Reflections of a New Me

This is a milestone moment for me and I’ve been engaging in some reflection over my life. I realize everything works in harmony, so trying to isolate aspects is difficult.  Particularly what I’ve been examining is my relationship with “evolution” and “self-improvement.” Over the past fifteen years it’s been an important aspect of my life. 

People who knew me well – and this was a long time ago when I made some really poor life decisions in my partnership and career out of college – could see I was way off track.  I’m not sure why I did what I did back then.  Looking back it seems like another person was making those decisions, one I don’t recognize today. Those decisions caused a lot of suffering in my life and others. 

At some point I gave up my stubbornness and acknowledged things were very out of alignment in my life.  And that’s when I began going deep into various forms of evolution and self-improvement.  I also had to pretty much start over with creating my life, as the life I’d created was hopelessly out of alignment.

And for a while, the “self-improvement” was working.  My career and personal life got much better.  Things weren’t perfect, but I was far more in alignment.

Then for a while I gave it all up and fell back into some really poor relational, career and life habits. And this time the setbacks really worked me over.

I went through a period where I reconnected with evolution and self-improvement, but I wasn’t really doing anything with it.  It seems like all I could do to keep my head above water.  My self-esteem had taken some really big blows that even showed up in my physical body in the form of life-constraining injuries. And it wasn’t one thing, it was everything – life was really kicking my ass.

Looking back it seemed I was using “evolution” as a form of escape.  But I don’t think that’s true.  I had a relapse of the self-defeating pattern that had me going badly off-track out of college and this time my spirit needed all the help it could get to survive. 

I did survive, but it took a very long time to recover.  And by then the forces who were fighting to keep me on that disastrous, out-of-alignment path were strong. There were external forces – people and things that wanted to see me stay disempowered – as well as internal ones, mind viruses and energetic implants. 

Somehow, even in those dark moments, my soul knew everything was going to be okay.  I suffered a lot of stress and worry, but I kept persevering.  And I continued to dedicate myself to evolution and self-improvement, despite the fact most external evidence pointed to things not showing any improvement and my internal structures were fractured and taking a long time to heal.  I kept returning to that core, and building brick by brick.

And I completely rebuilt my life.  I stopped listening to my mind and followed my intuition and heart.  And things changed for the better – a lot better.  And this change was at a foundational level.

There’s been a period of time over the past I’ll say year or so where there was a lot of inner growth but externally it looked very boring and nothing was changing.  But I kept with it.  Then recently a lot of things shifted and suddenly things started manifesting in the outside world and it looks like – wow, all of a sudden your life has gotten a whole lot better.  But not really.  It took a year to build the energetic foundation and vanquish the old, to establish the root before growth would show up on the surface.

And one aspect of this shift was that I said goodbye to a lot of the external “evolution” and “self-improvement” structures.  The coaching wasn’t serving me.  In fact it was now counterproductive.  It wasn’t always a trap, but it became one.  It’s like an egg.  The chicken needs the egg to grow, but then needs to break the shell and come out on its own. 

And I’ve internalized the structures I need, including how to find the resources I need to get to the next steps.  So I look back at fifteen-plus years of being deeply immersed in the “evolution/ self-improvement” communities and think – damn, that’s a long time to reprogram myself, and what do I have to show for it?

Well, in one sense, maybe not much.  But in another, I fundamentally altered my life at a molecular level.  I was a completely different person out of college than I am now.  And I don’t want anything to do with that old self.  The habits, the thoughts, the beliefs, the behavior patterns, all have changed.  My career looks nothing like then, completely different.  My relationship is something I wouldn’t have imagined for myself then. 

And now I start reintegrating things from “way back then” that I still like – hobbies and interests – but from a much different place and with a different feel. And it doesn’t feel new, it’s more like the old way feels completely foreign.  I’m not that old me and there’s no connection, no way to go back.  So I can bring back memories and things from that period without any of the attachments.

Who was I in high school?  Who was I in college?  Who was I at 25 or even 30?  I don’t know.  I don’t care.  That isn’t me. Somehow the cords got completely cut and the entire person has been regenerated into someone completely different. 

Now it feels like I’m waking up into this new person.  I’m experiencing a lot of openness, freedom and happiness.  The anxieties are receding. The “Fear of Missing Out” that was permeating my thought patterns has been replaced with acceptance. I’m okay not-doing, and I’m okay examining things to see if it’s something I want to choose to do.  But doing nothing is perfectly fine now, it doesn’t bother me.  I feel at peace.

Which ironically leaves more space to actually do something.