Let Your Life Get Messy

I never really understood the importance of getting messy with life. I think most of us have looked into a situation and have become disarmed by the extent of fear that consumes our mind. As humans, it’s pretty instinctual for us to duck when a ball is being thrown at our face, run when we are being chased, and move the fuck out of the way when a car appears to not slow down feet in front of us. I’ve never heard of anyone going into a situation saying “YES! I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL THIS HURTS THE SHIT OUT OF ME!” I mean if you have, props to you but I think the majority of us spend our thoughts trying to avoid the pain that we become a stranger to joy.

I decided I was going to enter a stage where my main focus was to become as careless as bliss would hold me accountable for, and even then some. So day one I was wearing my footie pajamas (which I completely recommend getting if you are searching for happiness) and I pulled over on the side of the road in a strangers driveway and I jumped in their huge raked leaf pile, I swam around with the intent of experiencing something regardless of the affect it would have on me after I was finished with the moment. This challenge of forcing my soul to project a fearless fortitude into the world was the most illogical thing a person as frightened of the world as me could do, but I had to do it.

The next day I had an epiphany. There are minimal things (particularly ideas) in this universe that we can actually prove to be 100% true. But I can guarantee you three things. These three key, inevitable processes just so happen to seriously be the three things in life that we deny, medicate, fear, and recklessly avoid with our entire being. We are going to die. Things are going to change. And we are going to lose. We look at death and we see sorrow and have painted this manmade humanistic picture of how devastating and frightening it is to die. I am by no means saying death is something to look forward to, or a thing we shouldn’t take time to grieve for, I am so PRO breakdowns and extrapolating feelings it might be a bit weird. But we fear it so much to the point where we check out of the moment and we live in a mindset where we are scared, and alone, and it’s not logical because it’s something we can’t manipulate, and we can’t avoid. It’s built in to the human experience. And it’s going to stay there.

When we lose our job, or we get a divorce, or we move homes, enter a new town, a new person, we get so terrified we legit have the ability to lose our mind or simply walk out of our own head because when we are alone with change and our perception of it is scary we physiology have the ability to throw up. Literally, throw up. Some of us need control, some of us are ridiculously OCD when it comes to organizing our feelings (me), so when the inevitable, risky change appears we try and take it and make it ours. We as humans are extremely powerful but some things in this world are meant to show us how little and delicate we truly are. We need to control who we let in our space, and we especially need to fight for who leaves. This is an extremely dangerous concept because although we would like to think we know every little detail about what’s best for us, we don’t. That’s where faith, questioning and letting go comes into play. Change is something we have no business fighting, but in favor of our sanity is something that’s completely necessary and something so raw it’s what keeps us human.

Leading to my last inevitable process that we deathly fear: loss. I don’t know how many times I didn’t make a friend, didn’t smile back at a stranger, or would be mean to someone just so they wouldn’t want to love me so I wouldn’t have to love them. Thanks to my own self-fulfilling process of recognition and Brene Brown’s “The Power of Vulnerability” TED Talk my perception and way of living was brutally changed. With my new stage of “getting messy with life,” I challenged myself to go into every situation, every single relationship newly made, unmade, or made a long time ago, and thoroughly know that I AM going to be hurt by them, and some type of loss WILL occur. This sounds cynical and negative but it was the very opposite. Although I challenged myself to consciously be aware that one day I was going to hurt for them, I also challenged myself to recklessly adore them with every inch of capability I had.

Usually when something isn’t working for us—and it’s all within our own being—the only natural thing we can do about it is change the way we think about it, for our mental health’s sake. Our perceptions are the things that rule our mind. There is no postponing the idea of death, the sore heart that we all experience, and the depth of discomfort we are all bound to feel that comes from the change we have convinced ourselves that we aren’t ready for. But I can tell you one thing, the more we try to postpone these inevitable processes, and the more we medicate, the stronger we fear; the less we live, the weaker we love, the more demeaning our human experience becomes.

So with the best of your ability please understand that everyone is going to undergo death, things are going to change, and you will lose. But, because these things happen we might as well just jump in stranger’s leaf piles, and love whoever we want, more than our body can handle, and then hurt for it. We might as well get up 7 more times then the 6 we’ve been wounded, and paint our disfigurement with radiant and vibrant colors. Cheers to getting messy with life.