the love of self

There is a wild experience that conspires the moment you start your journey into recentering your own wellbeing into the focus of your narrative. It is terribly easy to seek external stories, hungry to find one that you can follow thinking it will be the one that will answer all the questions, bring all the answers, open all of the right doors. And those stories might tell epic tales, the kind you could only wish to get swept into. A goal that is outside of yourself and far away in the ‘future’, always destined to be one step ahead of you at every turn simple because it is something to achieve later. If there is one thing I have learned through this crash course of what the fuckery is going on is we don’t have time to wait for later—because it will never come. All I have is right. now.

Future casting has been one of the hardest thought loops for me to break as I move through the labyrinth of my own neurodivergent combo pack. This loop shows up in so many parts of life too—career, relationships, survival, traumas, different belief systems I’ve operated in. And they all have one thing in common, the fear of scarcity in all of its forms. I have been victim to the scarcity narrative for many, many years now, even if I didn’t fully understand that is what was at the root of the future casting loops I have found myself sinking into, slowly pulling me into the viscus pool of depression, fear and expectation.

At the foundation of the scarcity narrative there lies very real fears—often tied to our very ability to live and exist in the structure of society that we have built around false idols. Here in the US we have found ourselves in a predicament that feels incredibly irresponsible to have fallen into—in order to survive, we need food, water and shelter. But in order to get those human necessities we have to have a job that can pay us enough money to provide those necessities we need to literally keep surviving. And if you don’t have enough money to purchase all of those things, you could end up unhoused—and many states are making it illegal to be unhoused, which creates a very specific narrative and experience for those who struggle to find ways to maneuver in our society that cares so little for human life. Scarcity is the most animal fear we can experience—without resources we will die, and dying is the last thing any of our nervous systems have interest in.

It is quite sobering to understand the lengths corruption will go to keep people living in a perpetual state of fear, even if we don’t understand that is what it is on the surface. Fear keeps us from stepping outside our comfort zones, it stops us from standing up to the bullies because our lives are on the line. It keeps us complacent because it is our base instinct to find a way to keep surviving, and what a simple way to control the masses. If we are pushed to our extremes because we fear the worst possible outcome, people will put up with a fuck load of abuse in order to find a way to survive. And that is when the future casting can fester, in the fear of potentially loosing the resources keeping us alive.

Through my mental health journey I have faced and continue to face moments of radical honesty and acceptance (eternally grateful for incredible tools such as therapy, medicine, both pharmaceutical and herbal and beautiful community). There are moments when I bump up against a narrative that has been on loop somewhere in my brain, clinging to the fear of losing something my nervous system thinks is helping keep me alive for who knows how long. I have been able to pinpoint so many core moments that ignited the external stories that I allowed to become a blueprint for my life. When we are raised to only see success as one thing (for me it was narrative that fiscal success within work is the most important part of life to be proud of), it locks us down into a timeline that is not ours to hold. Learning how to objectively look at narratives that not only hurt your mental health but were never yours to hold in the first place often comes with the kind of grief you never knew you needed to feel. One of the biggest lessons I have taken away from therapy (my therapist specializes in Internal Family Systems [IFS], if you are into somatic healing and therapy I highly recommend it) is my hurt, my trauma, the experiences and narratives that were projected onto me in order to fit me into a box of unattainable expectations, were never the kinds of stories I would have chosen to tell myself. As we grow and learn how to maneuver within the expectations of society, there are always going to be moments when we feel the kind of shame that leads to us burying hurt and trauma deep below our conscious mind, into parts of our bodies that don’t deserve to carry such pain. And nothing will fuel the avoidance of a feeling quite like shame, especially when you have been conditioned to seek validation from outside sources.

I was not taught by the many systems I have lived through to find deep validation within myself. At some point I accepted a narrative that made me question the intuitive feelings I was having, it had me pushing down my discomfort in order to make others comfortable. The outside world of expectations has had a lot to say about the person I was growing into being and many of those expectations had me believing there was so much about me that was wrong. And if who I am in the deepest sense of the idea is wrong it only makes sense my soft little soul naturally seeks to find the solutions to fix the parts of me that are not acceptable to our way of existing. The fear of loosing the safety of acceptance and love can have you clinging to some pretty gnarly stories around the idea of self expression. And thus the loop begins because every decision we make comes from the expectations we have placed upon ourselves, often not ours to begin with.

These days those loops are fewer and farther between. In no way are they completely gone or quieted, but my ability to catch them before the spiral hits is growing on a daily basis, allowing time to find a way to regulate my nervous system before it hijacks the show into potential chaos. I often still have to go along for the ride, but these days I’m finding ways to move with the waves of grief and pain knowing there is beautiful relief on the other side of the storm—and I always loved a thrilling ride, and goddamnit if it isn’t the wildest ride I’ve ever been tall enough to ride. And that excitement of an adrenaline boost has always fueled the fire that has existed in my soul, even when the embers needed constant stoking to keep burning—I’m grateful some part of me kept the fire going.

I chose to tell my own story, one that rings true to the deepest parts of my heart and soul. One that stokes the fires of passion with the strength of a dragons breathe. To deconstruct your mental health is to reacquaint yourself with all the hopes and dreams you used to concoct when you were a kid, back when every cloud rolling by told their own stories, when gloriously simple rocks and sticks could weave tales of potions galore. To face your pain is to know yourself, and knowing yourself feels as incredible as the tales we conjured when we were our most free to live authentically and fully, before the eyes of ego and shame. And I can say after facing the demons that dwell in the deep, it is incredibly brave to decide to stand your ground and meet them with all the love and grace you knew you deserved when those hurts occurred.

The past couple of weeks have been some of the most challenging and rewarding of my life. Retrograde threw every wrench in every plan that required perseverance but by the power of almighty Athena herself I have actively worked to continue choosing the story I know is the one in my heart that I want to tell. To shift your mindset to include caring about yourself just as much if not more in this chaotic experience called life has taught me more about myself than I could have ever imagined—and I gotta say, I really really like who I am growing to be. And what a relief to find the love you always sought for within.

I’m home baby, we have work to do.