We are all called to be the fullest expression of ourselves. Not just some of us, all of us.
We all have something we were born to do, called for, intended to be. If we just get still enough to listen, and brave enough to follow our hearts.
I look around sometimes at all the incessant busy-ness, how distracted, unconscious, heartbroken so many people are. Running.
Never noticing how disconnected we are. A million things to do, places to be, spending all this time in motion. Never stopping to ask why.
Purpose.
Without a deep sense of Purpose, reverence, gratitude, commitment to something greater than yourself, it can be so easy to get lost in superficialities, busy-ness, life coming and going.
Paying the bills, paying the cost, never paying attention.
Distracted existence is like a disease, robbing us of a real, awake connection with life. It is false life. And then we wander around trying to fill the emptiness that’s left behind. Wondering why we can’t find happiness – wasn’t the car, the job, the wedding ring, the 2.5 kids and white picket fence supposed to fix all of that? How about a bigger house, nicer car, more diamonds. Keep filling the emptiness with more stuff and when the high of that stuff inevitably wears off, find more stuff and more stuff. Consumerism – disease. We are a society filled with unwell people, empty people, superficial people.
It’s painful to be Present. You have to feel all those feelings that are bubbling up underneath the distractions. Feel the hurt, broken-heartedness, anger, anguish, grief, loss, helplessness. All the things you never gave yourself permission to feel when the hurts or the wounds happened. Tough it out. Be strong. Don’t be vulnerable. Work on top of it. Until you’re in so much pain the only way to cope is to stay in motion, so you never have to stop to actually feel.
So much easier to run. Distract.
But eventually…whether it’s days, months, years, lifetimes…eventually, you run out of rope. Life will call you back to Itself. Back to Love. Back to Purpose. Back to what is real.
To live a life of deep Purpose, you have to be willing to feel, to connect, to commune.
Not everyone is ready for that. I struggle with it all the time.
It takes real commitment. A willingness to confront ourselves at the deepest levels. A constant commitment to open deeper, forgive more readily, stay Present when your heart is breaking and the pain is visceral and all you want to do is close, retreat…and run.
To stay Present instead. Conquer yourself.
It’s the only way through. There are no easy roads. There are no short cuts. There are no ways around it. One way or another, we are all making our way back to God/Life/Spirit. This life or the next.
And the only way through is to conquer those parts of ourselves that are scared, ashamed, broken, grieving, lonely, hurting. To slow down, stay Present and really be with ourselves. Love ourselves. Love our broken parts. Love our ashamed parts. Love our beaten down and lonely parts.
Because it’s on the other side of all those things we’re running from that true joy lives. True happiness. True connection. The real stuff that all those superficial fill ups can’t reach.
Depth. Joy. God.
Through a willingness to feel all those things we’re running from, accept, express and release them – the ugliness, the imperfection, the deep sorrow, the anger, the vulnerability, the paralyzingly fears – only then can we move through them, let them go, conquer ourselves and become who we were intended to become. As whole people.
Not broken people filling ourselves up with superficial, egoic things to cover up our brokenness in the illusion that we’re whole.
It is so much easier said than done, I know. I’ve seen horrors that I would not wish on my worst enemies. Had my heart destroyed again and again. Been betrayed in the most wicked and vial of ways. Faced real-life monsters masquerading as people, often those closest to me. Clawed my way from the depths of hell and fought battle after battle for every, single, inch of ground. I’ve faced demons and villains and darkness that I dare not speak out loud. And when I have been down so low I did not think I could get up, I have been kicked again. I have known the dark side of life, far too much of it for my heart to bare.
But to live my life working on top of those things, pretending that I am fine, pretending that it didn’t hurt me, pretending that I had it all fixed up in a day because I’m super-human and nothing bothers me and nothing hurts me and nothing breaks me?
It is a lie.
And it is a lie I will pay for the rest of my life, unless I am willing and brave enough to face those things, feel those feelings, let those feelings go, forgive, find the light in every bit of darkness, the lesson in every struggle and the opportunity in every crisis, and free myself from the chains that bind me to an empty life pretending it all away.
Strength lies not in our pretending to be strong, but in our ownership of our fallibility and brokenness and a willingness to face our own vulnerability, head on, and surrender through to the other side. Exposed. Raw. Emptied of self to be filled with Higher Purpose.
There’s freedom there. Everything we want, deep in our hearts, lives on the other side of that kind of surrender. And when we face those deepest, darkest, most vulnerable parts of ourselves, we are not destroyed. No. Instead, we develop a strength that is so pure, so true and so vast – nothing can touch it. It is beyond human comprehension. It is beyond words and description.
It is a glimpse into the enormity, the depth, the heart and the truth of who we really are. Our wholeness. Our perfect imperfection. Our vulnerable strength. Where we start to see that all of it, every battle scar, wounded soul, crushed and broken heart was really Love in disguise. Even when we can’t see it in the moment, it is all Love. Love calling us back to Love. To find out what we’re really made of.
To find the Joy, Love, Happiness that is waiting for us on the other side. To build us. To become who we were intended to be.
If we can be brave enough.
Krystine McInnes is CEO and Project Director of Athena Farms and Grown Here Farms. Stewarding purpose-driven, change-making projects with a focus on Planet, People, Profit and a commitment to Sustainable Business models.
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