into the path of self love and acceptance.  For those of us that have held onto such negative feelings throughout our lives, we must make a conscience decision to either let go of our fears and embrace them, or continue to let them scare us and drag us down into further self hatred.       

       This is where I've decided to let go, and face myself for once in my life.  I had been my own worst enemy for my entire life.  I began to see this after lots of time of introspection and feedback from people I am so grateful for that have come into my life, and of course our divine God's direction as the main driving force to this redirection.  My connection with spirituality has stayed with me for awhile now since I started having a breakthrough.  It has varied in strength during forks in the road, but it always deep down is there when I make the right choice in continuing to strengthen it.  This has given me the foundation of unconditional love between myself and the source of our creation.   I had to talk about this first and foremost, before I started discussing the other aspects that brought me to recovery and self love and acceptance.  We all have the choice to either embrace spirituality or put our energy towards other driving forces to reach this stage in the process.  For what works for one person, may not work for the other person.  I am is full admittance of "not knowing anything for certain".  A wise man named Socrates figured this very simple but powerful statement, that arose such conflicting feelings in many people.     I don't feel I need to think like any particular person thus far that has contributed to the philosophies of our existance or purpose here on earth.  I have varying opinions of different philosophies, and I'm okay with that at this time.  It wasn't until recently that I got to this acceptance of my philosophy on life.  I still struggle with my thoughts and beliefs constantly. I put my faith in my higher power, and feel the love and bond that has touched my life indefinetly.  My biggest challenge with it all has been feeling guilty or anxious over my skepticism of religion in itself.  I have realized many things about myself this past year, one of great importance being my belief system.  I was feeling such anxiety over my conflicting views inside when it came to the religious organization that I am part of now.   I love my new friends from the church with all my heart, and appreciate the strength and love they have projected towards me through my hardest times especially.  I also felt accepted by them, even when I was sinning in their eyes.  Their acceptance and unconditional love has become such a driving force for redirecting my energy towards my recovery.  I may not think the exact same way as they do about life, but in many key areas I am connected to them.  I have feared letting them know my inner feelings for awhile now, but I believe that honesty is very important.  When we are dishonest, those of us with a natural drive to valuing honesty, conjure further anxiety or guilt to be harbored.  This is a very subconcious process, and I wasn't aware of it until recently.  I wanted to be accepted so badly by this group of naturally kind and compassionate people, as this is how I am and feel valued to receive back from others.  It's a give and take situation for sure.  I now understand fully what one of the golden rules states with treating others how we want to be treated.  Am I fearful right now of writing out my true feelings for others to possibly criticize or feel hurt over?  Yes,  I absolutely and positively am fearing the inacceptance and dissaproval that I seem to try to constantly avoid, thus suppressing my own real feelings and causing the whole cycle of self inacceptance to begin all over again.  Every time I seem to take a step forward towards self love and accpetance, I later take a step back again.  Yet even with this continuos battle of the mind, I am choosing not to give up, and sometimes it's the small strides that get us there eventually.  I used to get so frustrated at myself for failing to get to the point in life that I wanted to be at so badly, but I'm now realizing this very important acknowledgement.  It's not how long it takes us to get there when we strive for this self love and acceptance, it's how we get there and that we get there that is most important.    

     So now to discuss what other key factors brought me to this point, as they are also very relevant to where I am right now.  Having been through a recent divorce and other devastations, such as loss of house, job, family life as I knew it and loss of time with my children, I was in shock mode for some time.  Failure after failure occured, and in the past I'm sure I would have given up on myself a long time ago.  Yet through all of these struggles, I gained more strength than I thought I would ever have.  Sometimes all the pain we experience through different losses in life, is actually beneficial to our inner strength and feelings of accomplishment.  I worked through a lot of pain this past year needless to say, and came out a better person than I ever was before.  We all have varying degrees of pain in our lives or uncomfortable feelings, but when we fear these feelings, we are just letting the negativity consume us to different degrees individually.  I think of pain as a challenge now, and when I work through it and don't fear it, it passes and becomes easier and easier.  The part that brings strength and the feeling of accomplishment is getting beyond it and thus no longer feeling it.  It's like a wake up call to opening up our eyes to see things for what they really are in our lives.  Once we reach the acceptance phase in these various times in our lives that we are confronted by such an overwhelming process, with our pain and sorrow, we feel as though we have achieved such success in our endurance and we become proud of defeating the battle in the end.   We then know in our minds, that we can deal with whatever challenge may come along in the future.      

       I feel this sense of release and relief from the harboring of negativity, and am better able to not fear it when it comes, as I used to.  My ways of thinking have changed significantly when it comes to life, relationships, and the "psychology" behind the scenes.  I also want to help others to have hope that it is possible to get past huge devastations that come into their life, with a better attitude and mindset, and keep in mind  that it is only temporary, and you will be better off in the end once you work through the process, instead of letting it work you.  We have more control of our lives than I ever knew.  It's once we become accepting of the chaos that may enter at different times, that we no longer have to feel such fear and guilt anymore.  We become better able to emrace our lives no matter how hectic they are at times, instead of continuously trying to avoid our feelings and fill the void with temporary happiness derivatives that are like band aids being put over a deep wound that needs stitching.  Until you treat the wound from the inside out, the proper healing won't take place, and when wounds heal, I've seen first handed as a nurse for 7 years, they heal in many layers and can be very painful for people until they have healed through a significant amount of layers.  Then people generally are able to tolerate the end healing stages without too much underlying pain left, having a huge sense of relief from the difficult pain they had endured for quite some time.  We have to also remember that every individuals pain tolerance is different depending on our make up of pain preceptors in the brain, thus everyone's experience with healing is unique to themselves. 

     We all can get there if we make that commitment to ourselves to never give up trying and to get back up no matter how many times we are knocked down.  Like I said, I am in complete acknowledgement that I do not have all the answers to life's perplexities, but I do choose to be okay with this and to be okay with who I am when it comes to my developing personality and develpoing belief system....we are constantly changing in life and half the time don't even see it.  Great quote for that"you can't step into the same river twice, it is always different and changing because we are a different person at each point in time." (something like that anyway)  I know I will fall again, but I am prepared for this, and every time I gain a learning lesson that better prepares me for the next, and truly lets me see the real beauty in life and appreciate all of the many blessings that I do have.  Facing my negative emotions and trying to learn not to fear them as they come has been half the battle for me.