Want to Be Delighted and Amazed With a 'Lived Life to the Full' Epitaph?

I had a vision of myself in the shape of a turkey running into the sunset making one last ditch attempt to take flight while hysterically shrieking “I want a do-over, I want to live life to the full”, all the while knowing my epitaph was more likely going to be “Triggered and Distracted, Try Again Next Time”.

Triggered and distracted, these were the words that came to me after I was considering how sidetracked a conversation with my partner had gotten, and I realised that would be a good description of much of our time together, and much of our individual and collective lives.

The start of a new year has been and gone, that time of self reflection and hope already a distant memory. Time has marched on, eaten up in the business of day to day living. Sure, I have a few nice memories here and there, but it feels like it could be so much more – and I know why, I keep getting triggered and distracted by a whole bunch of (not living life to the full) stuff.

Listening to more of Sarah Blondin’s soothing tones this week, I was captivated by her meditation on Our Warring Self versus Our Infinite Self.

She describes the warring self as “the part of you that hides under the surface and surprises you when she shows her teeth. The part of you that you deny, push away, pretend does not live in you. She is your darkness, the one who dwells in the shallow waters of your being, riding up on the back of your self righteous ego. She is in every one of us.”

I felt guilty because my warring self showed her teeth last weekend when I was in a store buying a new top. The label on it had the wrong code, and the young sales girl was doing her best to find a code so she could put it through the system. A supervisor was drafted in to help, but to no avail, and I was getting anxious.

I had headed to the checkout after receiving a phonecall that the rest of my family were ready to be picked up in the forest where they had been riding. I had said I would be there in ten minutes, and was acutely aware that it was now taking longer.

There are so many subtle layers mixed in to just this one tiny example, but I can summarise by saying my people pleasing tendencies together with childhood lessons about “being on time” had kicked into overdrive. Eventually, after standing smiling and waiting patiently, my inner turmoil was enough to alert my warrior that I’d had enough and needed to take immediate action to alleviate the discomfort.

On the inside I felt incredibly anxious, and it turned to anger. On the outside, I have a mental snapshot of the sales girl’s surprised face in my head as the patient customer in front of her suddenly turned into a tense, complaining one. “I will just have to leave it” I said in a clipped tone, “I have family waiting to be collected. But I am very disappointed that I have stood here for ten minutes and can’t buy the top I wanted despite having the ability to pay.”

Now while all of that is legitimate, and it probably wouldn’t rate as one of the worst experiences the sales girl has had in her job, the internal intensity of it for me was very much one of the warring self.

In contrast, the infinite self is “tender, able to withstand storms” Sarah Blondin says. This is who “catches the furious pain of others, the difficult experiences you face, the things that make you want to fight, and she cradles them, swaddles them in unconditional love over and over. She is the bottomless source of light and love, she is your essence. Pure and wise, she lives in your deepest depths.”

Most importantly, Sarah adds “She is the one you can choose to embody, to call forth as you navigate your life... she serves where the other severs; she heals where the other wounds...you have the power to choose which to call into form. They are two polar energies, forces living within you, a choice for you to make in every triggering moment in your life. There is no question which makes us feel more alive. More vivid”.

This reminded me of another quote I heard recently “Nothing that needs to hide in the dark has an authentic power of its own”. Yet here I am actively seeking to free myself from the shackles of the shadows of my childhood; the turkey trying to become a bird of flight. How powerful those shackles become because the voice in my head is the voice of a parent or my resistance to the parent, old outdated well-worn recordings that no longer serve.

As Sarah Blondin put it “such intensity and emotion is very powerful, palpable, weak in root but alluring in force”.

And all the while time is ticking. And the only way to end up with that “Lived Life to the Full” epitaph is to take one conscious breath after another, to become more present and grounded in the moment I am in. Or as worded more poetically by Sarah “feeling your softness, returning to your nature, is the only thing that will feed your life in the ways it is asking.”

I think of all those moments in my life where I’ve been triggered and distracted and I compare them to those where I’ve been present and my sense of humour is happy to play, I know which feels better. 

I also know that doesn’t mean I have to be a doormat in any shape or form, it’s all in the way in which I stand in my truth and, more importantly, which truth I’m subscribing to. Am I reacting from the (often) much exaggerated place of the wounded child within, or am I acting from the point of a healthy, present adult?

Ultimately, I want to feel delighted and amazed when I reach the end of my life and think “well, I really did learn how to live it to the full!” What about you?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Change Unhealthy Reactions, How to Stand in Your Truth and Be Heard Without a Fight, How to Stop Being Triggered by What Other People Think and Honour Your Story but Free Yourself of Its Shackles. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.