Life is not a dress rehearsal

My therapist got back from leave this week. I had my first session for the year yesterday. I was having an emotionally taxing day yesterday so I was really looking forward to my session with her. My therapist’s love(?) and concern for me is somewhere between a mother’s love for their child and I don’t know, one’s best friend?

I really love that I get to that room and I let go of all pretense and let her into my mind, heart and soul completely. Sometimes when I say something around people my speech is measured. I say things that paint me in the best light possible. Not that I lie about who I am. I just tell the best bits about myself and leave the ugly neatly tucked inside. So it’s so nice to just let loose in therapy and just be.

I was battling with intense negative feelings. I hate that I’m calling them negative because I’d like to believe in a realm where nothing is negative or positive but just is. However to try and help you understand the kind of feelings I was wrestling with I’ll call them negative. I was in the pits. I sat there and I told her the truth. Everything. The anxiety, the self judgment, the shame. Everything. I probably didn’t cry cos I was all cried out from the time I’d woken up.

However when it was her turn to talk she acknowledged and validated my feelings and then reframed everything I had just told her to highlight the “positive” things I was overlooking in my speech. I smiled and thanked her for that. I felt really warm inside. It made me see myself in a different way. A way that made me warm and fuzzy inside. I left feeling lighter.

I got home and I journaled to imprint those words on my brain. My circumstances hadn’t changed, I just changed how I was looking at them.

I’m only 30 years old. However as short as my life feels of late it feels very rich in depth and breadth. I love that a lot. In my twenties I spent a lot of time just being angry. I raged on the internet determined to make my voice heard and change the world. I even left corporate to join an NGO so I could be more active in the fights against everything that made me angry.

And then slowly I started losing steam. Or maybe it wasn’t losing steam but I just started caring less about the world outside of me and more about the one in me. I wanted to be less angry, less anxious, less exhausted and more at peace, joyful, happy. I started by deleting all my social media accounts. I was just screaming into a void on them. Sure some people really enjoyed my posts but I just got tired of it. If they wanted someone to speak on something they could do it themselves.

I turned inward. Focused on tending to my inner world. There were so many weeds that had gone unnoticed. I was sometimes unkind to my friends and to my boyfriend. How could I notice all that with the noise of social media (my own accounts included)? I really spent time going inwards just to make sure it was as pretty as I wanted to be.

I drew closer to God and to myself during that time. I prayed a lot believing that prayer centers me. Prayer is a form of meditation to me. If I need to get my mind in the right place I pray. I don’t always pray to God sometimes I am simply praying to myself. I have met myself at my core and there is a powerful version of me that I pray to when the need arises. As a result of prolonged periods of solitude I find that version of myself is more readily accessible to me now.

In therapy we also dig a little deeper with each session and I see the glistening glory of what some would call my higher self. My senses and intuition are super sharp right now. I feel like a miracle unfolding. I am more appreciative of the little things that make up my big life. I keep saying I want a big life then when I zoom in I realize my big life is actually made of a series of small things. Today I had my favorite ice-cream and it felt like an experience. I spent time with a friend and that time was precious.

I also got exciting news this morning that had me bursting at the seams and I thought, but just how wild is this life?! I can experience such immense joy and gratitude with so much shit just one page behind?! I won’t lie, I don’t always enjoy being alive. Sometimes it feels like a drag and like I’d be better off dead. But today? Today was a great day.

I am writing this so I never forget that the sun, rain and rainbows all happen in the same life. If I’m gonna shine a spotlight on the storm best believe I’m shining an even brighter spotlight on the sunshine and the rainbows. My heart is happy and filled with SO much gratitude. Life is hard but not impossible. I have no clue how much time I have on this earth but I promise myself one thing. To be fully present in each and every moment, good or bad. Nothing lasts forever. Our best and worst days are both 24hrs long. I don’t want to lose focus on that.

I am not rehearsing for my real life here. THIS is my real life. Yesterday my boyfriend was commending me on my level of self awareness of late. I smiled and it felt like my heart was smiling too because I feel one with myself. It is so affirming, so beautiful and I’m thankful for the journey that led me here. I am thankful for all the good that has found me in the midst of absolute chaos. It gives me a new and deeper understanding and appreciation of life each time.

All this is to say, I am embracing that I am living my life on a stage. Every day I aim to put on my best performance ever. If I’m grieving I want my back in it. If I’m rejoicing I want my back in it too. I just want to stay fully present. I don’t know what happens beyond this life but I’d like to look back and say I gave it my all. May it forever be etched on my corner of the internet that 6 January 2021 was a good day in my life’s book!