Just Be

I've felt compelled to write. I have been so overwhelmed by current events around the pandemic, that I have felt my calling as an artist to come forth. I really thought I was done with this blog. I have been focusing more on my new website, blackwell.health, but as I have discovered through my vain attempts to have a brand on Instagram, I don't want to be a coach. At least I don't want to fish for clients online. My time being brilliant on social media was an incredibly unsatisfying and anticlimactic experience, and I just want to get back to musing on God and on where I relate to this conception of a Higher Power.

I am also coming out the other side of desperately grieving my father's untimely death. That knocked the wind out of me. That took all of my passion, zest, and curiosity. I was in survival mode for several months straight, but a big part of that was living outside of my means, trying to stay in the house we shared, which I couldn't afford. Now that I have been blessed to make new arrangements, which freedom through recovery and lessons in humility have granted me, I have space again. I can create again.

Things are very different now. My heart is still broken, but I can experience God moving those parts around, reformatting them to make a new heart. That's exciting to me, because I think it's an improved, more courageous, more caring, more giving one. I wish it wasn't ripped out through such a traumatic experience, I miss my dad all the time, but I am grateful for this second chance at life. A life that's connection, that's compassionate, that truly, maybe for the first time, can freely love, and accept love too. Love that is possible only through being an imperfect human being.

Because I can no longer pretend things are okay when they're not, I can't pretend to be a guru when I can't manage my own life, like when I'm talking about being cured from my alcoholism, but have unmanageable debt that I'm ashamed of. Nor can I hope to be a confident coach online when I have finally understood that I have social anxiety, which for some reason my best friend knew all along, but which is news to me. But irregardless of my mental hangups, I just don't enjoy being someone with all the answers. I have unfollowed almost all the "coaches" I was following, and I instead follow my heart. What makes it feel lighter and brighter? That's where you'll find me. It's in the middle now, where the people are.

Today I want to have friends, not admirers; co-learners, not students; a humble life, not a fake one that I can't physically, mentally, or spiritually support. The Dalai Lama said that happiness is the highest form of health. I am not sure I feel as much truth or relief resonate through me as when I reflect on that quote. I have been on a quest to get healthy for the past 15 years, and the missing component was honesty. 

I now understand why I wasn't honest. The level of falsity was so deep, I didn't even recognize it until a little more than a year ago, after nearly 7 years of sobriety. It's a survival mechanism that my twisted, anxious, fearful mind told me I needed so that I won't be attacked. But the only person doing the assaulting was me and my own behaviour.

It's a long trudge, getting to the bottom of my patterns, but there is always alleviation upon discovery, and with that, empowerment. It's good to be back. It's good to write. It's good to feel the fire once again, though it's a small flame, and seems at times that it can easily go out. That's okay, because now I know if it does go out again, it will spark once more. Because life is about ebbs and flows, ecstasy and mundanity, reflection and action, work and rest. I know how to ride the waves today, I know how to work hard, and how to practice self-care, in turn. I know how to just be. That, for me today, is the pinnacle of my recovery.