My heart hurts some days.
And on those days, I can never truly pinpoint what it is. I get lost in myself trying to assess it and release its hold on me.
But is it supposed to hurt?
What is it?
Is it the grind? Is it financial instability? Is it loneliness?
Do we as people stress because it’s a hardwired condition? What is this energy we can’t seem to shake?
Or could it be that we’re seeking this condition or energy? The mood, the suffering, the discomfort?
Is it something we feel because we’re dealing with a world that provokes a stress response?
Logically, it wouldn’t make sense that we would do whatever it takes to remove this energy…right?
But could it be possible that what we feel is so deeply ingrained, that we don’t know what to do without it, even if it hurts us or stunts our greater selves?
Ready for the sting?
Blame society or blame yourself…
You’re choosing to be in pain.
The Unsolicited Help
I had an amazing human that I dated years ago.
She had an unbearably adorable personality and an even more vicious intelligence. After we had gone our separate ways, I was lucky enough to have some deep and curious conversations with her about what had gone wrong.
One of the truths that we both admitted to, was that there was something each of us had that we were so attached to, that was such a boundary, that it got in the way of our relationship.
For me, I had instant mistrust for anyone who wanted to pass my walls. I had an inherent suspicion that someone tried to use or take advantage of me. I was cold and indifferent when someone tried to see who I was and what I wanted truly.
She told me that I was “tactfully vulnerable” as if I would prepare my vulnerability to minimize the damage.
Something that I still haven’t been able to pin down why.
She on the other hand had this fear of being alone with me. Her best friend was always with us. It was rare for us to be alone. And she was uncomfortable with intimacy. She had to have her mom there, her best friend, her dog, or wine to distract her from just me.
Both of these were different pieces of vulnerability that tore us apart.
We both maintained this insufferable energy that held us back from a better connection and healing.
Here’s the kicker though.
As often as we do this in relationships, we do it more deeply in our relationships with ourselves.
And that may be because our conditioned ego is far more powerful than the authentic self. It has chained and muffled the Self in order to keep us in good standing with the demanding world around us, and in a personal comfort zone.
Even if it means maintaining a constant dull pain and misery.
But we can do something about it.
We need to understand our desires. We need to give ourselves access to our souls. And we need to stop being so self-oppressing.
If you don’t allow opposing voices inside or outside of yourself…doesn’t that make you a fucking dictator?
Time to release the pressure.
…
With more conviction than ever, I know that I can live in this world in whatever way I please. I know that at any moment I can turn a direction and live toward a different horizon. It took me years to realize that, but no matter how much I struggle I know that I always have a choice.
Yet something still seems to hold me pinned down.
What is it? What is this thing?
How can there be such a dark part of me that I can feel, but have so little control over it?
It’s so deeply ingrained. It’s normal. It’s continuous. And even though it hurts, it’s what we know…
So, is it an instinctive sense that what we know we choose to rely on?
The Second Part
At some point, knowledge will not be enough for anyone trying to sort out their life.
If I were to guess, I would say the most significant goal anyone can achieve is to become themselves. To shed everything everyone else puts on us, and live only in what we feel is right for us.
But it seems the world has put up barriers. Things that distract and deter us from a very unique and very individual truth that only each specific individual can figure out in their own way.
We’re told our life has to be one of service. We’re told we have to make money from it. We’re told it has to be perfect and valuable.
There always seems to be a caveat to doing what we love; a pin on the board of creativity that rigidly holds the written demands of others.
And that’s where I think most of our pain may be…in the fact that our plan, our desire, our pursuit has to be good enough, stamped with approval.
Or so we’ve been led to believe…
So we sit in our pain, in what we know, and we endure.
Desperately existing.
But what do you do if you don’t fucking want to anymore? What if the expectations are exhausting and annoying?
What if you want to do what you want to do simply because you dream it and it feels honest? What if freedom and liberty aren’t a national statement but a calling of the Self?
Maybe real, true, beautiful existence is making sure to tell the modern world of opinionated dumb-dumbs to fuck off and you turn your back to all of what you know is bullshit, then take the hands of all the people that see the joke as you do, and seek out parallel individualized truth.
Leaving you to walk towards something greater, less limiting, and adventurous.
Maybe then the heart will hurt less.
Maybe then we can detoxify ourselves.
Maybe then we’ll find love and connection and the greatest truth of healthy existence.
Maybe then the pain we think we must live in, we can finally let go of.
The unnecessary pain.
Keep making choices reader.
Truth and Love.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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