Does it ever seem like there are just too many ways to improve yourself? With a great wealth of methods, techniques, and advice for how to become what we long to become, it can be easy to get swept into an endless search for the ‘right’ way to be. 
Looking back, it seems like most of my efforts to change were thwarted until I realized I need to learn to stay with myself, to stay with my own experience as it is, no matter how difficult it may be. This was a hugely vulnerable decision for me – it requires feeling and seeing things that might not be what I think is the ‘right’ way to be. It is still vulnerable, but luckily it’s become more comfortable than not being true to myself.
In this regard, Pema Chodron’s The Places That Scare You was an extremely influential book for me (and I was scared to read it) She says: “As a species, we should never underestimate our low tolerance for discomfort. To be encouraged to stay with our vulnerability is news that we can use.”
During the time I was reading this book I was on a trip to Norway with almost all of the women on my mom’s side of my family. While I was there, I had an experience of what becomes possible when I stay with my vulnerability. And this has changed everything.
As beautiful as Norway was, I remember wanting to crawl up in the back of the tour bus and sleep to escape how I was feeling about my life at the time. I was struggling in my relationship, and was lacking clarity on how to find my voice in it. I wanted more than anything to honor the love we had, yet was slowly coming to realize it wasn’t what I wanted. It was extremely confusing and painful, and even being on a different continent wasn’t changing that.
As we waited for the ferry to take us across a fjord, I sat on the edge of a wall and wrote in my journal – “I feel disconnected from the beauty around me right now and it hurts like a dull ache. Like my headache. I don’t know how I feel, I don’t feel anything.” I kept writing and writing everything I noticed; my thoughts, the way my body felt, the emotions running through me. I felt numbness and then irritation, then anger and sadness.
I didn’t like that I didn’t know how I felt, and as I dug into this deeper, I didn’t like what I found and what it said about my life. I was shocked when I wrote “I don’t know if I want to be with him anymore” … and this was the first time I had admitted this truth to myself. Everything in me wanted to run, but something told me to keep going.
I kept going until I suddenly began to notice that my orangish red nail polish perfectly matched my blanket, and that the fjord below me was glistening, and that there was the beginning of a smile at the corners of my mouth. I think this was the moment when I actually got what it was to stay with myself. 
Suddenly the water was alive and blue, I could breath a little deeper, and I felt my heart open. My problems didn’t go away, but the fog lifted off them so that I could begin to face them. Even if I had known that facing what was true for me in that moment was going to completely uproot my life as I knew it, I still would have stayed, because I also intuited the joy and freedom that I have found. It was a big risk. I don’t know if it took courage, or if the pull to live more fully was just stronger than the fear.
It required me to keep coming back to myself, to inquire more deeply into my experience, and to just STAY with whatever I found there, not judging it or justifying it. I discovered that within the willingness to stay when things are hard, we can discover beauty and joy that we might miss if we run or gloss over it.
So while it can be easy to get overwhelmed with choosing between all of the powerful tools available for transformation, the place to start is a simple willingness and curiosity in getting to know yourself for real. Of course what I can see of myself is a limited perspective, not to be held as the whole picture. Yet when we have a deeply held intention to get to know ourselves as we really already are, we can discover ourselves with greater compassion and love. The self love that has come from knowing I won’t desert myself has given me great trust that I have my own back, which makes everything seem possible.
At times it feels more like a rabbit hole than green pastures, yet the deeper I go in, the more I come through with greater love and trust. Not only is this important for any kind of change we want to create in our lives, but it is of utmost importance for being empowered and loving ourselves. We can’t change something if we can’t see it – and we can’t see it if we aren’t willing to look.
So what aspect of yourself or your life might you be looking away from, and what beauty might be hidden inside?
