A Life-Changing Insight: You Are Not a Problem to Be Fixed

"I decided that the single most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed." - Anne Lamott

I remember one particular clear, cold winter morning as I returned home from a walk. I suddenly realized that I had missed the whole experience.

The blue, clear sky.

The lake opening up before me.

The whisper of the trees that I love so much.

I was there in body but not embodied. I was totally, completely wrapped up in the thoughts running rampant in my mind. The worries about others, work, the future; about everything I thought I should be doing better and wanted to change about myself… it was exhausting.

Alive, but not present to my life. Breathing, but my life force was suffocated.

This was not new. In fact, up until that point I had mostly approached life as something to figure out, tackle, and wrestle to the ground. This included my body, my career, and the people around me.

My tentacles of control, far-reaching in pursuit of a better place, said loudly, “What is here now is not acceptable. You are not acceptable.”

“You can improve. You can figure it out. You can always make it better.”

But this time, rather than indulging in the content of this particular struggle, I observed the process I was in and realized profoundly that even though the issues of the day changed regularly, the experience of struggle never did.

And I would continue struggling until I stopped resisting and judging everything and started accepting myself and my life.

This wasn’t the first time I’d had thoughts like these, but this time there was no “but I still need to change this…” or “I can accept everything except for this thing.” I knew it was 100 percent or nothing.

I knew then I only had two choices:

I could continue to resist reality, which now seemed impossible and exhausting (because it was). Or I could accept myself and the moment and make the best of it.

“What if there is actually nothing to struggle against? What if I let go of the tug-of-war that I called my life?”

The choice was before me. The one that comes to people when they have suffered enough and are tired: to put down the arms.

This doesn’t have to mean accepting unhealthy relationships or situations. It just means we stop living in a constant state of needing things to change in order to accept ourselves and our lives. It means we learn to let things be—and even harder, to let ourselves be.

Whenever I have a conversation with people who are struggling, I’ve recognized that they have this innate feeling of I should be doing better than this. Or, I should not be feeling like this.

It might seem obvious that “shoulds” keep us in a contracted position of never-being-enough.

But I have found that letting them go is not as simple as a quick change of thought.

It seems like denying ourselves has become the generally accepted and encouraged modus operandi of our culture.

Denying our feelings.

Minimizing our pain.

Hating our body parts.

This leads to disconnection from the life that is here, the life that is us.

Self-loathing has become the biggest dis-ease of our time.

When we are disconnected from who we are in this moment, there is a tension between right here and the idealized self/state.

This disconnection or gap is a rupture in our life force that presents itself as a physical contraction, a shortness of breath, an inner critic that lashes out harshly and creates a war within. This war contributes to pain, illness, and I’d guess 80 percent of visits to a medical doctor. ... read more

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