Or facing ‘awkwardness’ as a result of having judged everything that I am now testing to integrate in my life – joke is on me! Lol
One thing that is constant within a process of change is adapting to the ‘new version of me’ where it’s kind of like making space for ‘the new’ to be created in my life and this can range from changing perspectives to changing habits, behaviors, ways of looking at things, ways of perceiving reality, ways of interacting with others, ways in which I decide to experience myself… and one thing that I had kind of forgotten about is the initial ‘discomfort’ or ‘awkwardness’ that emerges within oneself when one is first deciding to change something or implement something ‘new’ in our lives.
I was talking to someone that I support in their own process of self-change today and it reminded me a lot of how I used to go through the same kind of judgments that he’s going through when it comes to identifying the points of change and even while considering what words it would take him to live to change such old habits into the new version of himself – that he actually wants to express and live as – he starts feeling somewhat ‘fake’ in doing so, not ‘authentic’ and I can relate a lot to that, especially with some of us people that have ‘engraved’ our personalities as these ultimate and unchangeable statements of ‘who we are’ and believing ‘we should and cannot change those parts of ourselves, no matter how constructive the reason might be, which of course becomes the most limiting thing to ever hold on to.
This reminded me of the saying ‘fake it till you make it’ which was a somewhat common thing to read and hear at the beginning of my process of understanding who I am as my mind and so taking on the process of self-change, but I never really understood it when it came to ‘faking something,’ but today it became a lot clearer how there is definitely this ‘transitional phase’ where one has to actually step out of the old and into the new and that leap that one decides to take on isn’t at all a ‘walk in the park’ for many, and I guess it all depends on many variables and individual contexts, but I certainly can share about my own.
I had tended to judge anything that was too positive, too bright, too ‘shiny and happy’ so to speak as something that was unrealistic, something fake, something that was covering up the ‘deep ugly truth’ behind the shiny façade and so I lived in this kind of judgment for most of my life actually, essentially creating a set of ‘immovable’ judgments towards anything that I decided was not ‘real’ and was ‘too good to be true’ apparently, which led me to then of course create – accept and allow – the exact opposite as ‘who I am’ and how I decide to think, be, live and interact with in relation to myself, the way I would think and perceive things, the relationships I’d create and the kind of personalities, words, thoughts, experiences I’d develop as ‘who I am’ in general.
When I made a clearer decision to actually start changing this very ingrained personality and starting to take those first steps out of the ‘old’ as all that comfort in gloominess personality in me and starting to embrace or integrate a more joyful, affable, open or happy way of being and expressing, I completely felt like a fake, because! I was experiencing the judgments that I had created and imposed towards everything that I had in fact denied myself to be, live and experience as ‘who I am,’ even if that meant having actually a more settled, grounded, enjoyable life and expression – instead of living in constant judgment and denial of that which I discovered I genuinely enjoy!
It felt so awkward to in essence open up myself to ‘the joy of life and living’ so to speak, which by the way didn’t happen that ‘long ago’ to be honest, even if I had been very busy with suggesting ways to create a change in the world, deep down within myself I was still sort of refusing to give up my own gloom and doom, which was in turn reflected in the very detail of how I would approach – read judge – anything that seemed too happy, too joyful, too ‘lively’, too colorful even – and oh boy am I facing this last one currently lol – and what ended up happening is that I became subject to my own judgments when I decided to stop this character/personality in me and bit by bit, slowly but surely start shedding this ‘past’ personality within me that was existing in a denial and continuous judgment to the actual potential and expansion that life can be lived in.
Why was that? In a way I had created a false sense of comfort – just like any other personality – in things not ever going ‘that quite right’ and so always having something to worry about, something to be emotional about… which becomes another energy-addiction where I was criticizing ‘positive thinkers’ for example, without realizing I was living exactly the same way but in its polarity in fact. That’s also how I realized that as much as I was apparently criticizing others for being ‘into the light and love’ I was in fact doing the exact same just in the opposite end, not that it meant ‘hatred and darkness’ in such ‘opposite way’ lol, but close enough to seeing everything as futile, without solutions, believing that life was never ever meant to be ‘lived happily’ but simply made ‘justice’ of and even if I knew this potential of living a ‘good and happy life’ is common sense – and is what most people aspired to, including myself at a theoretical level – I could not even fathom myself and my actual happiness or how that could be genuinely lived because I was existing in so many judgments and denial of such possibility in my life that even in moments where I was in environments where it was genuinely a supportive environment all around, I didn’t feel ‘quite right’ in it all, it felt ‘too awkward’ lol, because of it being ‘too good, too positive’ for me at that stage in my life, which meant I had to face some more years of self-denial until I decided to step out of my gloomy cocoon for once and for all – or being in the continuous process of doing this in my case.
Well, what I had to do is to actually walk through and debunk all of my judgments towards all of these living potentials that surely can be identified as ‘positive’ but that’s also another point. I decided to no longer see them as ‘positive,’ as an experience only, but rather look into the substance, the expression that I decide to live and express because I see this is what’s actually best for me and so for everyone else – instead of holding myself back or ‘down’ based on a personality that I actually had quite a bit of a ‘hold’ to, based on what I believed ‘I should be like’ which yes, would still be very rigid and ‘unchangeable’ in spite of me agreeing with certain notions of what would be an actual happy, free and loving world… I still deep down within me denied those same things to be experienced in my life…. Until fairly recently.
So! In my discussion with this guy, I realized how I had gone through the exact same ‘awkwardness’ of embracing this ‘new me’ and actually still am because I’m kind of shedding an old skin here and it’s definitely a day by day process of identifying the judgment and walking through it practically.
A point where I’m facing this the most for example is embracing colorfulness and ‘bright lights’ when it comes to painting, I cannot describe how ingrained it is within me to tend to end up darkening everything to the point of barely being able to see a thing… I’ve been ‘struggling’ with that a bit but I know exactly what those thoughts are when it comes to placing some thick layer of pure – unobscured color – such as: ‘that’s too bright, that’s too colorful, shade it down, it’s too lively, that wouldn’t be you!’ and this last bit right here: ‘that wouldn’t be you!’ is the one point that kicks me back into my judgmental ass and in a moment there I am, again going for the darker tones….. only to then now having to be adding light as a way to step out of my pattern again, and it’s not the ‘best result’ either according to my yes ‘current’ judgment, but I see it as a way to go breaking through and also learning what happens when I follow those thoughts of ‘oh that would not be you!’ or ‘that’s too bright/too happy!’ and actually go daring more with stepping out of my old patterns. It becomes awkward, because of all those judgments rushing back at me… lol, hence ‘the joke is on me’ because I never thought of myself being doing that which I had almost ‘resigned’ to ever do again.
It does feel at times like cringing inside myself whenever I’ve had to go implementing these sort of changes in various areas of my life, I’ve felt fake, felt ‘not me’, felt like I was being a ‘hypocrite’ because I was then now trying to be and express that which I had always judged as ‘too fake, too happy, too positive, too good to be true’ but! It’s actually quite cool and ‘the place to be in’ when it comes to actually changing, because I’m facing the totality of myself, my creation as my judgments and having to walk through them in order to now give myself the creative authority and freedom to be, live and express the way that I see is ‘here’ as myself, that I want to now live and develop as my expression.
This example can be expanded to anything else where changing becomes an experience of ‘doing things out of character’ which yes! It is exactly what it is all about, it is about shedding the old and into the new, while being aware that yes, there is that phase of adaptation, of shedding, of trying new things, testing out ways, finding what ‘works’ for us in many ways, that is a process, for sure. Yet this is already a doing, taking a step forward, a decision to ‘step into the unknown’ which to many of us might seem ‘too risky’ or ‘too uncertain’ but, something is quite clear to me by now: we have to give ourselves that power/ability to reinvent ourselves, and this is precisely what I’ve found supportive to remind myself of whenever I get this ‘awkwardness’ within changing these aspects within and without of me.
The ‘awkwardness’ is nothing else but the result of my own judgments staring back at me, I see my own mirror/my-error of what I built, created and participated on before when believing that I had the right to judge, to criticize and diminish anything that I defined as ‘wrong’ essentially – still a morality point – and it’s quite ludicrous because I was actually imposing this to what life is about currently for me – of course considering its ‘ups and downs’ – but I’ve learned to also focus on the potentials, the enjoyment, the growth, the expansion, taking risks, taking opportunities… I guess I’ve been writing a lot about this kind of stuff as of late, but that’s what I’m set on and can only share about the bits of discomforts experienced in doing so, embracing the ‘newness’ so to speak and letting go of my judgment to it all as ‘too good to be true’ or ‘too fake’ because we decide who we are in what we express, we give ourselves the authority/authorship in what we create and who we are within it.
That’s the key within this all as well; it’s not so much about ‘what’ we do but WHO we are within it. Ultimately it’s not really about colors or brightness, lightness or darkness, it’s about what we decide to express as ourselves, without judgments, but purely through the physical expression and in whichever form, shape or color this comes through. That’s how I’m currently facing the process of going to the ‘extremes’ and testing my ground in it, lol, which is kind of fun when looking back at it but I surely have faced times of ‘this isn’t working at all’ but don’t get to that point of giving up on it any longer, I just recognize this ‘awkward and uncomfortable experience’ for what it is: a transitional experience while I go practicing, testing out, weaving this new me for now… I mean who knows how many ‘new me’s’ I’ll ever create! Reinvention is quite a relevant word for me these days and it’s not so ‘easy’ for someone like me that lived through judgment/as judgment towards myself, anything and everyone. So, yep, I’m where I’m supposed to be to ‘face my music’ and stand up from it.
I’ll share back how it goes but so far, have had to stop my own train of thoughts according to some of the paintings I’ve done and their nature, and their purpose and instead, give myself the opportunity to rather decide ‘who I am’ in it and the expression within me while creating an image, rather than being defined by the shape of the image itself – not entirely easy at first but, getting there and I’ve discovered this is actually the me that I want to live and express, the one that steps out of ‘my own mold’ into something new… it becomes a bit more of an adventure to live this way as well.
Ms. Reformed gloominess signs out.
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