How To Love One’s Demons
Demons. Monkey chatter, the ego, fears, self-doubt, that voice inside your head that tells you you’re not good enough– we all have them.
It wasn’t until an honest conversation with a best-friend-mirror last night in which I realized my demons were paralyzing me from writing.
I am well-versed in embracing the light. In loving it, channeling it and sharing it. I am much less comfortable and fluent in loving the dark. I knew deep down that an error in a recently published article of mine was instilling such fear in my mind that I had been avoiding Good & Grateful and neglecting the addressing of these deep-rooted emotions, and everything I had been trying to write in recent weeks felt inauthentic because of it.
It felt inauthentic because it wasn’t the piece that needed to surface; they weren’t the words of love and acceptance that my very demons needed more than anything, and anything else was neglect. And healing holds no space for neglect.
This morning, I embraced a healing first: I have journaled my demons in tangible written form for my eyes to see. I acknowledged them instead of neglecting them. And I went through each demon-fear and without judging it or trying to change it, I thanked it for being present, and I told it that I love it. Holding my heart, I went through each fear and thanked it for being here, because each of them have taught me exactly what I need to heal. I spent generous time with each demon until the flutter in my heart ceased upon reading it and instead transformed into hosted contentment, and I thanked them again.
I share this with you all because it was a powerful experience for me in working alongside my demons in the process of healing. It was an expression of love and light to the places that need them the most; the icky, messy, uncomfortable places to reach and hold onto. I also chose to embrace a further layer of vulnerability by sharing my particular demons, the ones preventing me from writing.
We are not strong, admirable or beautiful for the light we give alone. We are magic because of the way we light-work alongside our darknesses. The mind is incredibly powerful, and often times we forget that we are our toughest critics. Thank you to an inspirational, talented best-friend-mirror who helped me see this by sharing her own demons with me. I encourage us all to explore the heart space in offering love and gratitude instead of avoidance next time our demons surface, for they will– and I know that my heart and I will be waiting.
My demons:
- I’m terribly insecure about the title error in my elephant journal article
- I’m embarrassed
- It makes me feel like:
- I’m really not a good writer
- I shouldn’t have been and don’t deserve to be published
- My writing is emotional fluff and I have nothing substantial to write about
- All I do is share my feelings like an over-emotional little girl who’s trying to make up for 24 years of silence, misunderstanding and repressed expression
- My followers, the editors at the journal, and I think I’m not credible and that I have lost my credibility as a writer
- My blog and Good & Grateful Instagram are now tainted with the error and they are no longer “clean” and attaining to be perfect
- I have nothing to write and I know nothing worth sharing that brings value to other people
And after it all, with love for the darkness and the light that makes it so,
XO, my Good’s & Grateful’s
We Got Lost
Edit: Why I’m the Last Millennial to Not Use Tinder
When it comes to mistakes, I’m turning away from self-blaming and toward self-loving.
Sometimes, we make mistakes. We aren’t perfect. We aren’t without flaw. We are human. How often do we allow ourselves to work through those mistakes with love?
I rarely ever have. I’ve most recently shared with you all my second published article. Unbeknownst to me, there was a typo in the title. I am not of Generation X, and while the title of the piece was first published as, “Why I’m the Last Non-Tinder User of Generation X,” it now accurately reads ‘millennial.’ On behalf of elephant journal and for my own credibility, learning and self-forgiveness, it required an accurate change.
Am I going to beat myself up over it? For a minute, I wanted to. I thought about all of the times I reread my article, all of the anal fact-checking I do and how this one slipped, and all of the people who proof-read or heard me speak the title who didn’t catch the error either.
Alas, a lesson in self-love and letting go of harsh, unhealthy tendencies. The edit is now published, and I thank you all for reading it anyway!
This holiday weekend, I sit deeply in my self-love and I hug myself just a little bit tighter.
“Why I’m the Last Millennial to Not Use Tinder,” in full force. Check it out, but regardless, I encourage a squeeze of self-TLC. When was the last time you gave yourself a hug?
Why I’m the Last Millennial to Not Use Tinder
Previously published by elephant journal at https://www.elephantjournal.com/. The original article can be found here.
I have often entertained a fantasy of what love and companion searching might be like in the future.
Perhaps in 20 years or so, what my future children will experience, if they’re anything like me (good luck, kids), will be seeking companionship deeply and truly among a sea full of seemingly screen-preoccupied, out-of-tune-with-their-emotions, robot humans who fuel-fix via a glowing display where likes replace love, followers succeed friendships, and hashtags take the place of life-guiding principles.
I envision this a future where the screen plague is even more prominent, pervasive, and culturally normative than today—so much so that all my future, love-seeking children will have to do is have the courage to look up. And one day, somewhere, they’ll find themselves shockingly locked eyes with another brave, peeking soul, and boom. Cue Drake’s, “Now you’re talking my language, now you’re talking my language.”
In a future where most have nurtured and catered their addiction to this liquid-crystal-display hole, it will be easy to seek out the minority—those choosing the alternative, interpersonal path; those seeking that deeply nourishing off-screen soul connection.
But alas, the LCD-addiction that consumes so much of my generation has not reached this peak yet. (Or has it?) I am living in a sea of screens, yes—but technology, while sprouting and advancing like invasive bamboo, is still a young adolescent figuring out its place in our world while we millennials search for our place in it.
Technology offers advantages we’ve never known before—I would be lying if I said I didn’t value it, didn’t depend on it daily for directions, use it to fulfill my blog-writing dreams, or to stay connected with my family across the country. Not to mention posting hilariously punny, four-part Snapchats of my cooking and the occasional try-hard video of me singing. (Hope you all enjoy those.)
But as far as dating goes—can’t it just be this organic, beautiful thing where we meet and know from the instance of a great, intellectual, and passionate conversation that we are in alignment and want to taste all of life together? Not in like a forever way, per se, but in a way that there are so many amazing things to try and see and experience, and why shouldn’t we be trying, seeing, and experiencing all that deliciousness with someone we’re vibrating high beside?
Okay, maybe I’m romanticizing things again. Guilty. Also, maybe I’m just an old soul, not tech-savvy Taurus who sees inexplicable purpose in partnership and loyalty. Guilty, again. Arrest me, love police.
I’m also a little flighty, I don’t like commitment right away, and am not a gal for the one-night fling. So how to navigate this dating and love-mating world for someone like me?
There exists a three-part rationale against my joining Tinder (or Bumble or something of the sort):
1. It’s inorganic. Call me close-minded and stubborn—I’ve got it in my head that the person for me is also one of the last people not on Tinder and trying to meet someone the old-fashioned way too.
2. Signing up feels like committing or setting an intention to “find” someone. I’m leading a single life right now, full of all the self-loving I’ve missed out on, and I don’t want to actively try to find a partner to fill some void of loneliness. If I’m meant to find someone, the two of us will find each other without trying too hard…right? And if not to find a romantic companion per se, but to find something a bit more carefree and less emotionally intimate—well, I’m just not the one fulfilled by pure physicality.
3. The information on these platforms can oftentimes be skewed. If I were to sign up, my online profile, with carefully chosen pictures of myself, would 100 percent say something like, “Lover of love, poems, and being naked in nature; looking for a spiritual, passionate, conversational, and romantic partner to explore life with.” And while all true things, my profile would saying nothing about how some days I don’t shave, wear makeup, or brush my hair, am cranky AF, am going to want to be alone, will forget why/that I even like you, am not great at speaking my mind, stare into space a lot, and will forget much of what you say at first.
Yet here we are, in a day and age where we all know someone who has happily met their significant other on one of these online dating platforms. (We’ve all heard the horror stories, too, but let’s swipe them aside for the moment.)
Technology is an inevitable part of our present culture and world—and the dating, meeting people, and courting process is undeniably evolving with its influence. This technology world makes it easier to meet people now more than ever, so long as you’re participating in it.
So what is one tech-challenged, sapiosexual, deep-connection-yearning millennial to do? How do we connect with someone organically, in a world of people always staring down, working remotely from laptops, Uber-ing to destinations instead of taking public transport, and taking pictures in place of taking time to get to know someone?
I don’t have the answer. Maybe it’s time for me to get with the times and participate on a platform specifically for conscious dating, after all. Or maybe I just need to keep looking up.
But until that pair of eyes locks mine, I’ll see you all on Snapchat, my blog, and Instagram.
Xo,
Single girl in a cell phone world.
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Author: Olivia Morrissey
Image: Deveney Williams
Editor: Taia Butler
Copy Editor: Yoli Ramazzina
Social Editor: Callie Rushton
Being with her was like
Scorpio Full Moon Meditation
You Weren’t Meant To Save Each Other
Previously published by Thought Catalog at http://www.thoughtcatalog.com. The original article can be found here.
You and your partner will never be able to rescue each other: but there is someone else who can and will.
This is a story about an ego-love: a love that you love to hate and hate to love.
An audacious, fiery, carefree, exhausting love. A try-hard love, a defensive love, an I-swear-it love and a not-enough love. A love that drives you crazy and makes you second guess and pushes you away and keeps you coming back. A love where you’re never on the same page, because when one of you is up, the other is down. A love that you found, or perhaps, it found you, to prove something– to rectify and fix something. It arose to try and save you, to save them, or to save each other. This is a story about a rescue.
∴
I wanted to save him, to heal him. Because in doing so, I was proving that I, someone like me, was deserving of and capable of being saved, too. Losing him, losing the battle of ‘saving’ him (because you will always lose in an ego-love), was the ultimate death and torture of my ego and the self-devised narrative of this worthiness-rescue game.
I was always on my toes with him. I knew from the very moment we began that he would outrun me. He would exhilarate and exhaust me, for as light and reckless as I wished to be, I had a passionate heart that weighed me down and an always-at-it-head that grounded me. But I ran. And I kept up with him, for a little bit.
I learned to play the games: to return not-so-playful and all-too-true jabs, to be a little more careless and a lot more competitive. I learned to love the way he knew how to love. But I never unlearned my own ways of loving. And sometimes, I would sneak in droplets of my love-water, biting the bullet of ego-jabs, to try and nurture his garden with encouragement, support and faith. I so badly wanted to help him grow and reach his sunlight. But his walls were solid and his knives sharp, and my efforts to drop barriers and release my light left me unarmed and burned. Despite it all, my hope and I remained desperately devoted to him.
After the failure of “us”– after the failure of my rescue– I fell into a deep depression, suffering withdrawals from my pain-addiction to him and clinging onto a dear, toxic, unhealthy, false sense of life.
I fell sick for two whole weeks when he finally left. I lost my voice. I became incapable of speaking this very trauma-induced pain of him, this pain of my own mind. In fact, I had lost my mind.
I went to all of the dark places, because I convinced myself that that’s where I needed to go to find him. And my ego and I would pull us both out of there, into light, into safety, into love.
I know now that he’ll never come back to me. Not that I need him to, in my healthier state of self-love. For he knows he’ll never be able to give me what I need, even if I sometimes forget it. He won’t respond to, address or hear my attempts of reaching out or reminiscing, because he knows that I’ll come around and one day, once again remember he can’t love me the way that I can love myself. And that will hurt him and guilt him all over again.
When he finally left me, for the last time– emotionally, mentally, physically, psychologically– he looked me in my eyes and said, “You are a beautiful person.”
And after all of the hurt, the heartache, the mind games and the ego-pain, I felt like maybe, a small shard of my love did really get through. Maybe, after it all, a piece of me was able to reach him.
That, I will never know. But I will remember that moment forever, because it marked the first day of my next and final rescue. The only and the most important one: the rescue of myself, from my own mind. And I knew then that I would be the only one to carry myself into salvation– into love– and that I was the only one standing in my own way. And I knew then that I would be victorious. I will be my own savior. And he will be his own savior. And we will both be beautiful.
Birthday Dreams: Flowers & Potatoes
I woke up from a dream yesterday morning where I was losing myself in falling in love with another person. In the past of my reality, I have tended to do this. In my dream, I felt it coming, and while this person was incredibly special to me, I felt that I hadn’t connected with myself once in the time my lover and I had been spending together. I went for a drive in this dream-land and ended up at a small, charming flower stand where I parked and was met to my emotion-processing dismay by a mother and two young daughters who, unhesitatingly, hopped into my car to sing along to the pop song I had playing.
The woman sat beside me, her daughters in the backseat singing and giggling in their own la-la-land that is life before the treasures and trials of love and loss have occurred, and she looked to me and spoke. The woman asked me if I had a love-person in my life, and if they were at the root of the heaviness in my heart that she could feel coming off of me. I told her I felt I was losing myself and it saddened me. I told her that he was treating me, but I was still aching for my own love. In that moment I stepped outside of my car, leaving behind my new friends. I saw serene pools underneath white, Greek columns above and I felt compelled to dive into them. It was my turn to lack in hesitation: I dove into the first pool, traveling its distance underwater until I reached the other side, got out and dove into the next one. My dream-gut trusted the women in my car with all of my belongings, and I needed to be swimming and diving into these pools at the moment.
I was immersing myself in the third pool when the mother and daughters called to me. When I returned to my car, all of the doors were open and it was covered in flowers. There were flowers in every door handle and crack of the window, underneath the windshield wipers and on the roof of my car, and a woman was still walking in circles placing more petals and stems to add to the collection.
“Some days, it’s potatoes that they cover your car in,” the mother said, coming to stand beside me.
“Happy birthday, love,” she said.
And with that, I began the first day of my 24th rotation around the sun feeling a little lighter. A little bit more self-aware. Incredibly immersed, and reminded to be fully diving into my self-love first. More than anything, I am grateful. I spent the first few hours of my birthday Saturday sobbing tears of joy feeling entirely overwhelmed by the magnificent amount of love in my life. This emotional overwhelm is not uncommon, and I embrace that part of me. I am grateful to have been touched by every one of you in this life-trek, and if I have ever looked into your eyes, know that I host unfaltering love for your presence no matter how close we are. I am grateful for my journey and pains and trials that have allowed me to feel such love and joy and light in this life. I am grateful for my truth and for learning to speak it. I am grateful for here and now. And of it all, I am endlessly grateful for all that this life is to continue offering me– be it flowers, or potatoes.
Forgive To Fly
Let’s talk about forgiveness. Not too long ago, I was in a darker place. I was not surrounding myself with kind, insightful, loving thoughts, and that reflected in the life I led, my notion of self-worth, my dreams and the low-vibrating, also struggling, like-minded company that I kept. I was stuck. And I knew the health of my well-being and spirit desperately needed to spread their wings to fly and soar into a space of love.
Fast-forward to my present, and Good & Grateful‘s blossoming in the beautiful San Diego. I found that space of love, but I did not find it in California. I found it in myself, though distance from the negative associations of my prior helped allow for my discovery.
There is an important distinction here in running from problems that are within, and removing oneself from an external environment that no longer serves us. I am sure, as I continue on this learning-journey, I will find that my environmental struggles were only mirroring my unhealed internal, as everything comes back to the self. I am sure, as I continue on this learning-journey, I will be able to return to those once-places of pain, and lend enough love to them in order to rewrite their scripts. That, I believe, is true growth.
But back to forgiveness. In this current life-chapter, I have focused intensely and intimately on self-love. I am, like many, often too hard on myself. I hold myself to unrealistic standards of perfection that only perpetuate a mindset of not being, and never being enough.
Intensifying healthy, loving scripts and positive mantras have helped me to shift my thought-patterns. Meditation, exercise and conscious eating have aided me in a newfound understanding of self-care. Treating myself magnificently, and humbly, remembering that I am the full moon as I am the mud that hosts the lotus, has taught my new company to honor, respect and love me in the same ways.
@Goodgrateful: The quarter moon on April 5, 2017, at Balboa Park.
“May we exist in muddy water with purity, like a lotus.” – Zen Phrase
But at the core of it all, I am relearning that we are all and only human. If we are the universe and the earth, then we are every piece of it. We are the full moon and the sun, as we are black holes and vast emptiness. We are the flowers and the trees and the ocean, as we are tornadoes and dirt and the tectonic plates that crack and shift. We are everything while we are nothing. We are light and dark.
A flower isn’t perfect with its curved stem or curling petals, but it is beautiful. The sunset is only as spectacular and special as the clouds that blur and shape it. We humans were not made to be perfect. We are breathtaking and magnificent only because we are not so.
In this space of love, within myself, I have come to forgive myself for my shortcomings, my mistakes and my pain of the past and current. I am freed from the suffering that I clung to for so many years. And remembering that I’m trying my best and that our best is all we can do has helped me to heal painful relationships of the past. I am able to forgive others and accept that they are on their own journey– one that I may never understand– and they are learning and trying, too.
Self-love has permitted me and encouraged me to break free from the past. I am ever-growing with deeper learning and loving, and I am ever-releasing myself as pain’s prisoner.
With forgiveness, I have tasted unwavering joy and contentment. My relationships with my self, and others, have peacefully heightened and become more enriching.
We are much less defined by the outcomes as we are the way we handled things in getting there, for it is never the destination: it is the journey.
And I plan to continue making this joyous journey beautiful: to be ever-learning, ever making mistakes, ever-falling and ever-getting-the-heck-back-up, gently and lovingly. And now, once again, I am soaring.
And now that I am here within myself, I can finally say:
I forgive you. I forgive me. I love you, and I love you, me.
goodandgrateful 