The following is something I wrote the summer of 2020. I never shared it at the time because the ending felt off. Perhaps there was still a part of me that questioned the validity of my ideas regarding what I was experiencing. Accusations of “spiritual by-passing” still fly around in my mind. But these experiences were very real and had a profound effect on my life moving forward. These experiences were MINE. And I think it was my radical acceptance of myself which finally allowed me to let other people witness me and support me. I couldn’t receive love from others until I figured out how to love myself- I couldn’t let others see me until I learned how to see myself. That is simply my personal experience, and I don’t want to proclaim that as a universal truth. But it was powerful enough that I feel it is worth sharing with others. I know there is deep medicine in my words here. Take what resonates. Discard what doesn’t.
One night last month, I dreamed I found my two- or three-year-old self, so small with wide eyes and short hair. She was cautiously peering out from behind some objects in an open garage. I could tell she felt afraid to come out. It seemed she had been waiting a long time to be found by a friendly soul.
Immediately I went to her and scooped her up and carried her on my hip like I’ve carried every one of my own children. She clung to me, still cautious of the outside world. I carried her around and I was surprised to discover that no one else seemed aware of her. They couldn’t see her.
A couple days later, I sat on my bed and cried. I cry now when I meet all the past versions of myself, those Gracies who have been waiting to be seen by ME.
Do you know what it’s like to cry because you realize just how much you love yourself? Because for the first time ever, you actually witness yourself with no filters or judgments? Because you fully empathize with your own unique experiences?
Those are bittersweet tears of relief. Bitter, for you can taste your own deep pain and longing to be loved… but sweet, because you realize you have always been the very Love you seek, and you are finally open to receive.
It is a beautiful and sacred moment to be in such deep communion with yourself, to be in fellowship with your own suffering. Far from being a pity-party, it is the portal to Love in all its raw strength and tender beauty. Unapologetic acceptance of our feelings and experiences is the key to our own healing and well-being.
There is no external savior. I discovered that no one will ever be able to love me enough. As long as I depend upon some external source to convince me that I am worthy of love, be it family or friends or lovers or gods, I will never be secure. I walked into every situation and relationship with a terrifying desperation and rabid hunger for acceptance. And I was dismayed when I eventually discovered that those who I thought loved me were actually blind to who I really am. I felt betrayed and abandoned. I felt unseen. Lost. Alone. Unloved.
It is a tragedy, yes- to be unseen, to lack the safety net and richness of community and stable relationships in which we feel safe enough to even explore our own souls. It is to be grieved.
But perhaps the greater tragedy has been not recognizing the very support which lies within me… that in putting all my focus on searching for genuinely loving relationships with others, I have missed countless opportunities to develop a relationship with the one who can love me and support me the most- myself.
It is no easy journey for most of us, this journey towards self-acceptance and sovereignty. I used to hear people say the very things I’m sharing here, and I always came up with a million excuses to not do the work, and reasoned it was over-spiritualized bullshit that was a poorly veiled version of victim blaming. It seemed as though the promotion of these concepts demanded far more than reasonable from suffering individuals without putting enough emphasis on community and holding others accountable. And I thought, Surely, they must be deeply traumatized souls who have given up on relationships that would pull the whole “everything you seek is inside of you!”
Of course, there are those who spiritually by-pass their emotions and needs and dismiss the real suffering of others by pulling the “self-love” card. But however people have misunderstood and misapplied this concept (myself included), I’ve come to witness its deep truth- we are the very Love we seek.
There came a day when I ran out of saviors, when I had to face my raging mad inner child all by myself. No one else could see her, though they felt her fury. Even if anyone could see her and offer her love, it would do no good. I finally understood that she wasn’t receptive to others. I always thought she wanted to be seen and loved and accepted by others, and I sought to acquire that external love and support for her. But all along, she was trying to get MY attention. She didn’t really care about anyone else, she didn’t trust them. She wanted MY love.
Sitting on the dirty floor of my bathroom, split between ages 6 and 30, I finally did what I had never been able to do until that moment- I stayed with myself and did not run to someone else to save me. I did not seek someone else’s love to nourish that desperate child. I sat and talked with her, and as I gave her my loving attention, she calmed down. She no longer needed to scream or rave. She had my attention and could tell me what was really hurting her.
I can now pinpoint this experience as being the turning point. I was visited by my Higher Self a few days later and everything that has happened in the months since then has pushed me into finally doing the work I could never quite do before. It took complete and utter desperation, with no other options available to me, to finally face myself without looking away.
I’m so thankful I reached those depths of despair. It felt like absolute hell, but it was the only way I could see the truth. When I lost all external holding points, I finally landed inside myself, and was found. Seen. Loved.
Now, as I run into all these younger versions of myself when some buried pain suddenly arises, I find myself flooded with overwhelming compassion for that girl/woman. Oh, how I LOVE her! I have felt this love before throughout my life, but never in this way for myself. It is the very treasure I’ve spent my whole life hunting. It is the blissful marriage of humanity with the divine. It is God living within me and I finally know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this love is eternal and cannot be revoked. I feel its salvation throughout my entire body.
It has been a hard journey for me to get here. It has taken deep tragedy, dire circumstances, and near psychosis (ahem, “spiritual awakening”) for me to finally wake up to myself and the vast eternal love that already dwells within me.
I’d like to end this post by sharing words I would tell my younger self:
Stop looking out there. Stop running from yourself. Stop trying to transcend your body and escape into the spiritual heights from which you will inevitably fall. Stop believing, for just a moment, that if you could simply get your crush/husband/family/community to see you and love you, that the aching hunger inside you would finally be satisfied.
With whatever meager ounce of bravery you can muster (yes, you are brave to even consider this), I ask you to face your aching self and consider that perhaps the love and acceptance you are craving is simply the voice of your own experiences waiting to be heard by you. Will you listen? If so, how will you respond? Will you defer to others? Or will you stand in your own body and say I AM HERE?
Carry on, Gracie. Form friendships, seek help, create community. Other people are vital in helping us heal. But realize that the true healer is you. The people in your life cannot heal you or love you back together. That void you’ve been desperate for others to fill- that void has been calling out for you to discover that it is no void at all… it is the doorway to eternity.
The love you seek is the Love you already are.