I do, sincerely and excitedly, want to share my story of healing in detail. It’s going to take some time to fully put it together.
In the meantime, for this post, I want to share one of the most – stunning – outcomes of this whole experience. Which, in short, is the “spontaneous transformation of motivation”.
This ***BLEW MY MIND***
First, I need to reiterate so I don’t give the wrong impression here — I’m not claiming enlightenment or anything like that; holy god no. I still have lots of fucked-up-ness to work on, don’t worry! 🙂
In a nutshell, what happened to me was quite simply waking up to who I really am, and then, accepting that. The result was an impossible-to-describe-succinctly, profound shift in Authenticity. That’s it — Self-acceptance. Simple as that.
And as a result, my whole struggle with “trying to motivate myself” just…transformed.
Instantly.
**POOF**
✨Magic✨
I want to be perfectly, perfectly clear though: this DOES NOT mean that all of a sudden, everything is perfect. “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. A person’s lifestyle, health, habits, emotional patterns, sleep cycle, automatic thoughts, relationships, finances, beliefs, perceptual-schemas, etc., were “built” over a long period of time; it’s going to take some time for Inner changes to work their magic through all of those interdependent complexities.
As one specific example, I have no resistance anymore or major-shame-blackouts when it comes to communicating with people. Which is a HUMONGOUS shift in my consciousness. ANYONE who has tried to communicate with me on a regular basis, or has tried to maintain a friendship with me, knows full well how much I suck at being a reliable communicator. In a global battle for the title of Earth’s Most Unreliable Communicator, I would recommend placing your bets on me. (Errrr, my former self; oops…maybe change that bet now, if your bookie will let you….) 💖
It is this INNER reality of shame that has changed. And it is that INNER reality which, when suffused with shame, leads one to withdraw and self-isolate, or to slip away into dissociative states and lose so much time in ‘fog’ that the conversation thread simply becomes irrelevant. The fact that a decades-long INNER reality can transform, practically instantaneously, is nothing short of miraculous.
But it’s important to keep expectations in check, both for yourself if you’re the one going through a personal awakening, and for others if it’s their awakening and you’re, you know, still waiting for them to get back to you…. 🙂
Because in my situation, I still haven’t gotten back to a lot of people! There’s a big backlog to deal with, literally years-long, and that CAN’T happen instantaneously. But my INNER ORIENTATION towards the backlog has changed, pretty much instantaneously, and as a result, I am finally (and surprisingly quickly!), making progress.
In two weeks, I’ve gone through (no exaggeration), 14,000+ emails and cleaned up two of my three email accounts. I’ve joined my first-ever support group, (or actually, that would be first-ever ANY group, unless you count Air Cadets when I was 15), and I actually went to a meeting! This, by itself, is huge, as any lifelong self-isolation practitioner would appreciate, I’m sure.
I’ve reconnected with a few of my closest friends and several others are going to happen pronto, this week as time allows. And I have started making progress on some outstanding medical & financial issues that previously were insurmountable.
And none of this was difficult! That’s the miraculous thing about this whole experience: when there is no inner resistance, you simply progress, because having a growth-orientation IS our fundamental birthright as humans. We WANT to improve, to enjoy life, to grow and learn and connect with people; it is in our nature, and when that nature is not ‘blocked’, it flows out spontaneously.
This is in stark contrast to most of what is popularly proselytized as “self-help wisdom” or “positive psychology” to people. Which in truth, is mostly —
Keep in mind, the “self help industry” is an INDUSTRY. It, decidedly, does NOT thrive on wellness, but ironically, on illness. Nothing quite as good for the bottom line than repeat customers! Hence, countless books, magazine articles, websites, and entrepreneurs peddling their fake promises of “life hacks” and “47 ways to live your best life” and “7 steps to success” or awakening your giant within or whatever else the self-appointed gurus tell us is their unique life-changing wisdom (I’m not even gonna mention Jordan Peterson’s absurd and likely more harmful than helpful “12 Rules for Life” — oops, just did…sorry…).
Although it’s not impossible for a person to be helped through the self-help industry, and surely SOME of what has been popularized has helped some people, to some extent, some of the time. But I would bet my bottom dollar that the industry has done more harm than good, wasting far more time and money, and reinforcing far more shame and insecurity, than it has ever transformed people into their “best selves”.
I promise you, we will unpack this in the relatively near future, because now that I have experienced, first-hand, the spontaneous transformation of motivation that comes from, quite simply, accepting your authentic self, the time is long overdue to swim against the tide of effluent that spews from the clearly mislabelled “self-help industry”.
For now, let’s just appreciate that ONE of the key problems with the self-help approach (and by extension, most of life coaching, “mindset” training, self-affirmations, motivational systems, etc.), is that it puts the cart before the horse. When you are plugged into your always-existing inner core of self-love, then “motivation” just flows through you. It’s inherent to your very Being.
But when you’re not plugged into your core, then it IS a struggle to motivate yourself. So you set goals and such. But those goals are not rooted in your authenticity, which is why, for the most part, they don’t stick.
Motivational psychologists would say these are “introjected” goals, which basically means they come from your insecurity, not your authenticity. In other words, they are you, bullshitting yourself.
Pink Floyd (of course!) captures the opposite of this in their brilliant masterpiece, “Echoes”, describing the fact that living beings inherit through their evolutionary ancestry, an innate propensity for growth and zest.
This is what I allowed to be released, through the simple act of self-acceptance: the desire to be healthy, to connect with people, to allow myself to ENJOY positive things, to treat myself well, to not tell myself negative things. These desires are innate. I don’t need to try and “achieve” the motivation to do these things. Self-love is at the very core of being alive. I just didn’t…feel that before.
And the backlog of things to deal with? Well, I can certainly see that the full process of making my life flourish is obviously going to take some time. (Like, an entire lifetime….haha….) But I’m ENTHUSED, right in my guts, about that opportunity now!
It’s no longer a dread-inducing sense of “ugh….I have a lot of shit I need to deal with…somehow…. Fuck….”
Now it’s more like, (rubbing hands together), “Ok, so, there’s a lot of shit to do! What’s first?”
Anyone who has struggled with procrastination, depression, dissociation, anxiety, addiction, social isolation, or otherwise has seen their lives stagnate, knows how much of a Big Fucking Deal it is when a person is able to face the challenges in their lives, and “get at it.” It’s like, the whole thing.
The secret is, you don’t have to CHANGE anything about yourself to create the motivation to take action. It’s in your core already. Get in touch with THAT.
💖