Choosing Authenticity

Love my counselling work because it’s a constant reminder to me to remain authentic. Woke up feeling so exhausted today, and plagued by memories of the past. Found my emotions threatening to overwhelm me, and I recalled something I’d just told a client recently… 

“If we don’t manage our emotions, they’ll manage us. Acknowledge how you feel, recognise your feelings, sit with them briefly, and then make a choice to let them go”. 

Also reminded of the lists that I help clients make but somehow do not enjoy making myself. Faced with choices? List pros and cons, don’t just wing it on a feeling and a prayer. Write it down, clarity will come. Gosh, I’d forgotten just how hard writing can be and yet my lovely clients work hard at any task I set for them. Must. Write. Also. 

Then there’s the sessions on building self esteem and allowing internal validation to grow, to develop an innate sense of intuitively knowing what you must do, for you. But this is so hard, for me. Trapped in places in the past, I struggle to let go of hurts, judgments, words, and actions that have hurt me to the core. And then I am reminded of what I tell my most traumatised clients:

“Very rarely is there a moment of intense healing that never necessitates a return to dealing with past wounds. We may have to accept that all of life is learning how to live at peace with our old, and fresh, wounds. They remain with us, always, a reminder of our humanity and frailty, and the need to pick ourselves up and keep going, over and over, everyday, if necessary, looking forward, moving on.”

And that other reminder to self which I tell myself ever so often:

“If the past lives in your head without paying rent, it’s time to evict it. Let it go, and be kind to yourself. Direct love, kindness, and compassion to your own heart and mind, and help your healing by loving the person in the mirror”. 

“If you had to describe yourself to a complete stranger what would you say?” One of my fav questions to ask, and to read the answers. Perhaps I need to write this myself, though I’d struggle not to over analyse my every choice of word! 

People are mysteries, even unto themselves, afraid to love themselves because they might find that they are strangely unworthy of love. If only we all knew how powerful truly loving ourselves is as the key to being able to love others, freely giving and receiving love. All of life is a journey along this road, towards this space where we can be seen as we are, and truly loved as we are. Living in that space is the tension we face, knowing how imperfect we are, and yet wanting more of ourselves and of others. 

Love is the key to surviving the trauma that is life. Yes, life is trauma, all the way from start to end. Oh dear, feeling a wave of melancholy threatening to sweep over me… I know you, old friend, I sit with you briefly, I let you go freely. No long visits with you today. I choose joy, and I choose to live authentically, so that I know, in my soul, that what I do and what I say are the same. 

Got four lovely clients today, maybe I’ll do some painting, gonna feed the zoo in my roof garden, and gonna eat some carbs. In short, choosing to focus on the things that bring me joy. Carbs! Haha! No space for things that don’t bring me joy. Evicting unwanted tenants from my head, heart, and soul. Choosing authenticity all the way.  🙂 

Thanks for reading, 

Pav

A Reflection on Death and Dying

Some people are afraid of death, imagining it to be something frighteningly mysterious and darkly disturbing that they must fight against all their lives. I think death is a relief, a rest, a rite of passage, for all of us. Nobody is escaping life alive, we’re all going to die, somehow, somewhere, some day. The mystery might be that we do not know the details, and what really happens when we die, but it’s going to happen whether we have those answers or not. 

I really do think the secret to living fully is fully accepting the inevitability of death, not exactly inviting it but simply acknowledging that it must surely come. And then living life without fear or frenzy, as if one must pack in electrified energy into every second but rather breathing in the essence of each moment in a calm and peaceful way. Savouring each breath as a gentle ebb and flow of waves upon the troubled sea of life, rising above the worry and woes, and recognising one’s place in time and space. Content to be as tiny and insignificant as a grain of sand at the ocean’s edge, as a drop of water in the sea, as a speck of dust floating in the breeze above the tempest. 

Might death then be the same, like a breathing of the soul, finally exhaled from its tiny, caged, physical frailty and set free to wherever it must go? Does the mind live on with its myriad thoughts and ruminations, or does consciousness cease to be? Is the soul an ephemeral or eternal thing that God breathed into us on the day He saw fit to bring us to life, binding us forever with our fellow living, breathing, sentient creatures on this planet, and perhaps beyond? Where will it go when we die, if not back to Him, for all eternity? 

What is a human life, so short, like flowers swaying in the wind, the grass trembling in the rain, or the butterfly fluttering by in the sun? We’re here today, and gone tomorrow, a memory in the hearts of those who loved us, until they, too, are gone. Where do all those collective memories go, and who remembers the ones gone many moons before? 

Death is the only certainty once we are born. Embrace it, expect it, live it. Dying to self is the first death we must endure, and the better we are at dying to ego, the easier that final physical death will be, the one mystery that truly sets us free. That moment in which we gladly say, “It is finished, take me back to Thee”. 

Thanks for reading, 

Pav