LEARNING HOW TO LIVE #1
Rebuilding a life from the ground up
Learning how to live…seems like an interesting thing to be coming into focus when I’ve been alive for 32 years.
I think we all go through this at some point in our lives, and it’s usually brought on by a painful experience or a painful realization, that makes us pause and explore, “who am I?”, “what do I want in life?”, “what is my purpose in life?” and “what makes a meaningful life?”
For me this has slowly been happening over the last 6 years. More and more of the layers being slowly peeled back. More and more of the fog, that’s kept me from being able to name what I’ve experienced, lifting and becoming more and more clear.
After working with hundreds of women in the trauma healing space, I recognize there’s this desire to get to the other side of the pain as quickly as possible. And I totally get why. It’s uncomfortable and I’ve felt similarly in my own experience. And I can say with 100% certainty that I’m so glad it’s taken as long as it has because my nervous system wouldn’t have been able to handle it if all the info dropped into my lap all at once and got to the other side quickly. It would’ve been too rushed and would’ve tipped me over the edge into complete shut down because I wouldn’t have been able to process or retain any of it.
Simply, what I know now, and what I’m moving through now, would’ve been too much and too great for me 6,5,4,3 even 2 years ago.
And I know this because in the season I’m currently in, so much is coming up at a very rapid pace, and even 6 years of deep healing under my belt and with tools I’ve developed, my nervous system is holding on for dear life with what’s coming up right now.
Our system can only ever go at the pace it can go– which is usually at the pace of your most apprehensive parts. Through different seasons, our nervous system’s window of tolerance expands and contracts on purpose.
As I look back with hindsight, I can see I was really trying to figure out how to assemble a life and make it meaningful.
And how blocked I was. How much I hadn’t gone through yet at all of those different points that I wanted it to go faster, and how I didn’t have the information I needed to make certain decisions or understand things the way I do now. As is the natural process of things, but again, we always want it to go faster than it does.