I didn’t post my update yesterday as I attended a family event and didn’t get home til late.
So I’m writing it today.
I can also touch on some things I’m feeling into and working through.
The Basics
- Article published: No
- Word count: 0
- Time spent: 0 minutes
Honestly, I struggled to focus yesterday.
Probably one of the first days in a long time that felt completely aimless. But I think it was due to being in too much of an introspective state.
Which is certainly not a bad thing.
It just means there was stuff I needed to process. So I decided to look within and reflect on things.
Here’s What Came Up
When I first started my journey of self-discovery back in 2017, it felt exciting and liberating, but also confronting.
I remember a painful truth.
The thought process went something like this:
- “I can’t believe I’ve been living out of fear my whole life. I feel like I’ve been living a lie. What a waste!”
Which led to:
- “I was mistreated in childhood and I had no idea. I feel so betrayed.”
And finally:
- “I can see how my past behaviour may have caused others harm and I feel so terrible about it. I feel like I betrayed my own principles.”
That last one was the most painful and led to years of self-torture and punishment.
But, it also became the catalyst that drove my transformation.
It touched on something I had desired my whole life. Something I felt was lacking but I couldn’t quite name before.
That something was a healthy role model who would have shown me how to live with integrity and respect for myself and others.
Like a father figure I never had.
Someone who had a gentle but firm way of pointing out when I was moving away from integrity and closer to dishonour or harm.
But what I experienced was the complete opposite.
Criticism and shame when I was being true to myself. Criticism and shame when I was playing up. There’s no predictability in that. No structure.
That caused me to believe I was fundamentally flawed.
And that getting close to anyone would only cause them pain and disappointment.
So entering this transformation and awakening created a kind of void or limbo phase.
I now understand part of the cause as cognitive dissonance, where you hold two conflicting beliefs at the same time.
This randomly makes me think of the joke that asks; if buttered bread always lands buttered side down, and cats always land on their feet, what would happen if you strapped a slice of buttered bread to a cats back?
I wanted freedom, authenticity, and self-worth and I wanted connection.
But my mind believed I couldn’t have both. It was either one or the other.
In other words:
- “I am not allowed to live the life I want or be the man I long to be and be loved and accepted by others.”
I felt stuck with parts of myself saying:
- “If you aren’t broken any more and become capable, the only people that will love you are one’s who will take advantage of you.”
These initial realisations opened a wound that wasn’t ready to heal, so it led to an endless journey of trying to fix myself and prove my worth.
I believed the only way for me to do that was to attain so much success and fortune, that maybe there would be a chance of finding and being accepted by other “wealthy” people.
So I spent years hustling, over-performing, over-functioning, over-compensating to “make it”.
But it only pushed me further into self-erasure, self-abandonment, self-sabotage, self-rejection, and chronic low self-esteem.
Then, that inner father figure emerged. The problem was that he knew nothing about integrity or what being genuinely kind looks like.
So I enter this phase of devouring books on mindset, neuroscience, spirituality, coaching, manifestation, quantum physics, reality creation, addiction, trauma healing, and more.
I must have read close to 300 books in the space of a few years.
And everything changed.
- My health
- My income
- My identity
- My lifestyle
- My self-esteem
- And my relationships
However, this presented me with new challenges that took me years to untangle (and still untangling), but ultimately led to clarity, purpose, self-trust, honest self-reflection, and unconditional love.
Not perfect. Just me.
So, what was this void and limbo phase?
Why did I get so stuck for so many years of inner conflict and confusion?
The Answer: I simply took in too in much information without stabilising myself. Without anchoring that knowledge into my mind and body.
I was like a kid in a candy shop, I had no boundaries. I would just read and read and read. The inner father figure came online, but he really bullied me into it.
I don’t blame him though, he just pushed me in the best way he thought I needed at the time, and I’m immensely grateful for that.
However, instead of embodied wisdom, it became fragmented intelligence.
I had all this information, but I wasn’t able to use it effectively where it mattered most – in my relationships.
That leads me to this phase I’m currently in right now.
Integration.
I’m re-reading books that were the most impactful and practising the skills that turn that knowledge into embodiment.
That honours my values and hopefully empowering others.
It means actually walking my talk, creating the life I’ve always wanted and being the truest version of myself. Even if others find that different and not for them, that is what true freedom is all about.