“The problem is you are looking to everyone else for validation that you are worthy of life, worthy to be breathing .”
I was only 22 years old when I heard those words from a person I called a mentor, best-friend and a grandmother and a mother I wished I had.
My world was very much different then. I was busy with a hundred things all at once, I believed stillness was regression and also uncomfortable. I was keeping myself busy just so I didn't have to confront many painful things in my life. I danced with death, actively seek for it and wondered why I was still here, still worthy of life and breathing. Somehow at that age, I thought death sounded like a good option and a peaceful one.
Only after 6 years, at this day and age I was coming back to it. I wonder what she would think about it all that I finally understood most of the wisdom she shared with me. She is now resting in peace forever but her wisdom remained, it changed me even if it took many years.
As a 22 year old and even a few years prior this, I drift away thinking I had it all and even went on a wild goose chase of something I thought meaningful. While sometimes I succeeded in chasing them, there was emptiness that I just couldn’t explain.
I didn't really get back to her wisdom until lately when I started cherishing the stillness and had that moments of, " I felt like I had this conversation or topic before". Thankfully, our conversation is still recorded and I could get back to all of them.
Now, at 28 years old, If I were to use worldly metrics, you could say I had nothing to my name or nothing to show at all. You could say I am regressing but strangely I feel content, overjoyed, and inspired.
Today is mostly about a preface, a start of many things in our conversation that I’d love to share here. Mostly about the things I know that I just came into understanding, with my fully developed brain.
I used to think I was smart, knowing many things but I realized, I only know things but I never really understand them. Because both are different things. It’s like what Herman Hesse said in his story Siddhartha about the difference between seeking and finding.
I thought that at one point I found something I was looking for and was truly happy. But if I were to be honest, they were just waves that were temporary. The contentment I used to feel was temporary, the sadness linger but nowadays, the contentment I am feeling is much more permanent than the sadness or some bad day. It doesn’t mean like I am numb but I am just content, inspired, overjoyed, and it’s hard to describe with words but I gained more confidence in life and I felt like I was re-born.
Since we’re on the topic of stillness and how I come to reconnect with all the wisdom I used to hear but never understand, I’d talk more a bit about stillness and something that changed ever since I came to understanding on the way I choose to rest.
When it comes to resting, there’s something so beautiful about it. I don’t mean resting just resting but truly grounding ourselves and to pause from every noise we have in our life. Depending on what you believe, for me Sunday isn’t really the day. Mine starts on a Friday night and ends on a Saturday after the sunset. During that hours, I learn to stop fixing problems or actively seek for it. Instead, I do things that nourish me mentally and spiritually. I even stop opening my laptop and phone as well. because with both being turned on, the line of resting and working used to be so blurry. Even when I was resting, I was not actually resting. I constantly tried to fix things or do things. I filled my head with a lot of information that I probably shouldn’t.
Also, back in the day when I rest, reset, whatever you would call it, it was a mere performative. It was because so and so found the benefit of it. But now, I found my own way to truly rest and its own benefits. I used to copy and be influenced by what someone else does on their reset day. So it creates something that doesn't actually suit me at all until I found that does.
Being so comfortable without doing anything is a challenging task for me. It took me a while to be fine with just some type of stillness. It’s not about being lazy, waking up late and all that jazz. But it all has to do with the way we think too. At least for me, I had to stop actively pursuing things that require me to solve a problem. Sometimes I just sit or walk but without listening to music or anything really. It's almost like a meditation and you might as well call it that way.
Other than what I did above, I would do some type of cleaning, reading the scripture and reflecting on it, writing some journal and eventually, reading some new books or trying to re-read the book that I want to fully understand. It doesn't have to be as heavy as I’d like it to be, I mostly try to avoid books that invite me to solve a problem because that would not be the essence of my resting.
Having a clear distinction in my life reconnected me to many things that I was exposed to but never truly understood. It was because I eventually make the time to be still, to halt anything that isn't feeding me spiritually and mentally. In the end, with my mind being a lot more centered than I gained more understanding of things that used to be just words, floating about in my day for years.
Circling back to what she told me and infer in one of our conversations, I just have to live, in my own terms, in my own ways to approach reset, stillness or everything really. Which honestly, this all should be simple but it took me a good 6 years to understand it all.
I wish to share some more of her wisdom that I finally understood and I hope it could invite anyone who read or find this into a reflection. Personally for me, it is also a way for me to reconnect to my core beliefs that I long abandoned. It wasn't that it was bad, it was because I thought it was bad and wasn't something that would be fitting with the society or the environment I was living in. This is my new chapter, a new book and journal in my life.