I feel sad. I feel like it is impossible to win in the game of sharing what is heart-led. In the attempt of sharing what is true. Some will say “thank you for speaking the truth!” and explain how it’s inspired them to live a more authentic life. What a win!! In the same 24 hours, someone tells me they had to unfollow me because of something I shared related to the you-know-what-virus taking a toll on their mental health. A loss.
In the game of life, choosing to lead with your heart will still break others’. Choosing to share the truth as you see it will invite all ranges of praise, anger, hate, and love into your inbox. And doing some in-between version of authenticity leaves you with a foul taste in your mouth wondering why the hell you’re living life by someone else’s handbook.
So maybe I should just stop sharing about that one subject? Would that solve the problem? Perhaps yes. Yet more likely… perhaps no. You see, I could share a profound experience of how playing on the swings as a kid brought me immense joy and showed me that every time I feel down, there will always be an up to balance it out. That story may land me in a world of praise and love and likes and support. And it will also land me in the handful of people who tell me I am triggering them into a childhood memory that hurts their mental health.
Oh, you just can’t win, can you?
Take any common experience that most humans encounter and you’ll find 4,569,231 different perspectives on it. Fast forward to 2021, bring up one subject that starts with a V and somehow there can only be 2. And if you fall into perspective #1, there’s plenty of boxes to shove you into and if you fall into perspective #2, there’s a few other boxes you’ll get pretzeled into.
How strange. With each human being containing an entire universe worth of experiences, emotions, perspectives, opinions, strands of hair, childhood memories, and preferences, there must only be two ways to think about this!
And if I suggest that the media isn’t telling you the truth because they’re paid by the same company who makes the item they so desperately want you to get, well then I’ve crossed the line and damaged your mental wellbeing. And of course, that makes me genuinely sad because how could I ever wish another human to feel sad — if I wouldn’t want it for myself I wouldn’t wish it on another.
Yet, if I wanted to tend to all other humans’ mental health, I’d cease to exist! I’d have to find a way to vanish into thin air and never peep a sound or tip the scale or say a dissenting or agreeing word. I’d shrivel up like a tomato in sunlight losing all the tasty juice that makes me worth throwing into the soup. I’d lay still in bed all day so as to not move a single sheet on the bed because, oh the poor sheets! How tragic.
How can I be a good person if I’ve had a negative impact on someone’s happiness?
Ah, therein lies the complexity of human interaction. Am I to blame my mother for how the words she speaks landing on my eardrums caused me to feel discomfort? Or is that creation of discomfort something exclusive to my own mind/body/spirit sack of flesh and bones? And the most frustrating answer: It could be a little bit of both.
If 18 strangers are proud of me for taking a stance yet a family member uninvited me from their wedding for it, how am I to feel? If three women told me I’ve changed their life for the better but one man says I just don’t make any sense, how am I to feel? My sister tells me the explanation I wrote to my boss was profound and awe-inspiring, but I’m afraid the impact on the recipient was not so consequential.
It becomes apparent that basing my emotions on the perceptions of others is likely to be a painful pursuit. Making decisions based on the handbook of another will leave you flipping the pages 837 times until you realize the answer you’re looking for is the one already encoded into your DNA. You’ll run around town asking for the best practice to please others until you run past a mirror and take 3 steps back finally realizing that it is you.
And do you know why it is you? It’s not what you think. It’s not some fluffy quote that says you should just do what you want because someone will always have an opinion. Oh, my dear, it is not that at all. Not one bit.
It is you. You are the way. You are the way because you are a human being. Because if you’re a human being then every other message you receive on your tiny phone is from another human being. And if you look at yourself long enough in the mirror and make enough decisions led from your heart space then you’ll realize that each human simply desires to be happy, safe, and free. You’ll see that when you feel sadness, it’s possible for every other being of your kind to feel sadness. You’ll know deep in your bones that when you see something that upsets you, it was never the fault of the other, but a neural connection created in your brain dependent only on how you chose to perceive the one million influxes of information streaming through your eyes, ears, and heart.
That is why knowing yourself is the answer. That is why using your own compass is the answer. That is why the perceived self-centered behavior of trusting your gut and building a blueprint from your heart is in fact the exact opposite of selfish.
Understand thyself and you understand the world and each creature that inhabits it.
The collective effort forgets that if you do not nurture each individual, your collective is full of empty souls who do not understand a single thing about the nature they are created from.
Amidst all the division and hate and confusion and political stances and ideologies stand other 2-legged creatures that have the same basic code inside of them. The only way to understand them is to attempt to understand the impossibly complex universe that lives inside of you. If you try to act upon the wishes and ways of others, you might find yourself lost in an abyss of so much knowledge and streams of information that you lose sight of the one and only stream that matters: the one coming from you.
And that’s the magic trick of it all. It is never just you because you are everything. You are every thing. You’re connected to it all yet a sovereign being capable of individuality beyond comprehension. You are the same material as the first sunflower on Earth and the same material as the deep ocean down the road.
So yes, you should keep talking about what you want to talk about because even if 4 people don’t like it but it makes you deeply content — that’s enough. You should tend to your own mental health and nourish your soul because everyone knows that when your hangry and short on sleep, you’re just going to annoy your brother even more than the baseline annoyance that’s been predetermined by his lack of sleep.
You should share the study that presents an inconvenient truth to your aunt because the truth will set you free and it’s okay if she doesn’t agree. And in the same motion, you should understand that she’s entitled to her emotions and she deserves to feel safe and healthy and secure because you can recognize those same needs in you.
But you’ll never know those needs if you don’t lead from your DIY roadmap that once unfolded and annotated and refolded and flipped around 4 times shows you that ah, yes, the way forward was always just me.
Amidst all the division and delusion we forget that on the other side is a human being.
ooof love this so much!!!!! we will never make everyone happy and it's hard to realize that we will also never ever be able to control how people receive what we share. they will always see it through their own lens of what they know to be true for them. i feel this whenever i share about mental health, but also even less activating subjects. all we can do is share from our heart and with pure intention... love this bella!!!!!