Bringing it all back home

I don’t really know where to start, so I’ll just start with the fact that I borrowed the title from one episode of Ram Dass’ Be Here Now podcast.

I’ve returned from India exactly three weeks ago, and it has felt like barely more than one. Although I am quite content with how things are (and for once I’m not rushing to the next chapter), I can’t shake the feeling that I’m spending most of my time in a sort of productivity loop. The days are over so fast and by the end of the week I’m left wondering where the time went. I’m mostly enjoying the time I’m spending with my parents and the little time I’m meeting my friends; yet, today I ended up crying for a good while, having spent some hours by myself without trying to get the next thing done. In the past weeks I’ve been feeling this inner tension between keeping space for awareness and feelings and the need to make progress in 10 projects simultaneously. And again I barely feel like even having the time to reach out to people I’m not already in contact with anyways. But before I continue with the past days, let me rewind to some weeks (or months?) ago.

I feel like in Asia I realized so much about myself and my patterns, having felt emotions I haven’t let myself feel for a long time. I’ve finally been able to admit to myself that I have avoidant tendencies; it shows in many ways. How many people’s lives have I left slowly and quietly rather than face discomfort, conflict or mere difference of opinion? How many people have I never really let in on my opinions, feelings and beliefs for fear they would reject me? How many people, including my parents, have I never fully let know my plans, afraid that they would find it ridiculous and lose all respect for me? How often would I say one thing and do another, so I wouldn’t have to argue about it? Writing it down, I see how this pattern is actually quite silly, especially for someone who is as proud as I am. And still it secretly shaped many of my relationships, because I was in denial about it happening right in front of me; and all too often was I looking for the way of least resistance. What happened as a result was that I cultivated the very same resistance, which I avoided outwardly, within myself. Or put differently: I realized that whilst looking for adventure and whilst looking for my Self, I’ve been running away from myself, afraid of the vulnerability of really opening up to others. Having understood this, it feels like I’ve been (and probably still am) on an elaborate cat mouse game with myself.

Understanding this one was pretty tough and left me in a disillusioned, low energy state for a while. I didn’t try to push against that, because I realized that I needed to feel this, rather than cover it up with “quick solutions”. When I was in the Vipassana Course in Nepal, I received an even deeper understanding of my predicament. I “remembered” that a huge portion of my motivation is to eventually be of help to others. I remembered how I tried helping various people in the past and how I felt that I had failed; my school friend Elias and my Ex-girlfriend Lin being the most prominent two of a (probably) long list. (Recently I’ve been dreaming about both, which tells me that this topic is not over yet)

Years ago I came to multiple conclusions which I still believe to be partially true, but which also served for me to be able to cope with defeat and disilliusionment. One is this: “You can’t help anyone if they’re not willing to be helped/to help themselves”. Another one is that: “I have to help myself first, before I can even be able to truly help others”. 

After my relationship with Lin had gone so wrong (or that’s what I felt all these years) I decided that I needed to sort myself out and heal, to not produce another disaster like this one and to not hurt anyone as badly ever again. I believe, that while my conscious attitude is a general willingness to make mistakes, my emotional response looks quite different. I’m coming to realise that relationship-wise I’m still terrified of the possiblity of making a mistake and the weight of hurting another, which is part of why I’m not really opening up or letting anyone too close. At the same time I’m also afraid to lose my individuality in a connection in which I struggle to assert myself (with my usual main goal to keep the peace). This is probably where my general belief that most people don’t understand me nor my views plays in quite handy.

All these past years I’ve been painfully aware of having lost touch with my deeper feeling, my true compassion, the part of me that starts crying when seeing another’s suffering. From where Im Standing now, it seems that this part had been buried all this time together with my willingness to help others; to truly touch their suffering and feel it, and to risk failure in this endeavour. Now that it’s resurfaced, I’ve cried more often in 2 months than I have in 2 years. I’ve cried over personal tragedies of others and over seemingly small things like orphaned puppies on the street. And weirdly, I’ve never been more happy about crying.

Back in Nepal I also realized, that all these years I could have actually helped others more by simply talking to them and being more open. It’s not like it would instantly solve all problems; but I believe being radically honest with one another does remove a lot of strain and built-up resentments in relationships. This is when I decided to come back to Europe for summer and re-establish the connection to my family and friends in a more honest and direct way.

Being back I’ve faced some of that already, which I am really happy about. And with it, I’ve also faced my own resistance to opening up fully, and even more my resistance to conflict. It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that facing all this holds its own discomfort, cultivated over many years. The urge to run away also surfaces regularly, especially in form of compulsive behaviours like scrolling on Instagram and other indulgences. But I’m not too worried about the resurfacing of these compulsive behaviours, because it feels like I am quite aware of this dynamic and I believe that it’s simply part of the dance.

Besides the slow unmantling of these habits, I spend a lot of time working on my projects, mostly Webdesign and the writing of online articles. I am slowly managing to come back into somewhat of a yoga routine, although I’m still lacking quite a lot of motivation. Truth be told, knowing that much more strength and motivation was available to me in the past is quite demotivating in itself, but that too is part of the game. I’ve gotten more into analysing my dreams lately, often seeking the help of the tarot for this purpose. Many of the realisations I had, were possible thanks to the tarot and my dreams hinting at what I needed to look at at the time, and it seems that this pattern continues. Despite all these challenges showing up as the same time, I feel I’m on a good path; this is what I asked for after all.