I missed my weekly posting last week, and nearly allowed myself to miss this week’s. I am in a major transition between one phase of life into a new one, and many things are changing personally, professionally, and socially. All of this is positive movement toward my goals, and I feel an inner pressure to present only a joyful, confident face to go with this. There is a fear that if I show any sense of the underlying vulnerability, insecurity, and grief, then that may mean I’m defective, or made a bad choice.

While free writing, I wrote something like the title of this post, and realized one of the characteristics of change and starting fresh. There is a comfort in staying stuck in patterns, relationships, or circumstances, even the ones that no longer work, that are harmful, that inspire self-doubt and despair, or simply feel stagnant and need to change. There is a fear of what might happen if there is change.

Stepping into the unknown change takes courage. So does the steps after. We move into a new neighborhood and don’t know the people, don’t know where the grocery store is, don’t know how to get to all the things we need. We start a new job and don’t understand the politics, the job is new, the technology and responsibilities are different. We risk meeting a new person for friendship or intimacy and don’t know their sense of humor, whether a particular joke is a compliment or insult, where their pet peeves and preferences lie. And we have to do all this work to discover those things outside of ourselves while continually deciding whether to stay open and vulnerable in revealing our own  preferences, wishes, opinions, insights.

I’m not a believer in getting rid of fear, if only because I have not discovered the way. For me, courage is this recognition of the fear and vulnerability and continuing on regardless. I have done it before and survived. Now I might think well about my past jobs, relationships, and lives, and even miss some of the comfort and joy of them, but I was just as scared and vulnerable when I began those.

Perhaps this is only scary for some. I have met people who seem to thrive on such change, but I only know their outward faces and did not know what was in their hearts.

What is your sense of the life that you long to live? Is there within you some image, some feeling, some idea, some sensation that speaks to you of what you desire, what you would work for, what you hope to make of yourself?

For some, this image of desire is fleeting and hard to find. For many it arrives by disguise as inflated fantasies or fears, daydreams of being discovered as the next big rock star, fantasies of fighting on the front lines against evil, even nightmares of being chased by something repulsive. These fantasies might be overblown images attempting to get our attention to what in our lives desperately longs for attention, energy, and work. The repulsive monster could be the life-fulfilling project that you’ve avoided. The fight against evil might be simply engaging in an honest but confrontational conversation with a loved one. With these seemingly mundane activities, though, is a sense of being alive that calls uniquely to you.

When life feels like it is a shambles, chaotic, and spinning out of control, tapping into this sense of possibility can be redeeming. We can sense into how action or inaction leaves us feeling. A step may be terrifying for good reasons or misleading reasons, but does moving into terror fill life with color, excitement, and vitality? Does engaging in another angry diatribe leave you feeling drained, despairing, and overwhelmed? These senses of life can guide us to what feels meaningful and rich. When we don’t know where to go, we can tap into that life we hope to have, and imagine what next step can take us closer.

Sometimes sensing this possibility is painful, bringing up feelings of shame or self-abuse for failing to achieve something, or thoughts of it being impossible, or all the millions of genuine authentic-looking reasons that interfere with moving forward. All of these arise as traps to keep us locked within our own prisons of thought and expectation. A rich life is not one of untroubled happiness. Sometimes we have to shake things up a bit, step into conflict and mess, upend the gentle restrictions we’ve allowed into our lives.

That sense of possibility and desire helps. Knowing where I want to go helps me to get oriented and direct my actions toward enlivening purpose. My values and sense of life feed the engine of living that makes everything else easier. As humans, I think we can tolerate distress when we believe deeply that we are choosing to do so to promote something important to us. Hell is suffering without purpose.

Imagine in yourself there is some sense of purpose. Perhaps a word, a sensation, or an image, something stripped down to its barest essence. You might be gifted with a clear, comprehensible, coherent map of your destiny, but that is not necessary. Even a simple word like “peace” or a sense of energy and relaxation can trigger growth. We can let this carry us through distress when things get hard, and we can thread this quality through every moment of our lives if we are willing to choose it, over and over.

Today I can stretch to include more of myself. I notice the urge to choose between and cut away, dismiss, or marginalize something. A part of me wants to say there is only one correct version of reality and the rest are deceptions, lies, or pathology.

I notice my mind racing, trying to figure things out. I notice restlessness, the urge to act and do something, the belief that doing something will dispel the restlessness and bring me peace. I notice that acting and doing and thinking seem not to bring peace but support the cycle.

I do not need to reject my mind, my activity, my busyness. Right now, I can take a breath into my center, and imagine I can drop my awareness into my heart. My heart carries another truth. My heart longs to experience this moment in all its juice, complexity, pain and delight.

I can take a breath and drop deeper into my body. My body that wants food and water, wants to be active and wants to be still.

What would it be like to imagine holding these parts together? What lies between the instinct to act and the longing for rest? What would it be like to feel both disappointed and grateful? Can I allow myself this completion? Can every part of me have a place at the table?

Within these seemingly conflicted and contradictory parts of self is a wholeness. We can connect to this wholeness by noticing first the feelings of division, the apparent contradiction and conflict. If we can tolerate this, we can feel into the emptiness and space between parts. That emptiness is the fabric of Being, that which makes us whole. Within that space is stillness, silence, emptiness, the dark matter that allows the stars to shine.

Do not be afraid of feeling divided. Invite your conflicts and contradictions closer. Let them speak, and take a breath, and imagine you can sink into the space between them.

Sometimes we become trapped by the person we are trying to be, and deny the suffering beneath. This outer mask of personality is uniquely shaped by the confluence of our personal, familial, cultural, and historical experiences but shares a certain rigidity of structure. Trying to look like “I have it all together” is one such mask, one that rides roughshod over the hurts and little doubts that punctuate each moment. Trying to “please everyone” is another, in which personal wants and needs are repeatedly pushed aside or stuffed away until that impossible day comes when everyone is happy and those needs can be asserted with a vengeance. “Always being right,” “never being good enough,” “being the good boy,” “being the bad girl,” all of these are phrases but even these phrases cannot capture the whole.

Sometimes we wear this mask so closely that we come to believe it’s our true face, and that is a real danger. The mask that always smiles has a frown lurking inside. Sometimes we are aware that it is a mask but we still feel helpless to set it aside or act differently, terrified of what will happen. Terrified that we will change in ways we can’t control, or relationships will change, or we’ll be abandoned, or we’ll get our needs met and we won’t know how to deal.

The mask is not bad in itself. At times we have needed the mask to protect the softest, dearest parts of the soul. What becomes bad is when the rich, complex entirety of the self is sacrificed for the mask. That which we cannot allow ourselves to express will slowly poison us. Those unmet needs do not disappear but rather lay in the darkness, becoming larger and more grotesque. They come back in many guises, some terrifying, some completely opposite to the need. The biting sarcastic remark when we need to be heard and understood. The withdrawal when we want to connect. Yielding when we want to make a stand.

We need not express every facet of ourselves to become whole, meaning we do not need to scream at each other or shout “I love you!” at a person we’ve known for five minutes. What we need is to sink into the waters within when something threatens the mask. We need to learn the rules of our personality and seek those things within that are impeded or buried because of the rules. We need to soften and let these conflicts surface in our hearts and let each part speak what it needs and what it fears. We may need to do the thing that terrifies us most, and we may need to make this a regular practice.

May we find some person, some guide, some community, some practice that helps us to meet these conflicting parts with unyielding love and understanding. Those parts that are most tightly clenched within us can open when we encounter true understanding, and yield a priceless gift. This gift is our selves.

Peace and joy are not qualities found in the absence of suffering and discord. Peace is the ocean that is large enough to contain multitudes. Joy is the sun that shines upon kindness and chaos alike. To open our hearts to the complicated truths of ourselves is to become sovereign in our lives.