Finding Myself - Beginning My Journey of Self-discovery

I've had enough of running.
I've had enough of living in fear.
I've had enough of dancing to another's tune.
I've had enough of losing myself for the sake of being accepted.

I want to be myself. I don't know exactly who I am just yet, but I want to find out, and then continue my life being true to the person I find deep within myself.

My first step of doing this was to look back as far back as I could to find something about myself that I could remember, something that I could recognize as 'me', and hold on to.
This wasn't easy. Most of us, myself included, endure so much in our lives - tumultuous event, one after another - that when we look back and really study our lives and what has become of it, finding out who we are at our core becomes one of the most difficult things to do.
We meet a variety of people, we get exposed to a host of beliefs and lifestyles, and we fight through one nightmare after the next, getting lost along the way. We lose ourselves to circumstances.
I was looking for myself, and I decided that it was best to look back at who I can remember myself being as a child. Even this task proved to be a difficult one, because many of us, even as kids, live through various kinds of traumas, and so what we find might not even be who we really are, but who we had to be to survive the lives we were born into. It's heart-breaking when the picture you find is a child, broken. It's a tough pill to swallow when you struggle to find the last point in your life where you could say you were happy - purely happy - especially when you'd expect that the child within you should have had that moment, yet did not.

After I discovered that I was born into a mess, I couldn't help but go through each one of them, one by one.
- that when we look back and really study our lives and what has become of it, finding out who we are at our core becomes one of the most difficult things to do.

We meet a variety of people, we get exposed to a host of beliefs and lifestyles, and we fight through one nightmare after the next, getting lost along the way. We lose ourselves to circumstances.

I was looking for myself, and I decided that it was best to look back at who I can remember myself being as a child. Even this task proved to be a difficult one, because many of us, even as kids, live through various kinds of traumas, and so what we find might not even be who we really are, but who we had to be to survive the lives we were born into. It's heart-breaking when the picture you find is a child, broken. It's a tough pill to swallow when you struggle to find the last point in your life where you could say you were happy - purely happy - especially when you'd expect that the child within you should have had that moment, yet did not.

 

After I discovered that I was born into a mess, I couldn't help but go through each one of them, one by one.

At some points, I wondered exactly what I did to deserve the life I was made to live.

I cried for the child who got torn apart by the world, and then allowed myself to get angry about it.

I think that every one of us will find things in our lives that make no sense, and that should not have happened to us, or anybody else for that matter; but they did, and it’s in reviewing, going over it, analysing how it made us feel, and how it could have changed certain aspects of who we were as people, that also allows us to become bigger than our individual pasts, and make the necessary changes to become better, healthier people in our daily lives.

It is in our moments of recognition and that kind of enlightenment into our souls that provide us with that push to change the direction of our lives, so we can stop being the poison in our own lives, as well as in the lives of others, because who we are is what we offer to the world around us.

 

I could not dwell. I could not live in what I had become any longer.

I was a slave to my past. I put up walls that blocked out what could have been fantastic opportunities and fruitful relationships, based on what I had gone through.

I met wonderful people, but because I had been hurt, rejected, mistreated and disappointed by all the people before, I didn’t trust. I created barriers that allowed interaction and closeness only up until a certain point, at which point I would shut down, and either create a distance that made growth impossible, or cause enough problems that would send the other person running. I followed this pattern over and over again until it became something that controlled my life. Upon meeting a new person, I would put up a façade so that I would know everything about the next person, but that person would know nothing about who I really was. I refused to show weakness or vulnerability when that was all that I was. I ended up being lonely.

The few people I did allow myself to get close to I clung to, and in doing so, morphed myself into whatever they needed me to be so that I was sure that they wouldn’t leave me, which was inevitably the failing of those relationships because I could not be who I truly was, ending up hating myself.

The insecurity I felt about who I was affected my life in much the same way. I did not believe that I was capable of being the person I knew in my heart I could be or doing what I knew I could do.

I settled for less because I was scared that I would disappoint not others who gave me the opportunities, but myself. I couldn’t be the person to disappoint myself when that was all that I knew about others.

This was when I started burning things.

 

We each have something that we do, talents we were born with. My ‘something’ has always been writing.

I got a notebook and started writing. I wrote to every last person who hurt me. I wrote about everything that damaged me.

I think that even if writing is not your ‘something’, it is still therapeutic. To get out what’s deep inside, not thinking, but just writing and writing until it feels like all that pain is out there on the page, is a release.

After I finished writing it all, I burned it. I set fire to the pain, to the bad memories, to the people who hurt me, and watched as the anguish I had suffered disappeared into nothing but a pile of black ash that I then blew away into the air for the wind to take wherever it went.

 

I cried and cried. I cried until I got a headache.

I took a long bath, washing away the old, letting the drain suck up all the dirtiness from the life I was walking away from.

I got a new notebook, and started writing about who I want to be.

I will always be the person that I am- bubbly at times, but mostly quiet; a deep thinker, optimistic, fascinated by small things like the smell of the earth when the sun has not come out yet, sensitive; but the past will no longer control me, and I will be who I am in the life that I am creating for myself.

 

We cannot help for or change what the world has handed us up until this point, but we can decide what we are willing to accept, and we have the power and capacity to make the conscious decision to change what we are unhappy about.

 

We need to be gentle with ourselves as we discover who exactly we are.

As we work our way towards stronger versions of ourselves, we should take the opportunities given to us gratefully, accept the gift of people sent our way, and be vigilant about how everything makes us feel. We should evaluate and process our thoughts and emotions each step of the way so that we know what works for us as individuals and what doesn’t, and also importantly, why  we feel what we feel when we feel how feel, because knowing ourselves is vital to have an enriching life.

 

The truth is that we can only offer the world the wonder within ourselves when we ourselves know the wonder within ourselves.

Poem: Shut Out

Expressions, through words-
I say what I feel,
but I am still shut out.

Clots of agony-
showing me what's real;
provide proof of what I'm about.

Confusion that's personal-
a series of private ordeals,
so many, I'm afraid, I've lost count.

Organizations of 'knowledge' -
sermons of counsel as I kneel,
while my internal voices continue to shout.

Negotiations of mistrust-
the closing of a dangerous deal,
mock pleasantries laced with doubt.

Silent cries and screams-
Unable to escape my mind's seal,
the starvation of being without.

Meaningless promises of salvation-
Patiently awaiting the turn of Karma's wheel,
to serve on him this draught.

My solemn retreat into darkness-
to where they no longer can steal
my soul as it was my entire life, throughout.

An existence, only mine-
In isolation, the fragility I reveal,
for once out, one cannot again be shut out.

This Plot

Whispers, like the rustling of leaves
Tumbling through plots
Of dawns and sunsets
yet to come;
that have been left to stand
on land that has become home
to just weeds-
ruining beauty, eating away at life,
eliminating a future
based on promises, sweet.

This plot-
once gazed upon with plans,
gleeful shrieks of what could be-
what would be,
but that became nothing.
Nothing at all.

What was loved, anticipated
becoming what I wish not to even look upon
whilst being what brought me
once-
immense joy,
I now with hollow an deserted
bitterness
hold on to, in some way
to prove that the price paid
could have been,
should have been
worth it,
for my soul.

I shall walk away, too
Looking back only as a reminder
When foolishness threatens to befall-
a decision requiring deeper contemplation
than a thoughtless act,
for when the pain of rejection
renders me reckless.

Releasing what was once treasured
cripples something within the soul-
replaced by supports,
equipped with sufficient
tools
to uphold one
When a new home mocks.

And then whispers replaced with humming.

To Be Brave...

I've been gone for some time now - away from my blog - it was not by choice, though.
I have been going through a very tumultuous time in my life, and some of the factors prohibited me from publishing anything online.
Nonetheless, I am back. And because I feel that I have somewhat become part of  a community online, I thought that I would in some way share parts of what my recent struggle has been- it is only fair.

I decided to be brave. For once in my life, I was scared to my core, but I pushed through and remained brave, in order to find myself and attain happiness and peace in my own life.
I have been extremely daring in the past, pushing my boundaries, and not giving a second thought to who was involved, for my own sake, but they were all mistakes. I guess that leaving what I had at certain points in my life (in the past) and just walking away from it all was juvenile, and maybe even coward, because I just walked away and never faced the details behind the problem. The difference between then and now is that back then I was a child, and the choice of walking away and never looking back filled me with excitement and glee- absolutely no fear at all.
This time, however, I pondered my decision for months, looking for any ray of light that could possibly warm what had become cold, hoping and praying, and then giving up praying and looking for other options to guide me to where I felt I needed to be, because all that I knew was that where I was at that present moment, was not where I needed to be; that it wasn't conducive to me in any way at all. When I finally decided that I was going to pull myself together and do what it felt my only option was, I was filled with a fear that was almost crippling- I felt sick for days before I actually walked out of the environment I had found myself in.

At the moment, I am living in the aftermath, and it's not easy at all.
I am so confused about what's to come, and I know what I want to do with my life, but the fact that I am alone at the end of the day, having to make it on my own, with the huge risk of falling flat on my face, that often, I still wonder if what I did was the right thing. But I know, in my heart, that the question of whether I did the right thing or not is not of me, but of my fear.
Not-knowing is a nasty little thing that sits in the pit of your stomach and pushed up all sorts of things, both into your mind and your mouth, trying to make things bitter.
The one thing that's consistent though, is that I feel strong.

I might not know what's going to happen, where I am going to get this or that, how I am going to do certain things or where exactly I am going, but I know that where I came from and everything relating to it, was doing me no good, and to stay in that situation for the sake of being comfortable on the surface, was something that would eventually chew away at everything good within me, leaving me miserable and sour.
And I choose life.

When you make certain decisions, especially those that are bold beyond belief - people cannot understand how you could do such a thing - you risk losing friends, family, advantages, perks, comforts; the choice you make for yourself could even earn you some enemies.
However, I would rather have enemies who really don't know me or my struggle and who I need not to even interact with much, than have to look at myself every day, only hating myself more and more with each manipulated decision I make.

The road is long and winding, and can oftentimes be lonely. My character is being tested daily. I know that I have to put on my big-girl panties and continue in my bravery, continue to put one foot in front of the next, and adopt the strength and courage to know that I am enough for me. I have to trust myself, and be smart enough to push myself while treating myself delicately.

Fighting for yourself can be the greatest fight of your life, and I'm brave enough to make it mine, not only because I know that nobody else will take better care of me than me myself, but also because I deserve it- I am worth my fight.