Sometimes overcoming a difficult situation requires a complete shift of your worldview.
For some time now I have felt like there were at least two versions of me in this body - one small, scared, and childish, and another wise and ageless. When I was having a hard time, I'd feel this wise version of me talking to myself - saying what are you doing, have faith, everything will be fine. I don't know why, but I've always resisted letting this version of me take over - like somehow it would mean me becoming someone too strange to fit into normal society.
I have talked to some older women who say that you start to realize who you are in your late 20s and early 30s, but that you still have a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about yourself and how you fit into the world. This passes, they assure me, saying that by the time you reach your 40s, you will have found a way to integrate the different parts of yourself and to accept who that is. In accepting yourself, you are finally able to claim the power that you as a unique person have, to get beyond yourself and your own problems and to really participate in the world.
No one is without flaws, but everyone is complete and capable of having a meaningful life.
Love, I have found, is the only thing that really works for me to eradicate the fear and anxiety that sometimes threaten to debilitate me. Aggression, or looking away, may drive them away temporarily, but they always return. Love transforms them, and more importantly, transforms me.
I am still working on myself, still healing. I will continue to have ups and downs, but with continuous effort, love, and courage, I believe I can finally take control of my life and become the person I have always known but perhaps was too scared to admit I want to be.
