Embrace the glorious mess that you are

Why does life test us like this? Why do shitty things happen? When am I going to be done? Haven’t I learned enough lessons? When am I finally gonna be in control of my life? Am I ever gonna get to the end of the tunnel?

If you and your friends talk about life, some of these questions must’ve surely come up. I too used to wonder when the time would come when I’d have it all under control. I used to believe that if only I overcame such and such obstacles, if I only learned so and so, I’d get to that place where life would just be peachy. I was okay with “knowing” that there would always be minor upsets because that was just life. The main thing was that someday, somehow, if I did the work and passed all my tests, I would finally get to live my happily ever after.

I knew from early on that I was responsible for me. If I wanted something I never asked for it, instead I worked for it. I remember in my teens gaining a few pounds I wasn’t happy with, so I started dieting and working out in my room daily. I decided I needed to constantly “see” where I was headed so I glued pictures of girls that looked the way I wanted to on the walls in my room. Looking back that was me using visualisation to create a new reality for myself when I didn’t even know the word existed. I started watching the Oprah Winfrey show every day from the time I was eighteen and took notes (yup, seriously). I started on the self help/spiritual path in my early twenties beginning with the affirmations of miss Louise Hay. The books followed quickly and soon I was reading Napoleon Hill, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Neale Donald Walsh, Gary Zukav, Gregg Braden, Caroline Myss, Eckhart Tolle and so on. Those books opened me up to a whole new way of thinking, a whole new view on life and I loved it. So much so that in my early thirties I decided to share all that good stuff with others by opening a cute little bookstore with only 2 sections: Self-help/Psychology and Spirituality/Religion. I knew all the books so I was your go to person if you needed something helpful or inspiring to read. The store became a meeting place for like minded souls where also talks and workshops were held. I was doing the work and sharing what I learned. But just like there was always some new book coming out so I’d have more to read, more knowledge to absorb, more depth to dive in to, life also always seemed to throw more lessons at me. New tests and lessons were never far up the road. I took my tests in stride though. Always asking myself in every situation what it was I needed to learn from it. Always holding up a mirror, reflecting on what my contribution was to whatever had manifested. This, I believed, was the path towards a life void of the big ugly stuff and mostly filled with joy, laughter and happiness.

For years I accepted that I was a student and I enjoyed being one. Nothing fulfilled me more than soaking up all that knowledge and wisdom. I learned and unlearned a lot. My view of God evolved into a totally different one over the years. Growing up going to an all girls Catholic school with a nunnery still on the premises and going to church regularly had left me with a great fear of this big white man somewhere up above the clouds. Instead I got to know a God of love, not judgement. A God that did not punish. God was Love. Period. All of this did not mean my life was all roses, but I was doing OK professionally, was financially independent, had a cute little apartment and a beautiful little boy and everything else I went through I took as a lesson I needed to learn.

And then in my mid thirties my happily ever after finally came. Life was finally perfect. Or so I thought. The thing is that I, like a lot of you, had not really taken into account that “And the they lived happily ever after. The End.” was actually the beginning. Whatever the case, I eagerly started my happily ever after with glittery rose coloured glasses on, high on life and looking forward to every new day. But as we all now know high’s don’t last. And neither did mine. I fairly quickly got smashed into the hard concrete below my fluffy pink cloud and I just layed there not understanding why and what was happening. Had I not done the work? Had I not done everything I was supposed to? My ego felt scammed and cheated on by life itself. All of a sudden nothing made sense, absolutely nothing and life continued to not make sense for a while. Confusion, hurt, anger, sadness, shame and blame were all I knew. Shame especially had me wearing masks. Those masks that say you’re fine and keep you keeping on when you’re actually wishing you could crawl into a deep dark hole and not come out. Eventually that deep dark hole became my reality and so did my wish to not come out. Burnout. Depression. High blood pressure. Stress related seizures. The stuff that was going inside my mind was showing up in real life. I was living my thoughts.

You know how they say happiness is a choice? That no one and no-thing can make you happy unless you decide to be happy? Yeah, well it’s true. And the same goes for healing your life. It’s a choice, it really is a decision you make. It’s a simple one but not an easy one because it takes work, it takes willingness, readiness and commitment. It requires the ability to see and tell the truth of who and what you are being. One day I finally remembered that and I made the choice to do whatever it took to grow through what I was going through. I decided I was done with the craziness, I was ready to let the light in and slowly but surely I started to remember it all. I remembered I was the ONLY one responsible for whatever was going on in my life. I remembered that whatever the present moment contained, I had to accept it as if I had chosen it. I remembered that in life I would experience whatever was most helpful for the evolution of my consciousness. I remembered to ask again and again what it was that this was here to teach me. I remembered that I could lose what I had but never who I was. I remembered that my soul knew how to heal itself and that all I had to do was quiet my mind. I remembered …

And so I set out on a new journey. Inward. A journey during which I went from broken to broken open. Open to again learn and unlearn even more than ever before. A journey I now understand will not end until it’s the end. So I remind myself often that there is no graduation. That this is happily ever after. That there will always be heartaches and headaches and bumps in the road and stumbles and setbacks and defeats and disappointments, big and small. I remind myself again and again, and again that this is life and life can and will and does get messy and ugly and even brutal sometimes, all in order for us to peel off the layers to un-become all but our essence. LOVE. And because no one goes through this journey feeling like a rockstar all the time or looking like one for that matter, I remind myself to just lovingly embrace the big glorious mess I am.