week 38

I know that when I start negative thoughts, it can be really, really hard for me to stop. I had a dark week this week. It was full of resentment, anger, irritation, irritability, anxiety, sadness, depression, grief, envy, judgment, whining, and probably some other things as well. Surprisingly, I was able to complete a lot of the errands and to do’s I’ve been putting off for weeks… Maybe out of sheer willpower, maybe out of the rage to be able to do something to improve my situation a tiny bit. But with every passing day I got a little further into my negative thought patterns (usually “always” and “never” are signs that I am in one of those spirals… as in “I never get what I want.”).

The one thing that has worked on getting me out of those spirals is the love from my inner self. I do believe it’s inside all of us, but man is it sometimes hard to remember that it’s there. So this morning, I tried accessing that part within me, via Elizabeth Gilbert’s two-way letter to love.

Dear Love,

What would you have me know today?

Dear Rachel,

I am sorry you are so heartbroken and so irritated and on edge. But there is a reason you are going through this. Your grief is going to be what saves you. Hear me out.

You have an amazing ability to transform your suffering into something beautiful. And it has always been in those “fuck all” moments where you have dug deep and found the courage to step out on your own and do something remarkable and extraordinary. You are at a fuck all moment right now. And you have been telling yourself that nothing you do matters because you are going to get shit anyway. But…. What if we flip that script? What if we said this: “everything is shit anyway, so it doesn’t matter what you do…You can do whatever you want.”

Now doesn’t that feel totally different? Your mind is so imaginative and your spirit so creative that you can feel yourself instantly lift and expand and burst into sparkly possibilities. This is what I mean when I say that your grief is going to save you. Because when things are “okay enough,” you stay in a relentless forced march which slowly and methodically dulls your spirit. But when things really go to shit, you turn inward and look upward. It’s then when you can scavenge and pick up the bits of courage that fell to the ground along your slog. You can drop the backpack filled with bullshit they strapped to your shoulders, and run with the wild freedom of a child, toward whatever beautiful thing captures your attention. You escape— instantly transform yourself from someone who is stuck doing what others want and expect, into a glorious shapeshifter of your imagination. You escape the invisible prison of pressures and cultures and expectation. You have been so used to the cage that you forget that you are wild and able to hunt and gather what you need to sustain yourself, and free to just explore for the sake of exploring.

It’s your pain that reminds you. Your pain is surrounding you with clues that you not only can run toward something better, but that you must. It’s your pain that will save you. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you honor what you want to do. Go run free.