A few years back at a dinner party I asked a few quests, “what
is the essence of you?”, “what is the one thing that if someone said you cannot
be or do any more you would rather die?”.
Their answers were things like, “my relationship with my husband”, “my
children and family”, “working with the disadvantaged”. But none of these answers really addressed my
question, I asked “what is the essence of YOU?”. It struck me how few people really know
themselves. Since the suicide of my
husband, in my quest to try and understand it (which I know intellectually I never
will), I have read many articles about depression. One common thread I found is that people experiencing
depression often don’t really know themselves and this unknowing often
manifests as hatred of oneself or the inability to tolerate life (sometimes
covered up by other behaviors such as addiction, superiority, overhelping, etc). (Please
note I said one common thread, I am
by no means an expert on depression and this is only my interpretation based on
my life experience and where I am currently at on my journey).
Why is it so hard to
get to know ourselves?
Yesterday my daughter said she read somewhere “happiness is not
a permanent state but wholeness is”. We know
this to be true because we have ALL had times of happiness but we have also had
times of sadness, anger, frustration and disappointment. And yet we continue to
seek this temporary state again and again and put little to no effort into
finding wholeness. Is it a lack of understanding of what wholeness
is or how to achieve it? Is it fear that
if we do see our wholeness we won’t like it and others definitely won’t? Probably
something different for each one of us. So
how do we teach this to people? How do we bring awareness to it? Do people really care or are we just living
in a superficial world going through the motions of life with little
understanding of why? And okay with that?
Dictionary.com definition of wholeness: (as a noun) –
the whole assemblage of parts or elements belonging to a thing; the entire
quantity, account, extent or number. -A thing complete in itself, or comprising
all its parts or elements. -An assemblage of parts associated or viewed together
as one thing; a unit or system.
My definition of wholeness: the ability to know yourself on a deep level,
to be able to acknowledge your good and not so good qualities. To be able to self access your reactions and
responses and find the things inside yourself that need healing and give
yourself the time and space to heal them.
To be totally honest with yourself, even when it would be easier to
blame another. To love all of yourself, including the things that you don’t
like or don’t want to show the outside world (watch for this info in your
judgement of others). And last but not least;
to have compassion for ALL of yourself ALWAYS.
Would you rather spend your life energy looking for a temporary
state of happiness or would you be willing to put some effort into using it to
find your wholeness? You’re answer to
this question may surprise you, and so might your answer to What is the Essence
of YOU?
Much love,
Tracy
