You are not breaking…
you are expanding, softening, opening
“growth
april green
nearly always happens
on the inside
first.”
A song I’m currently enjoying:
The times I have felt the most lost, and the most detached have been the times I have been trying to get somewhere I was never destined to be.
Growing up, the concept I had of myself was constructed from low self-worth and limited beliefs. I spent a huge part of my life feeling as though I was broken – as though that special thing everyone else seemed to possess was missing from me.
When the concept of yourself is diminished like this, you tend to identify with limitation; you believe the voice of the ego, you feel you don’t belong, you follow the crowd, you feel unstable, torn in two – broken. You don’t understand why, and you have no conscious method to attempt to understand why.
When your inner self doesn’t match your outer self, you feel broken.
The discomfort of not knowing who I was pulled me out of alignment, and I took on the identify of who I was expected to be, and who I thought I needed to be in order to live a happy life. But, living a lie: hiding who I was, shrinking to fit in, and suppressing my creativity, created a feeling that was anything but happy. I can look back at these times and see that my inner self wasn’t matching my outer self, which is why I felt something was missing – I wasn’t “being myself.”
Having low self-worth – the belief that I wasn’t good enough, that I didn’t matter, perpetuated a cycle of reckless self-abandonment as I searched for the parts I believed to be missing, and suppressed the parts I didn’t understand. (I now know these were the magic parts.) I became attached to the false idea that my happiness depended on everything and anything outside of myself. I would grasp at things, cling to them, put my life on hold for them, and always come away empty handed. Attachment to false beliefs: “If this happens I will be happy. If that happens I will feel loved. If I don’t have this thing, then I will feel incomplete. I need this thing to find myself, to feel complete.”
My spiritual practice, which forms a large part of my recovery from addiction, taught me that I was never broken. My thought system was broken. My beliefs were broken. The connection to my true nature was broken. And it was this disconnection that nearly always led me to putting my life into the wrong hands, the wrong substance, the wrong habit, in the hope it would “make” me feel more whole, and ultimately more worthy.
The flowers beneath your feet
So, what is it – this thing in the distance that we sabotage our lives for? This thing we believe will make things better? This thing we put all of our faith into? It is a broken thought system, a mental activity that feeds us the false idea that there is somewhere better than where we already are. That here, (reality), there is pain, and discomfort, and ordinariness, but over there – is love, and freedom, and extra-ordinariness. It arises when the connection to our deepest self, (to who we truly are), becomes misplaced. It arises when we’ve gone through a difficult period, when we feel unbalanced, confused, lost, and lonely. It takes us away from reality because it feels our discomfort. So we follow it into the past and the future because these places appear to be the only two reference points where we feel safe and in control.
In my experience, when you don’t know yourself – when you haven’t learned how to trust yourself enough to validate yourself – you will invariably experience feelings of uncertainty, insecurity, and instability. The slightest tug of hope can lead you further away from your core and cause you to believe that if you keep travelling towards a future point, you will eventually arrive there and find out who you are. You will feel complete, and happy, and at peace. All will be well.
But when we’re somewhere other than here, we miss the flowers blooming beneath our feet. We miss the movement of the earth: the movement of the body, the beating heart, because we’ve unwittingly become fixated on an illusory light in the distance that looks like the answer. We get trapped inside a mental activity that feeds the cycle of seeking, prolongs the feeling of discomfort and agitation, and acts like a blanket covering the present moment. The ego’s whole thought system blocks joy, so we will always perceive ourselves as unfulfilled. And, we will just keep searching for more.
“I imagine what it must be like to stay hidden, disappear in the dusky nothing and stay still in the night. It’s not sadness, though it may sound like it. I’m thinking about people and trees and how I wish I could be silent more, be more tree than anything else, less clumsy and loud, less crow, more cool white pine, and how it’s hard not to always want something else, not just to let the savage grass grow.“
Ada Limon
Photo by Luis Zheji
We see on the outside whatever is unresolved on the inside
When you carry around limiting beliefs about yourself, you start to agree to them as the truth, and this determines how you experience everything life has to offer you. But a deeper part of you knows these beliefs are not true. And this is the part that you must consciously, and deliberately bring into the light of your awareness if ever you find yourself in the grip of limiting beliefs.
“Whoever you are
be that.
for you are too
breathtakingly unique
to ever hide yourself
from the world”
photo by Luiz Clas
It was breast cancer that gave me the chance to finally get still, and rest in my body. It’s a paradox, but it took the loss of a breast before I began to feel more whole. It was as though Grace sent a bluebird to my heart. I am humbled that I found the courage to listen to it’s song. I studied Reiki, and spirituality, the principles of which helped me recover from addiction too, and I fell in love with exercise, and crystals, and rituals. But, most of all, I started to understand the very thing I had neglected the most – the inside.
“Never expect another person to become
Bloom for Yourself
the thing you need.
You have to find that within yourself, first.”
Becoming who you already are
Every wound, every piece of you that feels rejected, or lonely, or unworthy is inviting you to start healing the deepest parts of your being
Healing for me began when I was able to see my patterns. It began when I felt compassion for the confused and reckless person I used to identify with. And it continues each day as I forgive myself for not having the necessary mechanisms to change the way I used to feel about myself.
Radical self-acceptance is necessary to be able to fully embrace and enjoy everything life is giving you. Because, once you start to welcome every single piece of who you are – the darkness, the shame, the guilt, the secrets, the pain, the light – the Earth rises to meet you. It holds you and shows you all the different ways you can become comfortable in your own skin. Over time, you start to know who you are, you start to honor who you are, and you start to stay in that space. There is power, and beauty, and Grace in this invitation.
Once I started owning who I was, I started to travel a little lighter. But, that doesn’t mean that everything is always great, it means that throughout the ups and downs, there is still a feeling of strength and resilience. The heaviness of a darker season doesn’t carry the same weight. Seeking still arises – the desire for more. And, even when I know what I’m moving towards, I still have to check in with myself to find out why I want to get there. Is it because there is something here that I want to move away from? If so, what is it? I try and find this answer before I take the next step.
My spiritual practice is valuable for observing this. I have learned through Advaita that the mind appears to be split between fullness and searching for fullness. So It can only realise it’s fullness by letting go of the search. Another way to describe it is: the mind can only fully experience itself by returning and softening back into itself. The same can be said of us – which is why my next book is called Softening.
Dance like no one’s watching – how I dissolve the ego and connect with myself
I’m sure we have all danced like nobody’s watching, but if you’re anything like me, it still sometimes feels like there’s an inner judge watching. However, I discovered this a few years ago – if you move, sway, dance with your eyes closed, and with the deliberate intention of rising above the inner judge, something really magical happens. You stand up to your inner critique. You break through the barrier it has placed around you in an attempt to keep you from being true to yourself. You rise above it.
I sometimes do this sitting up in bed after just waking, and before I start to write. It really does connect me to my deepest self and dissolves the mental activity from taking over and interpreting the day ahead. I find it really helps with self-esteem and confidence, and recently it has eased my symptoms of anxiety and depression. Once I pass through the initial shudder of self-consciousness and embarrassment, there is an expansion, and then a kind of liberation. My arms start feeling like little strobes of energy swaying through the air. It’s quite an incredible way of overcoming discomfort. The self-judging part of me shrinks in size as the vastness of my inner world becomes realised.
If you struggle with meditation, then I would invite you to try this method instead. I find it to be a much easier, more natural way of stilling the mind and connecting with your true self. Dance like no one (including yourself) is watching!
Wild woman:
do not be afraid to dance alone.
The Eath has been waiting
for you.”
A x
What I’ve learned over the years:
→ The constant fear of not being good enough, of rejection, of being hurt, will not go away by striving to look a certain way, or achieve a certain thing.
→ It is inner fear that causes us to seek solutions on the outside. And these solutions make us feel less than, and incomplete. They make us feel worse.
→ Healing starts when you have the courage to go within and connect with the parts that need to be seen, and heard, and loved.
→ You are not losing out by being present. You are losing out (on living) by thinking about an illusory future.
→ There is nothing more beautiful than experiencing life, and all it has to offer you, instead of using life to try and fix what you think is lacking from your life.
→ Unless you accept that what is here is already whole and already perfect, (including yourself), then you will always feel a sense of unfulfillment.
→ Enjoy all the things that fall onto your path, but know that you can still be happy without these things.
Some snippets of my life: London
Nuggets of wisdom / tender reminders:
♡ Sometimes, the identity you have built around yourself is the very thing that’s holding you back. It’s okay to empty yourself of everything you thought you knew and start again
♡ If you believe you’re not good enough, then you will attract people into your space who will treat you as though you’re not good enough.
♡ Please find the courage to reject your negative belief system and start again.
♡ Without positive, healthy self-esteem, you will never get to experience how valuable you are
to yourself, and the world in which you belong.
♡ Your opinion of yourself is what matters. Other people’s opinion of you belongs to them.
♡ When you have a strong sense of your own worth, you will not be easily moved.
♡ Don’t use people and things to cover over the feelings you have about yourself. Understand that you are enough as you are, then build your life around this beautiful truth.
♡ When you open a door within, you will find the answers.
Something I’ve been meditating on:
One of my favourite spiritual teachers: J. Krishnamurti said:
“The mind operates as a sieve through which the experience goes and leaves sediment as memory. With that memory or residue, the next experience is met.”
Volume 1 of my free digital magazine HEAL was released last week and I am humbled by the messages you have sent me. I feel more honored than ever to be sharing my thoughts with you here. Thank you.
Sparks of light:
A controversial figure, but I used to be slightly obsessed with Osho’s teachings. It was his meditation methods that helped me learn to dance the ego out. Here is a link to some more information on dance as meditation
This week, I’ve been grateful for:
The teacher that resides within me and the friends who offer their perspectives. I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to use this space to learn more about myself, and I give thanks for such a healing practice.
Thank you for your emails. I read your comments below and I reply, but some work is being carried out to this website soon so that you receive my replies!
It’s an honor to be here sharing my words with you, and I am incredibly grateful for the time you have taken to read.
Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to expand and grow into this new space. For following along, for reading my work. Feel free to keep in touch: april@bloomforyourself.co.uk
Sending love and light always, April xxx