As I'm sitting here with the urge to write, nothing comes. I distract myself with a common avoidance technique... social media. Suddenly, I'm inundated with posts about setting intentions for the new year, what are my goals for 2022, what am I leaving behind, what are my new year's resolutions... right. It's December 31st.
Now is the time to create a list of pre-determined expectations for myself, yay!
Expectations that when I don't meet them, I'll beat myself up inside. Telling myself things like "I'm never gonna get it", "I'm not good enough" or "I failed at this too"... feeding the voice I work hard to diminish. I used to believe these things. Now I don't, but 38 years of believing it sure trumps one of beginning to quiet this rampant mind.
I know I will weigh every thought and decision against this list I think I have to create, obsessing over the desire to "get it right", comparing myself to people who (I assume) have it all figured out. I am tired of setting these expectations for myself, failing to meet them, then beating myself up for it followed by a few days of self pity before I muster up the energy to get up again. I must ask myself though... what expectations have I been setting?
So here is another concept I will set the intention to follow as best as I can... What if we just were? What if all we have to do is be, to exist in every moment instead of thinking about how to exist in the moment. If you take the calendar away, tomorrow is just as good an opportunity as today, so why set myself up for 365 days of making sure that I fit into this box I built in 2021? Why restrict my chances to change, grow and find out who I am in the moment? I know myself enough to know that I will preoccupy my mind with "am I getting this right?" and miss out on the moments altogether. I don't want that. Life is too short to miss out on moments.
Unless I work towards changing my thoughts, I will never change my life. I will stay here, in this pattern of self-sabotage and that is not in alignment with who I really am. So while having a daily to-do list helps keep me on track, a to-do or to-be list for a year of my life is hella intimidating. I'm not doing it. Not the way I have been, anyways. I will set an intention but not a timeline, and attempt to drop the unrealistic expectations I have previously put on myself.
We can look back on the year and celebrate or mourn what it brought us, but what about looking back on our entire life? What about looking back on all the moments whether minute or magnificent, whether painful or joyful, and see how they created us into who we are today? What if we didn't blame it on the year, but took responsibility for it ourselves?
I am not saying goodbye to a year or a segment in time. Rather, I am saying goodbye to the fakeness, to the need to wear a mask although I still sometimes do, to the incessant belief that I need to make everyone else happy in order to be liked.
It's time to meet me. It's time to love me. It's time to accept me and it's time to forgive me. Because at the end of the day when you take away the to-do list, the career, the possessions and relationships you cherish, all that's left is me and me alone, and if I can't love myself then what do I really have anyways? Maybe this is the emptiness that's never been filled. This crucial foundation to thriving. I want to create a life where everything is a compliment to it, not a supplement for something that was missing within.
So that is my intent. To allow myself to be. And to be comfortable with it. The work starts here. I'm going in.
- xomo