I had it all figured out.
Life was hard. It was fast. It was out of control.
It was supposed to be that way.
Life came at me a thousand miles an hour like a bullet train, and the only thing I could do was try to jump off the tracks before it hit me.
And trains were coming from all directions.
Every second of every day felt like a reaction. I just lived second by second, no planning, no control, no intention, no purpose, no reason…
Work, family, myself…
…just reaction.
And over time, the trains moved faster, and even more appeared.
My need to react increased. My ability to respond diminished. My ability to prevent disaster became non-existent.
It was a slow, steady demise.
Once I allowed myself to slip into a free-fall, rock bottom appeared imminent, closer.
So I continued to do more of what caused the free-fall.
It was all I understood.
More chemicals, more anger, greater pain inflicted on others… more reaction.
From the start, my inner self, my thoughts, my feelings, my emotions, my self-worth were damaged…
…the damage continued to intensify as days passed.
I had it all figured out. I would just need to control the things around me.
Just like I always had.
To make the world see things my way.
I had it all figured out.
I expressed, even more, anger, frustration, rage, panic as I was unable to control life.
Over time, the damage intensified.
I did my very best to damage others, to slow down the outside world, to control external conditions so that I could cope, live, breathe.
Challenges, circumstances, life came at me even faster.
So I tried to control my outer world even more.
And this process continued until I found the bottom.
Rock bottom hurt.
I feel, and have witnessed, that many hit their own rock bottom differently, because of different challenges, and because of different drivers.
Because of different experiences.
I feel and have witnessed that there are two identical traits of everyone’s own rock bottom…
Trying to control the outer world, expecting to control life, without controlling our inner world.
…and the feeling of being absolutely alone.
Disconnected.
Hopeless.
Lost.
When I hit my bottom, I felt absolutely alone.
When you are not connected inside, you lack connection outside.
The process began by looking inward at my damaged emotions, pain, hurt, experiences, imperfections…
And embracing them as is. Loving them as they were.
Feeling the pain. Feeling the emotions. Feeling the suffering.
Slowly, the feelings, emotions, and suffering began to dissolve.
Resolve.
Over time, the feeling of aloneness slowly diminished.
I recognized the need for change. I wanted my outer world to stop hurting me…
…so my inner world needed to change first.
I needed to stop hurting myself first.
If I wanted peace and comfort on the outside, I needed to find peace and comfort on the inside.
You get from the world what you feel about yourself.
Your inner world creates your outer world.
As my coach walked me through a slow, steady process of rediscovery… in order to reconnect to the outer world…
…I needed to disconnect from the outer world and reconnect with my inner world.
I needed to truly understand myself, my hurts, my pain, my emotions, my feelings, my thoughts…
…I needed to understand myself.
Deeply.
As I resolved myself, accepted my hurts, my pain, my emotions, my feelings, my thoughts…I began to understand myself.
Deeply.
I isolated.
And a love affair blossomed.
I embraced my imperfections, my past, my experiences, my talents, my gifts, my uniqueness…
…and I felt love. Inward love.
I began to realize that I was imperfectly perfect.
I began the slow, steady process of rebuilding my inner world.
As intended. As designed. As created.
Perfectly imperfect.
During this process, I found myself craving more isolation. I spent hours reflecting, feeling, resolving, sorting, forgiving, healing, loving…
And I craved isolation. I had spent decades smothering myself with the outside world, trying to escape my own feelings.
And now I just wanted to feel.
I just wanted to appreciate my imperfections, my perfect imperfections.
As designed. As created.
Slowly, steadily, I felt the need to reconnect with the outer world.
Slowly, steadily, I felt the growing love inside from the outside.
Slowly, steadily, I saw my outer world embrace me, just as I embraced myself.
Slowly, I loved others as much as I loved myself.
And as I continued to connect inside, I continued to connect outside.
And I emerged.
Judgment slowly resolved. Anger slowly resolved. Hate slowly resolved.
The more I resolved my inner world, the more my outer world resolved.
I continued to crave even more internal connection, and as a result, I craved external connection.
And I connected to both more easily than ever.
The love affair grew even more.
In the process, I found that where I found it difficult to love my family in the past, I now loved harder, easier, unconditionally.
Everything I accepted in the inner world caused the same in the outer world.
I loved my imperfections, so I loved others’ imperfections.
I gave myself permission to forgive myself, so I gave myself permission to forgive others.
It is never perfect. There is no end. There are challenges, opportunities to grow, experiences to experience.
I still revert back to my old patterns for short periods.
And as we accept ourselves, embrace ourselves, love ourselves, and trust ourselves…
The mirror image happens in our outside world.
Perfectly.
I did not always believe the process. Trust the process. Accept the ease of the process.
But life has simplified.
To resolve the outward world, first resolve the inner world.
We are all connected, and sometimes we need to disconnect, isolate, to find that connection.
We are all connected by a beautiful inner world.
We spend our lives trying to connect on the outside… to live a High-Performance Life on the outside.
But true connection can only be found inside.
A High-Performance Life can only be found on the inside.
By unconditionally loving the inside, you will unconditionally love the outside.
The process is perfect.
Imperfectly perfect.
Perfectly imperfect.
Just like you and me.
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This post was previously published on Mike Kitko and is republished here with permission from the author.
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