How To Get Back To Yourself When You Are Wandering Through The Darkness

When did we let ourselves fade away? When did we allow our passion to wither behind our eyes? When did we become too busy to spark ourselves back to life?

We go about hustling through our days, never really noticing ourselves slowly wilting away. And then one day, we get caught in a little moment of stillness. It feels so intrusive. The silence is suddenly so loud. We realize we have forgotten how to just sit alone with ourselves. Thousands of doubts flit through our minds. Instead of becoming satiated by answers, we spiral out of control, landing in some dark despair.

We have forgotten the essence of who we are. The true spirit of being alive.

How long does it take to get back to ourselves? Twice the length of the relationship we lost ourselves to? Three times the hours of work that infringed on living our truth? Well, I wish there was some formula I could write out for you. Some way for you to subtract the negativity that seeped into your veins and multiply your motivation. I wish we could take out some scrap paper and calculate the whole thing out.

The truth is that there is no secret formula. You will have to battle with your uncertainty that has developed from living for everyone else. Getting back to ourselves lies in tiny changes of attitude that make up our everyday lifestyle. We will find ourselves in balance. In stillness. We will find ourselves in energized focus and involvement.

We lost ourselves to monotony. We meandered astray, cast away to time and shackled to our responsibilities. We followed ease and security, not passion. And in the steady stream of routine, we forgot about the things that awaken our living, breathing bodies and elevate them to another level.

We all have a fire within. It may lie dormant, subdued under years of dullness. We may have become so hardworking that we forgot productivity requires recuperation to be most optimal.

We all have certain things that make our hearts beat out of our chests. Things that set us ablaze. Things that totally captivate us until we look up and realize that hours have passed. We would dedicate huge portions of our lives to these things without being paid to do them. It is in these states of enchantment we can rediscover our heart.

Think about when you were a child and you did things for pure enjoyment. You sang to feel your vocal chords vibrate in the rhythm of the beat, not to be the best singer that ever existed. You drew to bring animation to a lifeless page, to become the architect of some colorful new reality. You ran through the forest to feel the earth gripping your bare feet and the fresh air filling your lungs, not to time yourself and calculate calories burned.

Identify the things that call to you. The ones that seduce you into the moment, full of passion and lost to time. Allow yourself to try, to fail, to laugh. Do things you are terrible at, things you’ve always wanted to try, just for fun. Lighten up. Set time aside to learn from your failures and master your craft. The more you allow the moment to mesmerize you, the more you will begin to understand yourself.

Put your phone away. Turn off the tv. Stop drinking your feelings into submission. Stop beating your dreams down with excuses, hoping they will disappear so you can stay indifferent to this mediocrity. Stop settling for vague discomfort. Stop running from yourself. You have to do something drastic. The drastic feat of facing your truth, in silence.

Breathe, and settle down. Get comfortable. Observe. How do you talk to yourself? What types of things do you encourage? What burning desires are you suppressing out of fear? Stop trying to live in the most convenient and secure manner. Exert yourself. Arise and do the hard things you have been putting off. Take the very first steps right now and cement things down to reality.

It is time to do you. To refocus on how you’re going to get where you want to be. Take your time and be deliberate in all your actions. Masterpieces are created in time and meticulous effort, not whipped up in an afternoon. Listen to your heart and mind, and find out where they intersect.

Stop gasping for a breath of yourself yet allowing everyone to drown you out. Stop trying to impress people you don’t like and stay home from the party you don’t want to go to. Brew your favorite tea, light a candle, and write in your journal until you cannot think of anything else to say. Don’t worry about it sounding pretty or inviting, just let it flow out of you and unblock all the staleness within. Stir the creative essence.

Don’t worry about figuring it all out. About having some perfectly devised timeline. It won’t happen in a day, and it won’t happen in ten years. The truth is, no one has it all figured out. We are all living in some fantastic, unlikely, cosmic mystery. Find excitement in throwing caution to the wind. Life will throw the most unexpected events your way to force growth. No one truly knows the reason we all exist. We are all a work in progress, just let it be about discovery. Be playful and adopt a curious new perspective on ripening your soul.

The more time you invest in yourself and your desires, the more you will become realigned to your truth. Realigned- because we were all born there, free as the wind, but we became conditioned over time to internalize and complicate things. Be grateful and aware of your blessings and hard work. Do not feel pressured by other’s growth. Do not feel that you should be doing something just because of your age. Look to your inner compass. Steer your own ship. Become light, and encourage those you see investing in themselves. Do not fight negativity; in fact do not focus any energy on it at all. Embolden the sources of positivity in your life.

Step by step, in intentional stillness, we will grow like redwoods- Basking our leaves in the sun and standing tall through the storms. We will no longer plant seeds in thoughtless endeavors. We will grow for ourselves and everything will start to make a little more sense in our own mystifying existence.