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[onefoundsoul-blog]

An Empty Vase

Racing thoughts. Anxiety. Depression. Anger. Fantasy. Denial.

They flooded my mind. They flooded my body. They flooded my soul. They kept me distracted, almost as if they knew I was trying to find an answer. In their subtle, yet wicked ways, they kept me from my path of self-discovery. They kept me in chains, imprisoning me to a person whom I knew nothing of. 

The past few months of self-discovery have opened my eyes, to say the least. Identifying these self-defense mechanisms helped me find out who I truly was. With each self-defense mechanism I lifted from myself, like blankets, sheltering me from the truth, I discovered more and more about who I was. 

I found that what was holding me back the most, was what I longed for the most. What I thought I needed the most, was what was destroying me the most. 

Relationships. 

Yes, I said it. I didn’t know who I was without a relationship. I didn’t know who I was without the intimate love from a significant other. So, I chased it. Like a cheetah to its prey, I ran after love to feel alive. I ran to love to avoid myself. This, was my truth.

I was an empty vase. And I needed to be filled. With each person I dated, I acquired pieces of their personalities, each filling my vase, little by little. What I thought to be self-discoveries, were false illusions. I wasn’t finding myself. I was finding other people. 

Until eventually, I was an empty jar, partially-filled with fragments of the personalities and opinions of other people. 

And what happens to jars when they’re not handled with care? They crack. Each heartbreak, cracking me, little by little, erasing the person I thought I was becoming. Not only had I lost my significant other, but I lost the person I thought I was. Without them, who was I? Until eventually, I shattered, into a million pieces.

You see, it was my fear of looking within myself that kept me constantly searching for myself externally (i.e, relationships). My relationships kept me feeling secure. I was their prisoner. A prisoner looking to escape. 

[onefoundsoul-blog]

Why not take advice from one of the greatest (and one of the founders) of western philosophy?

This is a daily reminder to constantly learn about yourself. Treat each day as an opportunity for self-discovery. Seek out your weaknesses, your faults and your past traumas. Identify them. Conquer them. Grow from them, and learn from them. Treat them as stepping stones to a better life, not as chains to a prison. After all, the only way to care for your problems, is to know they exist.

[onefoundsoul-blog]

Where it all began...

It wasn’t always like this, you see. As a kid, I knew who I was. My innocence and my limited knowledge of this world made me feel safe. I wasn’t afraid to be alone. I wasn’t afraid of silence. I wasn’t afraid to do the things I enjoyed. I wasn’t afraid of my own thoughts. I loved with all of my heart. But the older I got, and the more I grew to learn about this world, the less innocent I became. The things I once loved doing, now peaked no interest. The places I once found extraordinary, now seemed ordinary. Who was I? Who had I become? These questions seemed to constantly run through my mind.

I started to live solely through the fears and opinions that others had instilled in me. Instead of learning my own opinions and belief systems, I lived through the opinions and belief systems fed to me by others. It is truly no surprise I lost myself. 

For every day I lived through the words of others, I felt myself drift away, piece by piece. Until eventually, the “me” I once knew so well, was completely gone. All that was left of me were broken fragments of the opinions and fears of others. To cope with this, I reached for relationships and intimate “flings” to find relief and comfort. I attached myself to others to feel alive. I looked to others to find myself, which come to find out, was the root to all of my problems. 

After consecutive failed relationships and friendships, and countless heartbreaks, I had to admit to myself a hard truth. I used relationships to feel alive because I didn’t know who or what I was without them. I had to hold myself accountable to this. Talk about a hard pill to swallow. 

I really got to thinking about this. If I didn’t know myself, how could I love myself? And as the well-known saying goes, if you can’t love yourself, how do you expect others to love you? Things finally started making sense. 

I am on a mission to find myself. I am going to find the “me” that I am meant to be. This journal will be extremely personal. I will be forced to admit harsh truths from my past, but in order to grow and learn about myself, I must face these challenges head-on. I will be sharing every bit of this journey with you all. By doing so, I hope to help those who seek it. I know full-heartedly that millions and millions of people, both men and women, suffer from this every day. I also know that, amongst other things, this may be the leading reason people choose to end their lives and/or search for coping mechanisms to escape (i.e drinking, smoking, drugs, relationships, etc). 

I am going to take you all back in time to the origin of my problems. I will share with you some of my deepest, darkest secrets, even those I wish not to admit to myself. I hope my words encourage you to go down the same path of self-discovery. I hope my story helps answer some of the longing questions you’ve had about your selves. At a minimum, I hope you find comfort from my posts, in knowing that if you suffer as I have, you are not alone. 

With love, 

One Found Soul