Transforming- Alone- The Journey To Wholeness

Since I was a child I’ve aways loved giving advice. I remember on long car rides my sister and I would pretend we were on a talk show, one of us the host, one of us the caller. We’d hold up our fake phone and start asking for advice on how to handle these absurd situations we’d conjure up. I remember in middle school playing counselor on the bus to everyone’s relationship problems. I love it, because it helps me understand people, and more importantly  myself.

One piece of advice I noticed myself constantly hearing, and constantly repeating in my adulthood was something along the lines of “You have to fix that within yourself, no one can do that for you.” It’s funny because there was quite a gap between me repeating this and me living this.

A textbook example many of us may be able to relate to are the wounds of our childhood. Many of us don’t come out of childhood unscathed. We are left with hurt and holes. As we explore these parts of ourself that feel incomplete it’s common to look outward to fill the voids. Be it romantic relationships or finding surrogate  parents, addictions, religion, self-help, hobbies, etc. We turn towards myriad of things to feel whole again and it takes us a lot of trial and error to realize that the wholeness we’re seeking has to come from within. There is no external ‘thing’ that can do it for us.

Now it’s one thing to hear this, it’s another to experience it. I can only speak as someone who is very much still on their journey towards wholeness that the process doesn’t look as expected. It’s slow, and it’s filled with confusion, and these habitual patterns that are soooo hard to break.

I always say everything starts with awareness. Okay so you’re aware you have this void, for me it was a lack of confidence or feeling secure in this world like I belong. I spent a lot of years seeking to fill this through external male validation. Constantly seeking this persons love or approval to feel okay. It took me a lot of repetition to realize I still felt the hurt even when I had an abundance of male love, attention, adoration, support, and friendship.  That’s a realization that shook me numbly to my core. Shit if this didn’t solve the problem it really is on me isn’t it?

So you start slowly trying to get right with yourself. Exploring those shadows, watching those actions, reactions, thoughts, emotions. Becoming aware of it all. As you do you start to change them, to make tweaks and slowly start to shift those patterns. It might take longer than expected and their might be relapses (there will certainly be relapses!) But you keep at it, because you get these glimpses of something that feels better than what you’ve been doing. This glimpse of love, this glimpse of authenticity, this glimpse of you uninhibited by all of these external factors.

As you start exploring all of It a certain time and place comes up… the moments when you’re alone with yourself like truly alone. There’s no music, no tv, no distractions. A place that you used to be too afraid to sit with. But you sit there, Just you in your entirety. The good, the bad and everything in between. It’s uncomfortable but you did it.

One morning you find yourself alone and you get the glimpse. The glimpse of something you haven’t spent a lot of time feeling, a certain strangeness… an adoration? A love? A respect? An appreciation? You’re not really sure what it is, but you’re enjoying it. It’s something within yourself, and you’re enjoying it.

You start fostering what fuels that feeling. You start taking care of yourself so your energy isn’t tied up in that which does not serve. You start finding comfort within yourself instead of from outside yourself. You start to turn your flaws into stories filled with grit and determination. You see a shift inside and out.

And one day you aren’t alone, even when you are. You found this depth, this higher persona, this authenticity, this spark, this light that lives within you. One that you can dance with. One that sees the absurdity of it all. One that knows your deepest thought, and challenges you to uphold all that is beautiful and worthy. You find a friend, a lover, a parent, a teacher, a mentor, a guru from within.

There comes to be this deep knowing. This deep knowing that even when you’re alone you’re enough. That you have what you need, even if you can’t logically understand it, you can feel it on a soul level. The fire is lit, and the glimpse has Been cemented.

You go from fearing to revering this new found alone time. Where you can be with yourself, and you’re never lonely or seeking or yearning, because you’re whole. And when you show up whole you can better hold all that is and all that isn’t serving this world.

-Lila