Papa Coco's Recovery Journal

[Papa Coco]

Thanks, Chart, Narckiddo and Desert Flower for the validation and compassion. It goes a long way with me. Feeling connected comes with feeling validated.

Journal Entry for Monday, February 24

I have a clutter problem. But addressing it as a clutter problem has not been working. Einstein's definition of insanity (we keep doing the same things hoping for different results) is holding true for me today. I need to stop repeating my attempts to declutter. I need to address the emotional reason for why I keep cluttering up my life in the first place. If I can address the reason for the clutter problem, then the clutter problem will heal itself. I know this to be true, because I've decluttered many times over the years only to make room for all new clutter to refill the void. I know from experience that if I were to give everything I owned away today, by tomorrow I'd already start accumulating junk again.

My external clutter problem is a manifestation of an emotional void that I'm trying to fill with possessions. But those are just psychobabble words. Yeah, we all know we clutter because of an emotional void. I can hear that and say that a thousand times, but in the end they're just words. For me, what's changed is, I'm just now FINALLY starting to feel that void and recognize it within myself. I'm experiencing that void rather than just talking about it.

I can feel it now how the physical clutter really is the result of an emotional void that I'm finally starting to connect to. For me, the difference between memorizing the words of wisdom and feeling the wisdom are as different as pizza and motorcycles--not even in the same part of the brain. Now that I can feel the void, I'm suddenly chuckling a bit: How dumb. I want love from my dead father, so I bought another bicycle? I'm up to owning 12 bicycles now. I even had to build a massive shed to hold them in, but I still have one inside the house with me because the shed is now full.

Why exactly do I believe that next bicycle will make me feel loved by my dead father? Einstein is probably shaking his head at me right now.

On a comical note: My favorite bike is down with a flat tire, but I'm afraid to go to the bike shop for parts because I might come out with another new bike. LOL.

HERE is the void I'm trying to fill:

My family always gave me the minimum. They had the money to help me stay in tune with my peers, but I was not worth spending that money on. They never liked or accepted any of my friends...ever. Mom and Dad were on some kind of a mission to isolate me from my peers. To keep me from having friends.

They had the time to spend with me helping me explore my own desires, but they chose to sit in front of the TV instead of take me to music lessons or let me join a baseball team. I was worth less to them than the nightly news. My friends got new bikes, and new footballs and new toys. They got to play baseball and learn music. I got teased by my peer group for most of my life for not being able to keep up with them. They used to tease saying "Your parents are overprotective" and they'd go have fun while I wasn't allowed to go with them. My friends got to be who they wanted to be. Some of them even got college educations and braces to fix their crooked teeth and music lessons when they wanted them. My best friend in grade school one day stopped playing with a model airplane, looked at me, and said, "I want to fly these when I grow up." He's a pilot today. Anything I said I wanted to be when I grew up was laughed at by my family. "You aren't [smart, rich, good looking, or any other word here] enough to do that." I've spent my life emotionally feeling like everyone around me was going to get what they wanted and leave me behind to clean up after them. Somehow, I associated my desire to be loved and respected and validated and a part of a peer group with the need to own the right toys and accomplish the right things so I'd be lovable.

Now I have a problem where I buy all the toys, but the void isn't being filled. It would have been nice to understand this before I filled my house, yard, sheds, and computer with clutter that is too thick to sort through. But past is past, and today I have to deal with what is sitting around me.

I honestly see that the reason this is bothering me more than ever is because I have reached the rock bottom. Every corner of my home is filled with clutter. I have no choice but to fix this now. I can't ignore it and put it off any longer. The reality that if I get sick, my family will be forced to deal with MY mess is making me panic.

"And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." ― Anaïs Nin.

I can't go on like this. I've filled the entire void with junk, and it didn't work. And I HAVE to address this now.

So what do I do about this old problem today?

And it no longer matters what caused the clutter. It only matters that I have an emotional void, and that I need fix satisfy that emotional void so that the physical clutter problem can be satisfied, resolved, and stopped. Clutter will only continue to repeat itself if I don't address the root of it.

So how do I deal with this? Well...I hate to keep playing this same song over and over again, but before getting out of bed this morning, I put my audiobook on speaker. I listened again to the chapter called The Mechanics of Letting Go, in my favorite book Letting Go: the Pathway of Surrender. As the voice guided me through allowing today's raw emotions to flourish without me assigning words, or blame, or reason, or memories, or thought to the emotions, I just lay there feeling the shame of being less than everyone else.

A new IFS part began to emerge before my eyes.

Rather than feeling the details, I only felt the pure, raw desire to be held and loved for who I am. I began to see a vision of who I really am inside this human body.

Rather than talking about the void, today I'm willing to connect with it. Feel it. Validate it. Love it.

On the outside, I'm an old man living in a house that's so cluttered I'm ashamed of it. But on the inside, I'm a toddler holding my arms up to my father, begging him to love me and see me as a human being and not some kind of family pet that needs to be controlled and quieted.

Inner World Outer World

When I talk about my father, I'm sort of phasing back and forth between seeing my physical dad and my perception of God. As above, so below. Inner world/outer world. I've come to realize that I've modeled my perception of a "god" after my dad. That's not a good thing. My dad said he loved me, but didn't respect me enough to let me be a real person. So that's how I see God today. As above, so below. I realize that when I beg God to heal a friend, or help me with a problem, I expect to be let down in the same exact way that my dad (and mom) would always let me down and tell me to stop being me, and be their nice, quiet, happy boy regardless of the pain they chose to NOT help me overcome. My parents gave me what they decided I was supposed to want, and if I complained about it, I was being blasphemous and ungrateful.

I was raised in a Catholic home with a lot of Catholic literature on the bookshelves. These books were filled with paintings from the dark ages; Rembrandt, Michelangelo, DaVinci paintings. All of them violently depicting God with a frightening expression on his stern, angry face. Did God truly hate me that bad? The paintings were of scolding, and anger, and darkness, and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The images that I was shown of a parenting God were of an angry, annoyed, punisher.

My dad had that same look on his face a lot. Did he hate me as much as they said God did?

I'm told that I was a baby that wanted my dad so bad that I used to reach my arms out to him whenever he was near. I'm told that when we were in church, and supposed to be quiet, they'd have to give me to Dad to get me to shut up. My dad looked like the God in those dark-ages paintings. Angry. Stern. He always said he loved me, but whenever I needed him, he'd huff in annoyance and use his stern voice to make me stop needing him. I remember being really sick once and just trying to hold onto his pantleg while the stomach pain felt like a knife, and he shook me off and huffed away in anger. If I'd ever express any emotion, he'd huff and walk out of the room muttering, "I don't need this."



So there it is: The real picture. I'm not a hoarder so much as I'm a beggar who is still awaiting my father's acceptance.  THIS is the emotion I am going to allow to flow and spill out today. I'm going to use the process to let it come out and be acknowledged. Our IFS parts just want what we want: To be seen, heard and validated. Once that's done, healing sort of just happens. I hope my IFS part feels validated quickly, but I'm okay if it wants to talk for a while first. Sometimes these IFS parts heal almost immediately. Other times they linger a bit and lead me to deeper IFS parts who travel with them. I feel like this issue is complex. Complex means a buildup of many components that darken the screen and appear to be one single problem but are more of a salad of multiple mixed in ingredients.

Today I am going to just be that baby boy wanting my father to love me without me having to prove myself to him all over again and again and again. I do believe in spiritual presence of peace. Today I call that unifying consciousness "God", but my core wiring was that God was the angry father in the paintings from the dark ages. I can't seem to erase the image, so I'm learning to work with it instead. Play the hand I'm dealt. It turns out that it was easier for the boy to leave the Catholic church than it is to get the Catholic church to leave the boy, so I just need to feel the emotions of being a child who can't fill the void with his father's love.

I have faith enough in how things work now that I believe I'm heading in the right direction. I'm taking one more step in my Journey of a Thousand Steps, and it's the right step to take.

I don't feel well today. Last weeks' dramas truly wore me down. So I hope to spend today recovering. Napping here and there. Eating healthy. Maybe take a leisurely walk down at the marina. Focusing on that baby that lives in me, arms raised, lips pursed about to cry, only wanting to be held and reassured that I'm loved for who I am, and not for what I own or how well I cover my emotions so I don't anger my dad, proving I'm not okay in the world.

I feel shame and desire. Today I need to just feel it and love it and accept it and reassure the emotions that they are trauma. They are valid but misaligned. I am loved. People DO hug me when I hold out my arms today. I just want that little IFS part to feel this, and to know that when he holds his arms up to me, I run to him, not from him.

Healing is happening. I can feel it.

[Desert Flower]

Oh Papa Coco, I am feeling so much for this little baby reaching his hands up to his dad to be loved. This is a very painful image to see. One I can relate to as well.

I hope you don't mind but this makes me want to tell you about a therapy session I had with the baby image I had, rescripting it so the baby would feel comfortable, loved and seen. It was healing.
And your description of the stern God makes me want to tell you about the Buddhist image I use of Tara, "She who hears the cries of the world", I say her mantra when I need to because she will hear me whereas my mother did not and will not ever.

I hope you will find some rest and recourse. 

[Papa Coco]

Desert Flower,

I welcome any stories you want to share about baby IFS parts and images.

I'm finding myself not feeling so catastrophically frustrated about this stuff anymore. Pain is an indicator that something is wrong. I still feel the pain. But Suffering is more from frustration that we can't accept what's happening. I seem to be reaching a place where I can easily share stories but not feel the suffering that I used to feel from the story. When I feel this baby in me reaching for my father, I see it. I feel his pain, and all of what he's feeling; desire, loss, loneliness, shame. I know it hurts. But I don't really feel attached to the long-standing suffering of it anymore.

I feel the desire to be loved. I feel the arms reaching. I feel my father's ignoring it, but the suffering isn't like it used to be.  I used to suffer in these visions. Now I feel them, but not in a suffering way. 

They say suffering happens when we try to hang on to something that we can't keep. Everything is flowing. Energy is flowing. At the molecular level, even solid steel is flowing. When we try to hang onto something that's flowing, we suffer. We try to hang onto a happy feeling, or a beloved, but aging pet, or a job we liked. An ideal or a belief. When we want so bad to have something that is moving away from us, or that we simply can't have, that's when we suffer. By letting go of it, we are free to do something new.

I have read that Buddhist monks often create highly skilled works of art. It takes months of discipline and laser focus to create. And as soon as they finish, they destroy it. It's how they teach themselves to love the creative process but not attach to it. I used to not understand that at all, but as I learn to detach, I'm starting see the beauty in that practice.

I think maybe I'm not "suffering" while I feel these IFS parts is because I have proven to myself that healing comes with each episode. So, I don't feel helpless or lost in the emotion. I still feel the gravity of the emotion, but I feel like I can let it go, so I don't really suffer...

And I do love the Buddhist images. I'm going to go find a good image of Tara and print it, put it on my wall and look at it whenever I think about God.

Science teaches that we can change our neuropathways with repetition and singular focus. My images of the angry father of creation were everywhere for most of my life, so the images are etched in, but science says neuroplasticity is real, and with singular focus, pure intent and repetition, I am able to swap out images.

Thanks for the tips. And any stories you ever want to tell me, I'm up for it.

I'm a storyteller. Storytelling is by far one of the most powerful ways to communicate. I learn from storytelling better than from information dumps.

Thanks.

[Chart]

PapaCoco, you made me aware of the emotional-mental dynamic of separating the feelings and thoughts and treating them in appropriate ways. I've since meditated long and deeply on this concept. I share a similar trait with you similar to hording. I am not a horder, I am a "recuperater". My years in New York allowed a different term: Dumpster diving. We all did this in college I think. I have been an addict of going through "trash" my whole life. The bed I'm lying in was picked up off the sidewalk near Montparnasse. It was so big, I loaded it onto my bike and walked it all home. I have a thing with "things for free", things other people have thrown away, it becomes a gift from the Universe. I nearly pulled over today because I saw a hubcap in the weeds along the roadside. Needless to say my clutter situation is not too far off from yours.

To my way of thinking, this is all about the love I didn't get (which matches exactly your description, I think). The objects we buy or find become the symbolic representations for the Love that was glaringly absent. I've been aware of this metaphor for decades now. But what I'm doing different now, is giving myself the Love that I constantly feel is absent, want and need. Now, when I go into my garage and look at the the accumulated junk, I say, I love you... More and more and more and all the time... I love you. I acknowledge the emotion of rejection that lies underneath all the clutter, and I don't even blink... I love you. I sometimes think about the baby that I was, sometimes I give the love to me the adult. No matter... I love you.

Thank you again for sharing your stories. They help me so much!
 

[Chart]

whereas my mother did not and will not ever.

DF and PapaCoco, Your stories how we reached to our caregivers and were shunted aside wraps a tight coil around my heart. It's true that I cry easily, but I in no way believe that this lessens the intense love I want to bring, share and send to all of us, little children and adults, who sought for so long something we deserved so much, and haven't until so recently found through the understanding and compassion and sharing of this Forum. (Sorry, that's definitely a run-on sentence... :-)
 

[Papa Coco]

Chart,

I am open about my own life because when I share that which I could be hiding, I almost always find someone who sees my sharing as permission to share back. I can almost feel the breeze from the energy that's being released when anyone finally allows a lifelong secret to escape into the healing air of the world.

WAyyyyyy back (1986) when Crocodile Dundee was a new movie, there was a line in that movie that always had me laughing: When Dundee came to New York, he met up with an American woman who had a therapist. She asked him if he had therapists in his outback town in Australia. Dundee said that they have a bartender named Wally and replied, "Nah. Back there, if you got a problem, you tell Wally. And he tells everyone in town. Brings it out in the open. No more problem."

It was meant for a laugh but on a deep, deep level, there is some truth to that. I guess it is another way of saying "the truth shall set you free."

Naturally we all need to exercise prudence. It's best to NOT be too forthcoming with narcissists and other toxic relationships, but here on the OOTS forum, sharing is pretty safe, and it usually brings me a lot of good responses with answers and support in them.

[Papa Coco]

Quick update to the journal

I've declined the request to officiate my DIL's grandfather's funeral. Too much dysfunction in her family. I can see that she is the family fixer, meaning that she's the only member of her big, complicated family who is intelligent and kind enough to be there when they get themselves into trouble. They require her to fix all their problems, and when she needs help, they blow her off like she's a problem they don't have any reason to help. She was No Contact with most of the family, but her grandmother is insisting she organize the funeral because nobody else in the family is able to do something that complicated. And now that the eldest family member has passed, the firestorm of the funeral is looming like a war. I recognize it. My mother's funeral was so toxic because of ONE narcissistic sibling that I have forever wished I hadn't gone to it. It was only a few months later that I had to go full no contact with all of them because of the toxicity of that narcissistic monster. My DIL's family would likely never let her live it down if she brought HER husband's father in to officiate their *-show.

I have witnessed it multiple times: American funerals are often where the claws come out for real. The family members who feed on the vulnerabilities of better people can't resist to attack when their victims are emotionally vulnerable.

In fact, it was the very moment that the more unsavory family members walked past my wife and I as they headed back to the Emergency room to see their grandma, that the TV in the lobby showed the closed-caption line on their Alligator TV show that said, "Uh oh! Looks like Jimmy's in trouble!" I am, at this time, feeling pretty darn sure that was a sign. The timing was perfect. The line was perfect. I've learned to listen to the voice of reason, feel the intuition, watch for the signs, and NOT ever have to say "I should have listened to my gut" or "I should have heeded the sign."

I will not do that to my amazing, loving, compassionate DIL. She is too good a person for me to become another wedge in her toxic family. She doesn't even want to attend for the same reasons I am sorry I attended my own mother's funeral. And if I back out, she can be freer to come in or go out of the funeral on her own terms. She won't feel obligated to protect me, and she won't be punished later for my presence. Her grandmother needs to pay for a 3rd party officiate. It's the only way to not add fuel to the fire that's been burning for a very long time.

I hate funerals. Too much toxicity. Too many angry people at funerals.

I'm leaving town tomorrow. I'll hunker down out on the coast where I can be alone for a few weeks and get myself rejuvenated. I have the internet out there, so I will still be online, but I will be where the world is quiet, and the surf is a loud, comforting roar all day and all night long.

[Chart]

There really is something wrong with our species... Glad you are handling the situation [strike]approximately[/strike] appropriately. Congrats for the anticipation of toxic environment avoidance!
Wish I could join you at the beach, sounds dreamy :-)

[Desert Flower]

That sounds like a wise decision re the funeral Papa Coco.

(So much has been going on on the Forum, I'm having a bit of trouble keeping up.)

So, my story about the baby. (It's interesting the things you and others wrote about a void. That resonates with me too. I always thought my void started when my dad died suddenly, but I've now become convinced it started with my mother not caring for us the way we needed.)
So I had this image of a baby wrapped in cloth very tightly, not making a sound, not moving at all. Almost like she's ready to let go and die, halfway gone already. Because there's nobody taking care of her. I'm not sure but maybe she's afraid to make a sound by now, afraid of being seen. The stillness of the picture scared me.
And then my T and I did a session of 'rescripting' this image. The T stepped into the picture and I witnessed that. She held the baby and I sat right next to them in my mind, in the picture. And we sang to the baby. And we unwrapped the baby and put her in a nice cod, put some nice toys with her, gave her some mobile moving that she could look at. And pretty soon, she started reaching out her hands again, and playing with her feet, being very comfortable and at ease and making little sounds.
And the first picture isn't gone entirely but it's moved into the background and the new picture is now with me too. I'm amazed actually how one session could make it stick with me like that. It feels so much better to know the baby is taken care of now.
So I just wanted to let you know these images can be worked with.

Wishing you some nice quiet times Papa Coco to recuperate. 

[Papa Coco]

Desert Flower,

It's really encouraging to hear that this type of therapy is working so well for you too.

I really like your story of the baby and how your amazing therapist knew how to help give that baby what it needed. The details of my experience varied a bit from yours but the outcome is eerily similar. It's been my experience so far that every IFS part, or inner image, or inner child, that comes to the forefront is helped after very few treatments. I've come to understand that our inner children/inner parts --whatever we each call these identities that live within us-- seem to want one thing more than anything else: To be seen, heard and validated as real.

Once that happens, it seems they are instantly able to live happily ever after. My therapist teaches precision in language. He says that if we choose the correct words to describe our situation, that we have more power to work with it. I once said that I wanted to get rid of the inner voices that haunt me, but he reminded me that we don't want to get rid of our IFS parts; we want to unblend them, validate them, love them, embrace them, and in turn that will satisfy their pain. Rescripting is a good word. It doesn't cast the sad child out, it redirects the energy into love energy. We don't want to get rid of our beautiful little children, we want to unblend them from the tangled mess of other parts and embrace and love them as friends.

It works fast. I now credit IFS parts work as the most healing thing I've done, and my MDMA and Ketamine experiences as the only medications that ever promoted healing. All other meds I've taken only masked the pain while I was on them.

I'm happy that you're finding that love within yourself. I'm finding it within myself as well. Good therapists can be hard to find, but it seems you and I hit the jackpots with ours.

Wishing you a nice, peaceful relationship with your newly freed inner child. I feel like celebrating!

PC.  

[SenseOrgan]

Desert Flower & Papa Coco
This is beautiful guys. I'm missing a heart emoji in the OOTS selection ♥ 

[Desert Flower]

  

[StartingHealing]

PC
Thank you for sharing.

neural plasticity is a real thing that in many ways is such a gift.  Many images of what I considered to be "real" I've been able to change.  My concept of "god" that was from dogma, got changed as I found the gumption to question it.  No more old bearded dude that was waiting to nuke me from orbit just because I'm human. No more self condemnation based on the actions taken by people that resulted in me being here.  No more shaming from the ghost of memory past from the 2cd mother because I didn't "fit" her narrative and she projected many negative things onto me.  Not that I have fully reached the point of 100% forgiveness for her and her foolishness, yet there is progress.  I attempt to remain in the space of I was a typical kid that went through some extra ordinary situations that my biology wasn't ready for.  Being my own best friend, or attempting to anyway.

Sigh. Unfortunately, families and funerals is .. I really don't know any more.  Went to a lot of them in my time here on this realm, and the ones where the family of the deceased got into the whole power play, dysfunctional, back-stabby, toxic s--t was the most saddening for me.  I knew a gal way back when that had a grandfather pass.  He was a successful small businessman. I went along as a friend for support. The jockeying around and the groaning and moaning and the dysfunction, the greed being expressed, honestly it turned my stomach.  The net result was the family fell apart, the business ended up being shuttered and sold, and those that got their payday ended up alone and no better off financially than they were prior to all the BS.  Many divorces, many children walking away and going no contact.  I've lost contact with this gal about a decade ago. At the time of last contact she had her own family, and things seemed good with her.

Wishing you all the best

[Papa Coco]

Journal Entry for Saturday, March 8

I'm still wondering who I would have been if I had been raised by supportive parents and teachers. I clearly remember exactly when and how my personal desires were pushed away and "lost" and then replaced with the fear of being shamed for not being what others needed me to be at any moment. The old question comes up in my mind, "How can I find and resuscitate my authentic self, and then experience being that Self at least for a while before I die?"

Personally, I'm trying to find that answer but I'm softening my approach to consider thinking the true answer might be that there are no coincidences, and that I've lived the life that I came here to live.

I experienced being denied a healthy self-image, and now I am experiencing whatever emotions or challenges that I came here to experience as I heal from it all. For example, art imitates life, and fiction novels are art if they evoke emotion in the readers. A fiction writer who wants to express an emotion in the mind of the readers, needs to create a scenario for the characters to have to overcome. The readers who read fiction to feel what the characters are feeling need a conflict to overcome, or they'll put the book down and go find a better one to read. The deeper the mystery/challenge, the more intensely the readers can get emotionally involved and the better reviews the book receives. For me to enjoy a novel, I need characters I can relate to so I can experience overcoming their challenges with them. In the novels I enjoy, characters who I can relate to always teach me a little something about myself through following how they overcome the heavy challenges they face. I tend to learn through conflict. A character without inner conflict is two-dimensional and not interesting enough to read about.

This supports the old saying "It's about the journey, not the destination." If it was about the destination nobody would read more than just the first and last pages of every novel. The journey is what what we are interested in. Life is probably like that too. How I deal with what was taken from me is my story and my experience.

What if that's what my purpose for life is? To experience rising up out of a challenge. Getting knocked down had to happen so I could experience the courage and healing in how I struggle to get back up again. Most good stories begin with a life that is going along fine somewhere and then BAM! A conflict or a challenge threatens to change everything. The main body of the entire book is then written about all the pitfalls and successes along the pathway of resolving the conflict that disrupted the original status quo. If the book had no challenges, no pitfalls, no rivals, and no resolution to strive for, then nobody would read it.

What if my life is happening exactly as it should? What if I came here to feel and resolve the emotions of involuntary separation and abandonment? In order to resolve separation and abandonment, I would have to experience being abandoned or singled out at the start of my story, so that I can spend my life being the main character in the story of how I resolved and mastered a lifelong inner conflict. In my case, the inner conflicts are around fighting to find my original life's purpose and my authentic self. My own parents, teachers, siblings, peers, etc., took me off my authentic path, and as a result, I have experienced the deepest desire to find and experience being my true authentic self. If I had never felt isolated or emotionally abandoned, I'd never ask the question "who am I really supposed to be?"

Thats the stuff I tumble around with in my head all day now. Everything in the Universe is in constant flow. Even the coldest, hardest steel is made up of bazillions of spinning, rotating, flowing molecules and atoms in constant motion. For me to feel the peace of life, I guess I need to start being okay with flow and change, and stop trying to hang on looking for old answers to old questions: So, what happens if I never experience being who I wanted to be? What if I never find my life's dream?

Maybe a better question would be: "why did I spend my life obsessing over something that changed?" Everything in existence, including thought and emotion, is in motion. I suffer because I try to hang onto something that was flowing. True peace is in adaptability. When the world changes, those who change with it are happier than those to resist and try to hold onto yesterday's world.

I'm trying to learn how to accept how things really are, and how to get into the flow of them, rather than try to fight against them. I hope I can experience a feeling that I'm right where I want to be, but if I don't ever experience that, it's okay, because I have things in this life I can treasure too. They say suffering only happens when we attach to something we can't have. I've suffered for decades by wanting to remember who I really am beneath all my fawning and people-pleasing fear-driven social behaviors. I've suffered because I've always felt like I'm not living the life I'm capable of living and I can't figure out how to fix that.

Maybe that was the whole point of this lifetime. Maybe the purpose of my life was to simply feel that disruption in my life's purpose and resolve it through acceptance and release. Maybe I'm the main character in a story that's worth reading because of my depth of character and my lifelong struggle to survive in a world I couldn't make sense out of. For one thing, People who've had really easy lives don't have the empathy or the capacity to appreciate goodness like those of us who've had to fight to feel good. Who wants to get to know someone who can't relate to struggle? I definitely cherish my ability to connect with others, and if being knocked off my original path is how I gained that ability, then, maybe letting go of the worry that I'm not my authentic self is the best move I can make.

If trying to hang on to something that's changed causes suffering, then letting go of that which I can't keep should, in turn, bring me to inner peace.

Maybe this life is more about experiencing the emotions of the journey and less about just waiting to reach the final destination.

    "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

[Chart]

Thank you PapaCoco. I have so much I want to say about what you wrote. (But no time :-( It resonates so much.