building blocks

It has been quite a year. 

We have become aware of the cracks in the grand infrastructure designed to maintain humanity and the polarization and fragmentation of our most powerful systems, evident in the racial injustice and oppression faced by BIPOC communities and the weakness of our health care institutions in the face of a global pandemic. 

We have been forced into a semi-human state of existence, required to instantly adopt a fearfulness of others against a dangerously invisible enemy while contending with wildly contrasting media opinions encouraging us to sacrifice our morals for a lesser evil. In chaos and confusion, we have spent a majority of this year alone with our thoughts, separated from our loved ones, stressed about paying life's artificial tolls like rent and bills. 

We have been relegated to digital communications, exacerbating social anxieties and depressing our youth, all while tech moguls make billions in profits off of our basic human urges to connect with others. How, with this as the backdrop to our psyche, do we talk ourselves into continuing? 

Perhaps a better question - after seeing the suffering our lifestyles has brought us, what are we even continuing for? What is the point in trying to heal? 

Firstly, let us recognize this for what it is: a reckoning with humanity. In the face of tragedy, truths are exposed. What is it that we have valued that led us to this? What must we now value to move forwards? In these answers lies our reason to try. 

This past year I have been tackling many pains - dealing with the uncertainty of my present and my future, choosing extreme loneliness over hollow dependence, exploring how to feel worthy despite my ultimate powerlessness as an individual. For a while I attempted to fight them off simultaneously until I realized I was fighting against only one thing: acceptance. 

The path towards victory over pain is acceptance that you must heal. Avoidance tactics can only operate as long as you sell yourself the myth that you have no control in guiding your healing. In reality, it is ONLY you who will be able to piece yourself back together. The first step of healing is to accept responsibility. You're the only one who owes yourself anything, really. 

This blog seeks to outline the path of growth I have followed this past year. These are my late night high thoughts amidst hour long cries and numb drives around my suffocating hometown. These are my empty lonely moments thinking about characters from my past and facing the scary truths of my own role in shaping the suffering I now endure. It is courage. It is vulnerability. It is strength - built makeshift, piece by piece, across countries, through depression, during quarantine, through precious moments with friends and family, and even more precious moments alone in my room with my favorite playlist and a newfound love for myself.

There is no escaping your pain. There is only choosing to conquer it or choosing to let it conquer you. We are all capable of doing better than letting it conquer us. And so, the path to healing: 

1) Acceptance. I am in pain. I am capable of healing. 

2) Self-inquiry. What is my pain? Why? Who am I? What do I want? What brings me joy? 

3) Taking action. How do I fulfill who I am? How do I get what I want? How do I cope with my pain?

4) Building confidence. How do I motivate myself to heal? How do I build trust in myself and my healing process? 

5) Release. I am more than my pain. I am healing. 

There is so much to be said for simply choosing to believe you are worth it. You are worth how strong you will have to be to heal, how much loneliness you will have to face, how much it will hurt when you encounter setbacks. There should be no greater sacrifice than that which you make to heal yourself - for yourself. 

xoxo - Colette

reflections abroad

Hello all.

I sit here in my friend's apartment in Leiden, Netherlands, reflecting on the events of my past few days. I have noticed such a shift in my perspective on life here. I first attributed this to my change of location, but now I realize that the change of location is just a new framework to position myself within.

The world is so vastly immense, in terms of places to discover, connections to forge, and the insignificance of each individual action. But rather than internalize that as something to gripe and groan about, wondering if we have 'purpose' in the grand scheme of things, I propose that we look at it as an ever-evolving chance to forgive ourselves. I find that we are often much more willing to pardon others for their faults in life than it is for us to look back and accept the decisions we have made as lessons, not regrets. When I speak of insignificance, I speak of a deeper awareness of our place in our own lives, and less of a focus on our positions in those of others.

We as individuals are the product of our actions - our motivations for and our reflections on them. We typically only consider the surface-level, blaming ourselves for what we have done without bothering to understand why or making changes to our way of life to avoid repeating processes that do not add to our self-growth. I believe forgiveness of our actions is essential, and indeed the preliminary step, towards becoming comfortable accessing and evaluating the deepest parts of ourselves encouraging us to behave in certain ways.

I have three months left here in Europe, and I plan to focus on my position as an individual within my own life. I believe that doing so will me back to what really matters.

to own oneself

Welcome. Thank you for finding your way here. Maybe this will never be more than a place for my thoughts, documentation of my journey to deeper self-awareness. But, if you are reading this, I hope that is because you, too, understand the necessity and urgency of self-discovery and the consequences of choosing not to invest in the work that must be done to shape yourself into someone whole. My goal with this space is to establish a safe place to tackle this process, especially because it is such a daunting one, and one we tend not to spend enough time on during our short stays on this planet. Thank you, again, for joining me. I believe we can all benefit from going about the process of working through ourselves. The hardest position to be in is the beginning, and look, we're already here.

The following passage is from my daily journal. I often write more of my experiences and reactions, but today's was more reflective than usual and, I thought, a good place to start. 

I want to speak for a moment about the idea of 'coming back to oneself'. The phrase is right to understand self-development as beginning with 'returning' to the self. We spend too much of our lives trying to mask and deviate ourselves from 'the self', blaming our choices and decisions on mysterious, exterior forces, and shrouding ourselves from the true culprit: us.

At the end of the day, humans are painfully individual and excruciatingly alone. We flit back and forth with relationships - of all sorts - because for some 'inexplicable' reason, we delude ourselves into thinking the gaps in our beings are meant to be filled with the presence of another. It is remarkable that we spend so much time and money and energy trying to attract and retain counterparts, that embarking on this impossible task of finding someone 'to complete you' seems preferable to unpacking the layers of our own psyche. By some paradoxical confusion, we choose not to work with what is most accessible to us, but instead we fight and struggle and cry and bury ourselves in anguish and doubt and deprecation wondering over and over and over again if we will ever manage to find 'the One.' Well, the one has always been there.

It's you.

Of course, emotional work is easier, much, much easier for some than others. But it is always possible. I don't believe anyone who says that they are incapable of attempting this work. I believe it will be difficult. It will be unpleasant. But it is absolutely essential, for the truth is, as much as we may deflect from it, the only guarantee in life is that we are completely and utterly ourselves.

We have our own thoughts, our own emotions, our own passions, our own choices, and our own dreams. Doesn't it then seem like the right idea to honor that, nurture that? Doesn't it seem peculiar how ready we are to take on the emotional weight of another individual, with entirely individual thoughts, emotions, passions, choices, and dreams, before we want to understand and know our own? We are cheating ourselves out of, well, ourselves. We are betraying our power of freedom to being.

Isn't that silly to think about? How we insist on excusing behavior and blaming others for how they treat us, when we refuse to unearth the parts of ourselves that put us in those positions where desire of fulfillment from another was greater than our desire to really, and I mean really know ourselves?

If our life is structured by choice - beyond a material sense, I'm referring to emotional and mental wellbeing - and the only thing we own and the only thing we know is us, doesn't it make sense to try and work a bit harder to be comfortable exploring it? To examine our values and make sure these life-determining choices are aligned with them, informed by us and us alone?

No 'success' matters other than this success. It is artifice to believe external accolades complete us. We have the power within ourselves to achieve completion. All we need to do is conjure strength, grit our teeth, and summon it.

~ colette