I’m feeling off center lately and I am having a challenge figuring out why though some of it may be that I’m surrounded by the same 4 walls pretty much every day and feeling like I’m going a bit stir crazy in some ways. I’ve tuned out of the news because that just has me going down the rabbit hole of annoyances and I really need to clarify my mental space. As I notice that my stress level is going up, I know it is critical to return to center or at least move as close to it as I’m able. I’m reverting to the good old standbys, yet I feel great while engaging in them and then feel like it’s not too long before I need them again and I wonder if my spiritual practices have become a crutch to avoid feeling the feelings I don’t wish to feel. After all, nobody really wants to feel lonely, depressed, disappointed, angry, frustrated, or sad and yet all of us do at varying times in our lives. I’ve been feeling a mixture of all of these things for at least a couple of weeks.
I think many of us are working to push these feelings back now more than ever. Afterall, many of us are caught up in the monotony of our days with nowhere to go, nothing to really change it up, and lots and lots of same ol’ same ol’. I joked on a conference call this week that everyday seems to be groundhog day these past few weeks. Wake up, parent, eat, sit at the computer and work, eat, work again, parent, exercise (if time allows and I am fortunate enough to have the alone-time and space to do so), eat, read, bathe or shower, and go to bed. My life feels as though it’s simply on auto-pilot mode, which is exactly the mode that I felt like I existed in for most of my life until I had an awakening of sorts and started working toward building Work4Progress. This scares me… I don’t want to move back into auto-pilot mode and I feel that I am struggling to remain conscious in the world of Maya where it is so easy to get caught in the web of temporal things that don’t really matter.
For instance, recently I impulse bought a bunch of hair products and brushes under the guise of self-love, when really I think it might have been an act of self-hatred sneaking in. My mother had said something to me at her house recently about how I should try to blow-out my hair because it’d probably look good straight now that it’s much shorter and since that comment I can now admit that I’ve been on mission “fix it” with my hair again. I know she didn’t mean any harm by it, but I’ve been working on loving my insecurities… my hair being one of them and this served as a trigger for me now that I sit back and look at it with clear vision. So, I blew out my hair the other night and the end result… disappointment. Guess what… I have the same baby fine hair I’ve always had and cutting it all off to have it grow in healthier has not changed that. I doubt anything will ever change that, so I need to learn to love what has always plagued me.
It’s interesting how the messages that come our way can have such negative results on our psyche and personal wellbeing even when we think we’re beyond the superficial ways of life and grounded in who we are enough not to care. After I blew my hair out, I looked in the mirror like, “Who is this girl? Jackie, you are so not the cosmetic, spend an hour on your hair type.” Somewhere deep within it was that good old, “not good enough” demon creeping in once again to torment me and as I looked in the mirror, I realized exactly why I’d bought the products and wasted an hour of my life with this blow-out process and it wasn’t because I loved myself so much that I thought I deserved them. It was a glaring act of self-hatred where I’d let the demon of “not good enough” win and drive my actions. Granted, I don’t think that was the case for everything I’d bought. For instance, I did buy mostly organic natural products designed for fine curly low porosity hair in order to improve the health of my natural hair, but a few of the items I purchased were questionable… the round brushes for the blow-out to alter the appearance of my natural hair for example.
This experience made me reflect on why I felt the desire to change what is. My fiancé is also good for calling me out on out of character behavior. At the time, I always feel like he is attacking me for trying something different, but afterwards I can sometimes see his point. He made a comment to me after I’d completed this blow-out and was not thrilled with the end result, “Why is it so hard for you to see you the way others see you?” It isn’t the first time someone has said this to me. I’ve had years to ponder this question and yet I still don’t have an answer. I thought I was finally in a place where I felt total self-acceptance and self-love only to find that I’m back here again gifted with the opportunity to notice where I’m still needing to embrace parts of myself more fully.
When I washed my hair and my curls came springing back into action, I was actually grateful to see the illusion of fullness they gave me and the wild garden they formed atop of my head. There was a brief moment of relief and internal celebration and gratitude when I looked in the mirror. A moment that said, “Ahhhh, there you are! Welcome home!” Though, I am not my hair or any portion of my physical body for that matter, the person I was used to seeing in the mirror had returned.
I guess, part of the reason I’m sharing is because I want to bring more awareness to the others that the world has a cacophony of messages ringing in our direction at all times and that it’s important to define yourself from the inside out rather than the outside in. When we define ourselves from the outside in, which we are more likely to do when we aren’t in a place where we feel good, we usually don’t get the results we desire… as illustrated by my above story. Another reason I’m sharing is because I really want more people to understand that the messaging you surround yourself with makes a huge difference in who you are, what you believe, how you act, etc. I intend this especially for parents of young children who are impressionable, but also for everyone as age doesn’t always mean immunity to external messaging… it’s just sometimes harder to notice the impressions left in adults as they don’t always wear everything on their sleeves as children do.
My goal is to live in a world where love is central to every action. As such, I try to remain conscious and mindful of the space I occupy and pray that I see those times that I act in ways that are unloving, either toward myself or toward others so that I may course correct as needed.
Have you found yourself in acts of self-hatred lately? What do your habits say about you? How do they make you feel?