This was hands down the hardest part of my story to write. Not because this is hard to share, or that I’m scared of what people might think of me after reading this. It was the one I wanted to get just right. The one I wanted to make perfect.
I only just realized I suffer from perfectionism. I never thought that of myself before, but then I learned a bit more about it, I was listening to Sam Laura Brown on the Manifestation Babe podcast today, and I had such an aha moment, it would have knocked me down had I not already been sitting on the floor. I am a perfectionist! And that is exactly what has been holding me back – with this post, with other posts – basically with everything I want to do. What if I don’t do it right, what if I fail at this. I stay in my comfort zone because I’m good at what I do, and I don’t have to question that. But coming out here, where other people can see what I’m doing, I think – holy cow, what if I suck? LOL!! (If you don’t follow the Manifestation Babe podcast, here is a link to the episode I’m talking about. I got a lot from this.)
That sudden understanding of myself kicked this final part to my story into high, imperfect gear. Here goes nothing.
Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my Dad’s death. The weeks leading up to yesterday were very up and down, so naturally I thought the day was going to hit me hard.
But guess what?
Yesterday didn’t suck.
My journey, my ‘real’ journey began the day he died. Well, more specifically the day after, since it was quite late when he passed. It all began with a new thought, or gut feeling – there is something more. Because my Dad couldn’t just cease to exist, that was for certain. And I don’t mean in that pacifying ‘oh he’ll always be part of your heart. Blah blah blah.’ No – really and truly something MORE. Something ELSE. Something AFTER.
I grew up Catholic, so it’s a given that I’m supposed to believe that if I’m super good and go to church every Sunday I’ll get the big prize of heaven at the end of my days. And I’ve always half believed in a life or existence after death. But it was never much more than a nebulous idea, a wishy, washy concept. After my Dad died however, a ‘knowing’ was born in me. A certainty that I needed to explore.
Where did I start? I googled it. And then I watched videos on it. And then I bought book after book on it. Listened to podcasts. I ‘found’ the spiritual community and I resonated with them, albeit on a superficial level. I went down a new rabbit hole of self-help books and devoured so many of them. Each had a piece of what I searched for. I got glimpses of the knowledge I sought.
I first started down the path of ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ and that gave me what I now call a ‘simulated’ or ‘faux’ light. I did feel better here and there. I had breakthroughs here and there, newfound optimism would excite me, and I’d try to share it. I felt amazing. Then it would end abruptly and almost always followed up with a bought of sickness or I’d been wiped out for longer than I felt good. The beautiful bursts of energy would fade, and I felt like failure. I’d repeat my pattern of burying all the bad and go back to faking it. Smiling when I didn’t feel like it, berating myself if I judged someone, thinking I’d just undone all the spiritual journeying I’d just done when I had one bad thought, in general just really coming down hard on myself whenever I did or said something that I perceived was ‘wrong’.
I then learned about EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) or tapping. And that alleviated some of the symptoms of whatever my problem was at that moment. I felt happier longer, lighter and less burdened. I meditated, detoxed judgement, cord cutting – each of those would act like a spiritual band aide if you will. I would feel better for a time, but it wouldn’t take much at all to knock me right out of my good place.
I could not figure out what I was doing wrong.
All through this I kept lists of all the people I felt I needed to forgive and sometimes I would implement several different modalities to forgive certain individuals – EFT, Cord Cutting, Deep Meditations, etc. Then I found Ho’Oponopono, a Hawaiian prayer of forgiveness. This made getting back to my happy place easier and I could stay there longer. And this lead to something else, the breakthrough I’d really been looking for, because at this point I was beginning to think I was just not cut out for this spiritual awakening stuff, I was on the edge of going back to sleep metaphorically, I discovered Shadow Work. I’d heard of it here and there, and I just didn’t pay it any attention, because I mistakenly thought, ‘why would I do something that ‘sounded’ so negative, I was on a journey to happiness?
I opened my heart to it as a last resort.
And that was when the real breakthrough happened. I faced myself. The one person I’d been avoiding the WHOLE time. It brought an understanding on a very deep level of how my ego was preventing me from getting better. How my ego lied to me constantly, like it had always done. The very reason I went onto the anti-anxiety medications in the first place. The liar that is the doubt and the fear in my head.
Now my happy place is brighter, I stayed in it longer and If I get knocked-out of it, I can get right back into it quickly. The meditation makes more sense, the cord cutting is more effective, the Ho’Oponopono lights me up on a knew level. I re-read many of the self-help books and they now were speaking to me in almost a new language. One my heart was now hearing for the first time.
I learned to forgive THE most important person in my life – myself.
That was the missing key all this time. What I’d been hiding, who I’d been running from. The person who needed the love the most, was ME.
And I love me