MY BEAUTIFUL MERCURIAL MIND
“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives. ”
— Akshay Dubey
Sometimes I look back at what I have shared on this platform so far and feel as though I am lying. I feel like a hypocrite, a relentless liar trying to con herself into believing she has accomplished true healing and transformed her life without any trace from the past. I feel like a motivational speaker who drinks herself to sleep to quiet down the insecurities occupying her mind or the extroverted party girl who hides her brokenness behind drug abuse and hollow, superficial attachments. Truth be told, my mind is a quite hypocritical, nay, mercurial. My mood and thoughts change constantly and despite all the effort I have been generating towards healing my insecurities and trauma so that I won’t get triggered any longer, I still get triggered and I still feel hopeless at times. This is one of those moments so I decided to write it down, word by word, as naked as it could possibly be — for future reference.
I have been told this before so it is not necessarily news to me — healing isn’t a straight road, there are setbacks and relapses. Unfortunately, healing takes a long time, maybe even a lifetime. All that pain and heartbreak we have picked up and internalized over decades doesn’t just vanish because we accidentally or volitionally stumbled upon a moment of clarity and genuine self-love. I love myself, I really do, except that sometimes I hate myself. I hate the fact that I have let people have so much power over me, I hate the fact that l gave up so easily. I hate the fact that I never took a leap of faith and leaned into the moment and enjoyed being young and carefree when I was in my twenties. I hate that I pushed away people who wanted to genuinely, unconditionally care for and love me. I understand where this hate comes from, I see the deep seated imbalances and the false perceptions that I have internalized so much so that, despite being fully aware of this irrationality, I can’t let them go.
I’m not going to sugar coat it. My healing journey is probably going to last a lifetime. It will get better and become easier to handle the resurfacing toxicity with time but it will always be there, lying dormant, sinister as always. I launched this website with the intention of journaling. I know how much journaling helps to untangle harmful thought patterns we grow accustomed to over time and I also wanted to share my story in order to connect with fellow souls who have been through similar trials. One thing that makes journaling amazing is that it allows us to witness how much we grow and change over time. I was reading through an old journal a couple of weeks ago and I realised how much pain I had suffered and how hopeless I had been at one point in my life. Although, that pain belonged to me and that experience is what made me who I am today, it also seemed so foreign. Looking back at my past, I can see clearly how much I have changed over the years. I never knew it was possible, I always believed we were what our loved ones made us into but now I know, people can change. Change is beautiful, change is refreshing, change is inevitable, though the route we choose is highly dependable on our mind-set. I know I have changed but that doesn’t necessarily mean I have healed. Despite the fact that my past journal entries clearly depict how far I have come along from the depths of bleakness, I am still on this path and I still need to keep changing as I continue navigating my life on this planet.
I’m not who I was a couple of years ago, yet, I am also not the person I really want to be. This may well be the reason for the cognitive dissonance my actions and behaviours generate at times. I know what I’m supposed to do, I know the irrationality behind certain thoughts that pop up in my mind yet, I cannot help but give into my triggers. At the beginning of this year I became interested in minimalism since it felt like a natural lifestyle for who I truly am. Ever since, I’ve been decluttering and simplifying my life. As I simplify and reduce the size of my surroundings, I feel a sense of deep calm and inner peace like I have never felt before. Minimalism is the most appropriate lifestyle for me — I know this now and I’m working continuously to completely transform my life in this respect. As a child of a family full of hoarders, it hasn’t been easy but I’m getting there — one humongous trash bag of clutter at a time. I plan on dedicating another post about my journey regarding minimalism later on but I wanted to mention it here too since I believe it has helped me tremendously in terms of uncluttering my mind. It is also the lifestyle I want to embody in every possible way. The intention for my healing journey is to carry on until I’ve simplified my life to the bare essentials and I can find meaning and enthusiasm in things that really matter — nature, meaningful connections, philanthropy and writing. Only then, I believe, will I have reached a true milestone in my healing journey. A life where material has no value, toxic people have been completely eliminated and life has a purpose — a spiritual purpose.
Going back to my mercurial mind, despite the minimalist approach I have taken over the last couple of months, regardless of how much I have uncluttered both from my home and my mind, I still find my self at square one at times. Randomly, out of no-where, I am back at the hospital looking down at my mother who has just been given days to live, or back to age 15, standing in front of the mirror self-deprecating because I wasn’t and never would be good enough. One thing I know for sure is that it will get better and then it will get worse. Feelings will change and triggered, we will continue to be. Nevertheless, I can assure anyone reading this that it will get easier. The triggers will lose their power an intensity over time, I know this with absolute certainty because I have my journals to prove it. Maybe when enough time has past, they will dissipate. Who knows? Has anyone reached that level of healing? All I know is that ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away, the same way ignoring or trying to escape triggers aren’t going to heal them. Until we confront our traumas with the help of therapy, spirituality, religion or whatever option best suits your needs, they will continue to harbour their intensity. For now, I have accepted that I will keep travelling back and forth on the healing train for the foreseeable future. I hope that someday, the insecurities that cripple my life today will be completely and naturally obliterated.
June 22, 2020
