18 /// Dear Future Self – What Do You Grieve?

Dear future self, I keep coming back to grief. Wondering why my heart still feels heavy sometimes, I started listening to a new audiobook: You Can Heal Your Heart by Louise Hay & David Kessler. I just saw the title in the Empower You App, and didn’t read the description. Because I entered unprepared, I was somehow surprised when I learned that it’s about overcoming grief. But of course, it is. Grief makes our hearts heavy and it can even break them. However, grief is about more than just grieving someone who’s passed. It’s also about saying goodbye to relationships that ended, whether it’s with friends or romantic relationships, and our relationships to meaning or certain thoughts. The most recent thing that I need to grieve is my purpose and a lot of what, I thought, was my identity. I only noticed this yesterday when I started listening to the book. I’ve grown up to think that my purpose in life was to be there for others. I don’t know where or when I got that wrong, but I did. I suppose I saw this being modelled all around me. I thought if I would be there for others, then they would give me something back and I wouldn’t have to be there for myself. It was what I learned. I’ve never once seen it work out, though. Yet, there was no one around to teach me how to be there for myself. To dedicate your life to being there for others, instead of yourself, is very different from being of service in this world, something that allows you to take care of yourself first and then be there for others, knowing and honouring your capacities. For so long I was unable to make that distinction. When we serve, without having met and understood and cared for ourselves yet, it’s never really serving because we depend on it for our identity. So, we’re actually doing something to get something back. While I was organizing things for TQU for example, or when I was djing, or doing web design, as well, I never felt like it had much to do with me. It didn’t come from my heart or soul, it was just something that I rationally believed in, and that I was able to do well, but my main intention wasn’t about me, it was about making other people happy. Or so I thought. And that’s the point: I did think that I just wanted to make other people happy at the time, that I wanted to be there for others, create something meaningful for a better world. I felt like I didn’t need much for myself, I didn’t dare to ask for anything for myself, and I somehow thought that this self-sacrificing was noble. But deep down I hoped that if other people valued my deeds and work, then through their eyes and judgement, I would become worthy of existing or maybe even being loved. I was unable to see, that not only did I not need to prove anything to be loved or accepted, that I was already whole, but that my ability to receive love comes from my ability to love myself. I was waiting all my life for outside approval to define my worth. I know I’m not alone in this. What do you do when you feel stressed or uncomfortable? Can you come back to yourself, your worth, your centre, your pure beingness without needing external pacifiers such as food, drugs, distraction, approval from others? This is the practice, the sweet spot. Find yourself, connect to source. Sooth your soul. Touch. Taste. Feel. I recognize that in moments of stress, comfort food is still what I want to run to immediately when I need soothing. I’m just now learning to soothe myself. Meditation helps, in all its forms. Breathing too. We have everything we need already in us, and as long as we’re externalizing, giving parts of ourselves, our labours to others for recognition, we are in co-dependency and that is never a healthy relationship. So, I’m letting go of my search for outside approval, of doing things that are not an expression of my heart and soul, to fully become my true self. But because it has been driving me for so long, it has been my motor for so long, it requires some grieving and kindness. There’s some anger as well, that I wasted so much of my time looking in the wrong direction. However, I know that we always act the only way we can, from our highest consciousness, and that I just wasn’t ready to see and understand until now. So, grief it is and letting go. To grow and learn and move on with deeper feelings, more options and new perspectives. Dear future self, what do you grieve? And how has life continued after this? Dear reader, how good are you at taking care of yourself? How much do you still depend on outside approval? If you’d like to learn how to liberate yourself, from beliefs and thought patterns that don’t serve you any more, book a call with me. I wish you a sunny Sunday, Love, Verena