The last few days have been a massive eye opener. I feel like I’ve some how skipped over some fundamental understanding of what it is to be an individual and it’s something I’m definitely not used to.

My work is currently going through some changes and it’s not exactly the most fun environment to be in. After a pretty weak town hall on Thursday, I went home, cooked some food, drank my medicine.. put my prayers into the ether and went to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night in pure panic. My life was completely crumbling all around me. My wife and I broke up in October and I’ve felt lost (which in truth I felt lost long before we split), sad, miserable. My work didn’t bring me joy. I was so angry with myself, my failures as a man, failures as a husband, son, worker, etc. I went really low. I don’t see myself ever actually committing suicide just for my family’s sake but in those moments it feels absolutely terrible and I can’t imagine continuing living with this pain. I was in absolute mental hell. I felt like an absolute failure as an individual and as much as I would be able to create some space, moments later the thoughts came back.

I managed to get back to sleep, cried my face off 3 times before even getting to the office. I was stuck in thoughts about m.. how I’ll never see her family again… That I’ll never get to see my cat… That I tried so hard for so many years to make it work and she didn’t even acknowledge it. That even now I’m bending my own boundaries because I’m afraid of having her think that I’m abusing her or ‘threatening to harm her business’. I felt absolutely disgusted with myself, with my current state, with my body, with everything even associated with me. I was simply tired of being Matt. I need a break from being me.

I was able to contact a therapist friend who was able to see me in the afternoon. As soon as I came to her house I cried my face off some more and she did energy work on me. She helped put back some tarnished parts and gave me some advice about how to think of myself… I was caught in a thought trap in my mind.. that it’s not based upon reality and that my absolute fixation and obsession with getting acknowledged by k over the past, over this moment is just a distraction from what’s happening inside. I tried to connect with myself. I try to feel the pain. I meditate, go into my body and observe the sensations. Typically these are just sore or ‘painfully charged’ parts of my chest that with all my observation, I can’t seem to let go of fully. I can feel the stress in my body but I don’t know how to release it. I don’t necessarily feel like I’m actually getting into the emotional feeling, just watching it from a far. I have troubles at times actually connecting to emotion even though I want to.

I saw a friend on Friday night who was a breathe of fresh air. She also really helped and was able to help me at least be manageable. She helped me get back to earth and to stay moving forward. She’s crushing it with her things and it was inspiring to just hear someone who’s kind of winning, say caring words to me. I’ve been wallowing in a lot of loneliness and pity parties.

Friday to Saturday night though was interesting. I had a lot of dreams but they were very scattered, nothing in particular but I woke up Saturday morning, meditated and had a massive cry. I thought of myself different for the first time in my entire life. I had heard these types of words before but for some reason on that day, it never resonated.

The relationship I have with myself is the most important thing in the world. Without that, I have absolutely nothing.

I thought about myself in 3rd person. I saw who I am to my friends, a partner, a son, a co-worker and I realized something, I FUCKING LOVE THAT GUY! If I had me as a best friend, I would be so fucking happy. I would absolutely LOVE to know another me. I would totally want to date someone like me. I’m really funny and playful, I’m smart, helpful, caring, I work hard as a champion for the team, I like educating, I am extremely loving and enjoy showing my love to others, I’m sexual and passionate. I’m intimate and caring. I’m supportive and open. I’m friendly and loyal. I’m nurturing and I care about others. I’m strong and handsome. I’m creative and strategic. I’m unconventional and powerful. I am wise and a listener. I am in communication and I am magic. I am the embodiment of Magic. Those who receive my attention are privileged. My sexual energy and body are cherished gifts to those who I choose to share it with.

I still work every day to bring those values to every situation. I still work hard to learn to care even deeper, support even more, grow myself so I can share with other and to live on this planet with magic as my compass. Good or bad, I don’t even know another person like me. The idea that I’m essentially craving someone like me in my life but luckily…THAT IS FUCKING ME!!!! That really stuck and what was interesting was how many other little facets came out from that idea:

1. HOLY SHIT do I judge myself. I fucking criticize everything and I’m so harsh on myself. Internally I really saw myself as a massive fucking failure but outside, I’m actually an incredible person. I have spent so long with self hatred that I didn’t even know I was doing it.
2. I can’t believe that after being so shitty to myself for so long that I actually am that amazing and more importantly, I owe that guy a massive apology. In meditation I spoke to that guy, I cried my face off and I couldn’t believe that I had been so critical on myself for no reason.
3. I remembered two major incidents when I thought of myself as a complete failure. The first one was when I was really little I ‘had a talking to’ by my mom when I was little. It was at a family function and she pulled me into the hallway. My mom did absolutely nothing wrong but I’m sure that from that moment, I have always remembered it as my first instance of being a failure and I created some unnecessary belief that I’ve been trying to shake since. The other thought was when k and I broke up and we argued while I was in the shower. I had gotten frustrated when she wanted to walk out of our argument without even hearing what I had to say and I pushed on the shower door in a way that not only broke the door off, I also smashed her with it. I had caused physical harm to my wife in an act of frustration and anger. Despite my best effort to meditate, be grounded and watch my emotions, my entire relationship was summed up to 2 seconds of an unconscious action. I never felt so ashamed, embarrassed, and disgusted with myself. I have also tried to address this with her many times but at the current moment, the narrative she has communicated to me and others is just of a rageful, hateful, angry man who has no problem assaulting woman and I’m learning to just accept that without judging myself. Apologies mean nothing at this point. This incident breaks my absolute heart more than anything else I have ever done. In this meditation session I reached out to both of them, to the 4 year old, I kneeled down and gave him a big hug. I told him I loved him, that he no longer had to feel like a failure. That he’s allowed to play again and not have to censor himself. I opened the door back into the basement and held his hand while I let him back into the room. To the 38 year old me, I saw him in the bathroom and I gave him a big hug. I told him I love him, that I forgive him for acting the way that he did. That I understood his frustration, anger and sadness. That he too can let those go now. That he’s a good person despite his actions and that he’s not a monster. He does care deeply for woman, he’s a champion and protector of woman but still is human and is allowed forgiveness. I cried my face off in those moments. I connected to myself at different points in my past and spoke to them like they were family.

I really realized that if my relationship with myself is fucked or in my case, actually non-existent – it’s fucking exhausting! I spoke about this with a few others and my family and they all affirmed what I had felt about myself – ‘you ARE fucking awesome’. I feel like in the past I just listened when people would say that or I’d hear that and kind of thing and assume that that’s the kind of thing they would say to everyone.

If I treated myself the way that I treat others, I would be delighted but that thought never really clicked with me before that day. Maybe it’s a model that just works for me but thinking of myself as this 3rd party / 1st person entity seems to make a lot of sense. And like a partner, I really want to hear and learn about this person. I really want to find out what’s they’re into, what they find fun and what they care about. I feel like I’ve been working so hard to push this part of me away but the reality is that it’s always been here. I just never gave myself as nearly as much admiration or credit as I did others. It’s even odd to say that now. I’m so used to getting, receiving and craving validation from other people that I never gave it to myself. I had some serious troubles with acknowledgement and recognition for myself from both k and my mom (and others of course) but I never thought that actually the most painful one to get rejected from was from myself. I can give myself praise, to see the accomplishment, the love, the work, the thanks, the gratitude. It simply never occurred to me to point that attention inward rather than do things for other people so I can get attention from them while trying not to get resentful if they fail to provide me that validation. Everything I do for anyone else is really an opportunity for me to recognize the greatness within myself.

I feel like I cracked something open here. I’m exploring this paradigm a lot and I think it’s definitely in the right direction.

My next shifts have really been into how I’m curating the thoughts in my mind. Watching the instances where it wants to pull in these negative thoughts, feel sorry for myself and just reduce everything to shit. Exploring my thoughts really reminded me of my my old Mind Power training. I’ve started working more with intentions and affirmations. It’s day two so I’m dusting it off but at least it made my work day much more manageable. Affirmations with emotion — that’s at least one way of working through extremely challenging thoughts. I just have more work to do at exploring this new relationship with myself.

Co-incidentally a co-worker of mine said today that he’s sort of ‘dating himself’ and came to this realization about a week ago. I laughed and said yah, I think after this weekend I’m dating myself too. Maybe it’s time that we all need to date ourselves a bit…