POV: knee deep in the shit storm of self-exploration (and why you should pursue it)

It’s not really a shit storm. But there is resistance to be found, that much is true! And some uncomfortable feelings and realizations.

I’m a firm believer that we should lean into our uncomfortabilities, and force ourselves headfirst into our fears. This is where growth takes place. The more we try to divulge our true selves, the further we plunge into the abyss of our seemingly infinite being. So here we are, twirling bodies swimming in an ocean of curiosity. And oh, curiosity is key! Do we accept our beliefs without discernment? Shy away from deeper reflection on our behaviour, and introspection for the human that we hope to become? Sure, we never truly arrive at that person. But is this reason not to begin?

We must feel where hesitation snags our shirt, and listen to it.

How do you begin this journey?

Self-exploration can be done in tiny morsels of time. It could be in the quietness before falling asleep or the lull while waiting in line. Or, it could be in longer swathes of time that you’ve dedicated to the task. Maybe a whole day of meditation or self-care. A month at a retreat, hiking or after a period of grief. Time spent chipping away at your mould over an entire lifetime.

Simply, it is awareness of self.

ALL of these moments matter. All the notes you keep in your phone, the scribbles in a journal or simple recollections of realizations you’ve had in conscious clarity. All the pauses before you react to some external vexation, every recalibration that helps to realign you with the truest, less egocentric version of you. They compound, and over time you will be able to look back and reflect on these moments, how they shaped you and surmounted to where you are now.

But, why?

The white noise of your thoughts begins to dissipate. The more you focus and hone in on where your mind and body are, the less you let the chaos surrounding you penetrate inward. There is chaos within, but also s p a c e, stillness, peace. A new facet of your being laying dormant, discovered only by your willingness. Your connections will reflect your inner state, as no doubt they already do – but soon you’ll become much more discerning. Your boundaries will be clarified again, and again. Your sense of self will crystallize and your ability to withstand the trauma, anger and confusion in others will extend further than you ever thought it could. It’s almost as if you’ve stepped back to allow space between where the world enters your eyes, and you give yourself the time to process and respond to it.

The more we think we know ourselves, really the more we have yet to discover. So tickle, scratch, claw and move earth to get down beneath the surface. There is so much yet to learn, HOW BEAUTIFUL! ✨️

little one

This life is so beautiful you know. But your love for it, and the people in it, come at a high price.

Your heart really is something else, little one. Your capacity for love seems to know no bounds. But oh – the violent pangs of abandon that will soon reverberate through you. They threaten to haul your beating heart out of your chest and leave it writhing in anguish, beached and beckoning for water.

If only you knew how much you’d hurt. I’m glad so you don’t. You still have fairytales in your eyes, fairies sitting on your shoulders. You see magic in flowers and gods in the trees. Peacocks and butterflies surround you. Let them be, and stay in innocent awe as long as you can, sweet girl!

You must build repose; this world will challenge every atom in your body. You will feel such deep incongruence between what you experience and who you are, that your soul will tremble in doubt. She will quake with fear and cry tears that seem to sprout from an infinite well. She will wish to flee.

Steady.

Your capacity for fiery, tenacious love is just as much your greatest strength as it is your most vulnerable weakness.

You will pour yourself forth into others, as if it was all you were ever destined to do. And some will drink of your tears, and bathe in the radiance of your love – with no intention of ever replenishing you. You will look down and see in your tiny hands a cup that has gone dry. You will feel unloved, no doubt.

You will be lied to, sidelined, held at arms length, misunderstood and unappreciated. And no, you won’t understand why. You don’t get to know. It just is this way, and you must find a way to accept it or it will sap the life out of you and drain your world to monochrome.

Consciously choose to humble yourself daily! Remember your humanity, your own faults and imperfections. You too will utter words you don’t mean (no matter how hard you champion honesty), you will hurt others (no matter your capacity for empathy), and you will act in ways that you never intended (no matter your consistent character). You, and everyone else, are learning. Give yourself and others the patience and grace you both deserve. You will learn so much through others. Strive to do your best, and you will be content.

But I know you, little love – I know you do not love in halves, nor quarters. You love with galactic force of the entire universe behind you, your body a vessel for its expression.

I know it doesn’t feel like it at times, but you will remember how to adorn light to every path you wander. Your eyes will shift their focus, and will again instil gentle hues of life into everything around you.

Steady.

You must call to arms every ounce of resolve within your being to fight withdrawal. There will be days, weeks, months and maybe even years where you will feel the need to mourn and isolate yourself. You will mourn lost love, love that you never received, and parts of yourself that you lose along the way. Oh little one, you will mourn your deep heart over and over.

What a cruel endowment.

Your tongue will grow clever, and at times your words may seem harsh. Ensure that your words are always spoken with love and the reverence for truth. You think and speak your reality into action. You will carve your boundaries clearly, and unapologetically. There is no one else to do this for you but yourself. So take good care of yourself. You are in no place to care for others unless you first nurture yourself.

Above all, you must honour yourself. Foster the divine and infinite love within you. Do not feign opportunity, it doesn’t look good on you. But choose wisely; there are lips that will spin you dreams of your fantasies. Eyes you will swoon and daydream over. Bodies that will shroud your judgement in lust filled haze. But the indifference of others will slam you so hard into yourself that you will find it impossible to ignore. Sirens will shriek in your ears and rattle your brain until you listen.

Take heed of your intuition and doubt yourself less. Spend time in quiet contemplation and oh little one, enjoy your solitude! So soon you will be seen. Gentle hands will hold yours, and your cup will overflow.

Still – go gently, find steadiness.

That love that you so willingly give to others is seeking you.

Let yourself be.

Surrender. Release. Follow the butterflies and the peacocks. Tend to your magical garden. Your colours are going to be so vividly reflected.

You deserve no less!

a snippet of sadness

“I hate getting up early, especially now. There’s nothing to get up for.”

Well fuck me Linda, you sad sack of shit.

(Today, I agree)

I overheard this lady at the local dog park. It’s on a beautiful inlet in the heart of Sydney’s Northern Beaches where there’s a median house price of a cool $2.2 million. No doubt, she resides in one of them. Currently, so do I (yet I’m no closer to affording one of them than I am likely to go to Mars, although the latter seems much more appealing).

It struck me as quite a depressing thing to say to someone you’ve just met at a dog park. I feel sorry for her, but I also feel like punching her in the face, and delivering her by hand into Yemen, Syria or Afghanistan just to see the reality dawn on her face.

At the time, I just let the words float around my head and today they returned to me with a weight that I’ve felt before but never welcome back. I feel like drowning in the sheets of my bed and never being found again. Disappearing into the Himalayas only to resurface a few years later with a shaved head and orange robes to see who actually came to my funeral. Who said all of the things they wish they’d said to me in person before I died.

I hate funerals.

Not because the person is dead. That often happened days if not weeks before the funeral and the grieving simply goes on. Funerals are for the living. I hate them because people stand up and pour their hearts out to a person that can’t hear them. They sweat, tremble and cry as they recall beautiful memories, lament time wasted and speak into the void. Call it closure, but I call it regret. I don’t believe in leaving words unsaid.

I prefaced this by adding the median house prices around the area. Not because I give a shit, but because I was alluding to the fact that surely, this person is in the top 1 or 2% of the entire global population. Privilege embodied. Yet, all suffering is relative. The pitfalls of mental (or other) ill-health don’t discriminate. Maybe she had a pet die, or a loved one, or she found out she had cancer. Or maybe, she just felt the collective pain we all feel at the moment. When we turn on the news and see faces of small, sweet, innocent children sentenced to perilous lives in conflict ridden areas, or people clinging to the side of planes trying to escape their own country. Maybe she woke up and broke her TV off its hinges and flung it across the room and took to it with a baseball bat, cursing it for the images she wished she hadn’t seen. Maybe she’d feel better if she donated all of her disposable cash to charities. Maybe she already does. Who knows.

But today, all judgement aside, I understood.

It’s not all days that you wake up with the willingness to proceed in this so often torturous existence. It’s a wonder we do really. Somehow, most days, we manage not to flee and take physical and emotional shelter from the impending responsibilities or obligations that a new day demands. Most days, we find the smile of a stranger, or a kind gesture from a friend carry us through whatever our inner turmoil digs up for us. Maybe we watch the sunrise, or set and feel accomplished. Sometimes that is enough. But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes we fail spectacularly. We feel the visceral anguish of lost love. We fear our looming mortality. We feel.

But there is also a time for perseverance. For committing oneself to a higher value thinking, then doing, then being. Despite it all, there is more than you to get up for. To be the stranger that offers the smile, or the friend that offers the kind gesture.

And please, for the sake of you and those who mean most, don’t be that person gulping in breaths of air between your tears of regret at a funeral. Acknowledge that looming mortality as the most urgent of reminders to relish every moment, and to love others so fervently that you couldn’t have hoped to love them any more than you did.

Have the courage to not leave words unsaid, deeds undone.

A story of acceptance

Once apon a time a little Elle worked at @countryroad , @myer and @davidjonesstore . All places where aesthetic is everything. I bought into it. I wore make up everyday, went out of my way to buy lots of products and most regrettably, wasted so much of my TIME doing it. While wearing the newest or ‘nicest’ clothes never really bothered me, walking into a workplace where polished faces and hairdos frowned down upon the lesser tended to or vain folk; one truth resounded. This is a TOXIC expectation. On a day when I was running late, my bare face was ashamed to look at customers. How did I get here?! I was embarrassed to show people my face. My real face. Not the one under the bullshit facade.

Wow.

So, I embarked on a month completely make-up free. I embraced the purge, both mentally and physically with my skin adjusting. I discarded the self-conscious talk and stood up straight, confident in not giving a fuck what the people looking at me thought. I’ve genuinely never looked back or felt as confident as I do now.

But you know the worst part and the reason that I’ve tagged these businesses? It was (and I would bet still is) A PART OF THE CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION TO WEAR MAKE UP TO WORK!!! How insane is that?! I fully understand one must present themselves to a certain standard. However, how damaging and twisted is that focus on ‘beauty’ that is being spoonfed to the people that not only work for these groups (and many others) but also the people who stream through their doors!

I genuinely believe this is completely unnecessary. It doesn’t impede one’s ability to sell a product. Unless you’re shit at actually selling stuff, which is pretty hard. This post is intended to urge those of you who feel any form of attachment, reliance or comfort in make-up/cosmetics/the aesthetic world to recognize, detatch and reflect on the deep-seated reasons as to WHY. None of those things are YOU. They mask you. Maybe sometimes they enhance you. Either way, they’re impermanent. Is it truly contributing to your positive sense of self, after your ego defends it as harmless, because you’re scared of the true reason why you do these things?

I’ve been 99% cosmetic free for years now, only wearing it for special occasions. My hair might get coloured every now and again (which I’m keen to stop) but it rests in its state upon awakening. Toward the path of radical acceptance. My skin isn’t perfect, my eyes are always red (to the point where I’ve lost count how many times people have asked me if I’m wearing red eyeliner) and a myriad of other bits and bobs that we all identify about ourselves that somehow isn’t enough. We must choose to nourish and worship the body that we have and the garden of the mind that needs equal tending. I only hope for everyone reading this to muster enough unconditional love for self to do the same.

Love, a younger Elle that believes you are beautiful – exactly. as. you. are.

Effective altruism: Part. 1

If you don’t know what it is, you should.

Essentially, effective altruism is the act of creating the greatest good, for the greatest number of people. We can use research that effectively determines how much it is to save a life, and donate our money accordingly to charities that will save the most amount of people they can with the money they have. How to be an altruist, effectively.

It’s a utilitarian viewpoint, one underpinned with research in order to establish exactly how the money you donate can be used to save the most amount of lives and therefore, morally, make the greatest difference. You might be surprised to learn that giving to an organisation that protects people from Malaria is one of the best ways to do this. According to givewell.org, the Malaria Consortium is the top listed charity, followed by Against Malaria and Helen Keller International.

Based on a book by Peter Singer in 1971 regarding global ethics, the concept of allocating a percentage (and according to Singer, a very large one) to the global poor is a moral obligation of anyone in a position to do so. If you have dispensable income, anything above what you need is to be allocated to a charity like those aforementioned. If you’re reading this, you almost certainly fall into that category.

His philosophy is thus:

‘If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, then we ought, morally, to do it’.^[1] For example, it is of no comparable moral significance for someone to go without a luxurious new piece of clothing, provided they have a set of clothes to wear already, in favour of donating such funds to save people of starvation. Yet, this mild version of his proposition leaves room for error on the grounds of subjectivity, where any person deems what is or is not morally significant for themselves. Singer then strengthens his argument by explaining that we should go far beyond this to provide as much help as possible, to the point of ‘marginal utility’.^[2] That is, to the point where it would then begin to impinge on our basic needs. His argument may seem extreme, however Singer attributes this reaction to a lack of significant moral reform amongst Western society, and entrenched views of what it means to be charitable and generous rather than fulfilling a duty of what we morally ought to do. Rather, donating a significant proportion of our income to the global poor is an act to uphold justice and the acceptance of human rights to fulfil our duty to the impoverished. It is not to be mistaken for an act of charity, which would be a supererogatory act (one that is above the accepted call of duty). Instead, it is a duty that we ought to perform and a right that the impoverished of the world have to receive.

For a little perspective…

For more wholesomeness from the man himself, check out this video.

Some useful websites to explore:

https://www.effectivealtruism.org

https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org

^[1] P. Singer, ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 3, 1972, p. 6, < https://d2l.deakin.edu.au/d2l/le/content/913448/viewContent/5086497/View>, accessed 3 September 2020.

^[2] Singer, op. cit., p.5.

Hey interesting person, what interesting thing did you learn today?

This is what I have set my phone to ask me, every night at 8pm.

Realistically, I’ve had a minimum of 12 hours to conjure up an answer to this question. My phone doesn’t care if I answer and obviously neither does anyone else. But I do. It’s a small way that I can keep accountable to myself in a way that is positive and constructive.

I suppose now more than usual, this kind of mental proactivity is useful in keeping our brains open and flexible to new information, no matter how minimal. It forces you to seek out all kinds of bizarre knowledge that you never knew you needed to know.

Small goals help create small habits. When compiled, these small habits lead to consistent behaviours.

Every person you meet knows something that you don’t.

That thought changed my interactions with people. It helped me give otherwise vexatious people the time and space to expose themselves more to me than I probably would have otherwise let them. Be it younger or older, more or less travelled, educated, whatever… the same principle applies: everyone knows something that you don’t.

So then, you may as well make what you know a little interesting. Get creative in acquiring your knowledge. Read books, listen to podcasts, learn a new word everyday, trawl through google or pluck up the courage to ASK SOMEONE – ANYONE – A QUESTION!

For you reading this, what interesting thing did you learn today?

the saplings of forgiveness

I restlessly throw my body around in bed while candles flicker and frogs croak. Camomile and honey trickle down my throat. Lavender floats around me in a cloud. It feels like even the frogs have more conviction than I do. I can barely muster a squeak.

There is an aching in my soul that I’m unsure of how to soothe. A hurt that this time, I do not know how to mend. I’m good at this, I think. I can step back and assess myself, criticize the reason for my emotions and analyse my motives. Stab and slice away at my ego, threatening it to stir and face me.

Most of the time, I can strategize a way out. A way up. Not this time. I’m snowed under with a weight it feels I cannot bear. In this place, it feels like there are no hands to help me. I’m not sure I’ll reach for any either.

I remind myself; my needs are met. In fact, they are beyond met in many ways. Mostly, I have the freedom to do what I want, when I want. A true luxury that I try not to undervalue. How dare I feel anxious or depressed?!

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is something that I often draw back to. It resonates with me that a human has a myriad of elements to keep in fine balance before one can feel self-fulfilling (which ironically coalesces, or more accurately, actually depends on the intimate support network around the individual).

Tonight the acknowledgement of these base needs being met are not serving to comfort me.

Insert reality check: they are NOT a given and should be ALWAYS appreciated as a comfort – perspective is key.
Insert secondary reality check: the vicious ‘how dare you’ mindset is reinforced – stay wary of negative self-talk masquerading as the helpful critic.

I am deeply grateful to have loved and been loved by some special souls in my life. In the occasional absence of this loving presence, I am sometimes unexpectedly cast into a chasm of emotion with myself playing damsel and hero simultaneously. Usually I’m not shy of this confrontation of self, but this seemingly unending emotional fragility has me trading faces.

I fumble around with this uncomfortability, trying to understand it in any way I can. Feel it wash through my body and take root in the centre of my torso. Find consciousness in my breath and attempt to loosen the knots in my chest.

Thus far, uncomfortability has been my most brutal, but honest teacher. Oh, and maybe heartbreak. At this point I’d label them interchangeably. I’m not sure I’ll ever revel in uncomfortability but my appreciation for what is unveiled in its wake is constantly multiplying.

In the midst of this inner turmoil, a gentle voice enters and begs for both time and space for forgiveness. The harsh critic is silenced. I’ve visited this place before. In it is a garden. A sacred garden with a plethora of possibilities. Here, the seeds are most difficult to sow. Upon discovery, the landscape is barren and the soil unrelenting. Weeds entrenched and overgrown. Colours mute. With diligence and mindful care, slowly the soil softens. Richness re-enters to allow small, hopeful sprouts. With further tending, these saplings will flower, but their flowers are stubborn and slow to bloom. They demand boundless amounts of conscientious tenderness. However, once given their fill and in full spectrum light; this garden and its flowers provide the deepest healing.

Tend relentlessly to your garden.

Dear soul

Dear soul, I hear you in there whispering gentle truths. Directing my eyes on an upward trajectory.

Dear soul, my heart quakes with the vibrations of your deafening bellows; demanding to stay aligned with my journey.

Yet sometimes, I do not listen. I avert my gaze. I wander. I get lost. I betray myself. Sometimes it’s a conscious choice, sometimes it’s not.

Then I find my way back.

Do you ever blink with wonder at how you got to where to you are? The air around you stills and sound leaks from your ears. Maybe you aren’t who you wanted to be. Maybe you’re more that you ever thought you could be. If you aren’t where you know you should be, on that upwards trajectory, you’ve hushed that voice for much too long. The sound of the soul inside you that tugs at the bottom of your shirt like a kid begging to be pushed on the swing or bought chocolate at the check out of the grocery store. You swat it away with annoyance, even contempt.

We justify our aversions with half-hearted conviction. A squirming of uncertainty alerts us that we aren’t living in accordance with our highest truth. But, we won’t fail if we never try. Onwards our feet feebly lead us. We drown in earthly expectations. Succumb to dramatic social demise. Feeding our ego its tantalising sustenance, soon our soul grows weary of its constant dismissal. Faith in yourself dwindles and so too does your once clear vision for life. For your journey. Your spirit.

Often, we live according to the narrative that we (and society) have etched for our lives – one we torturingly expect ourselves to not only live up to – but exceed. Is it in accordance with our truest self? You better hope that it is. After all, you’re the one that spent all this time getting yourself here.

strive to consciously create

We take ourselves by the hand then swing ourselves over cliffs of self-construed personal destruction. There’s that voice again. The tugging on your shirt. We stray from our path. Then we blame and curse; those around us, our upbringing, the world. While we perish at the hands of our own self-sabotage, we deflect responsibility. To admit fault would be to threaten our beliefs. Beliefs that over time, have morphed into deeply set values. Values that convincingly masquerade as our identity. Maybe some are. Or maybe you’ve just told yourself that. Where did they come from anyway? These values are often bolstered by ignorance, threatened by change and the challenge of growth. Ideologies are hard to kill, but when they do die, they die hard. Let us not forget how malleable our identity is to the world around us.

let go

To undermine ones value system would surely test the fibres of ones soul. Just how far have you wandered?

Visualise the greatest version of yourself. Start making conscious choices that are in alignment with that version of you. Be more afraid of fear holding you back from experiencing life than the fear itself. Confront hard truths. Be a sensation seeker.

Dear soul, I promise to listen. To live aligned to my truths. To speak words of honesty, with love. To love from the depths of my being, without limitation or expectation. To leave the world a little (or a lot) better than I found it.

Who are you, if you’re not living in consistency with what your soul is saying?

On the joy of being alone

I watch the morning light set her matted, curly ginger locks ablaze. Her and her sister swing their legs on their seats as they wait for their Dad to retrieve his morning coffee. People, with their people, filter in and out of my vision.

I feel alone.

I cop a lick to my ear and have another wet nose nudge my leg. I remind myself to be grateful – an attitude of gratefulness quickly quells a yearning heart.

With anxious energy abounds and a daily step count goal of 10,000 to reach, I threw the dogs in the back of my car and sped to the beach.

The horizon had the outline of the last remaining rays of the day, where the light arcs as it dissipates. If you look up, you feel like a wide-eyed guppy in a fishbowl. At first, I thought I must have seen a single firework, as a streak of clustered white light streamed through the sky. It was as if a hand of the universe plucked it out from behind my right ear and twirled it up into my peripherals. It was a glittering meteor. It fluttered for a moment, burning up as it skimmed across our atmosphere, finally finishing by sprinkling its stardust out into the universe somewhere. A wispy grey trail faintly water brushed through the sky lay as evidence against my imaginings.

Magic.

I found myself instantly wanting to share it with someone. Someone just as encapsulated by the enigmas of the universe as I am. I knew just the person. But why? Could it not be beautiful enough that I witnessed this alone? It was a beautiful moment, in and of itself. It didn’t need external validation. But did I?

Naturally, we long for and seek out connection of many varieties. We are communal creatures. We especially seek it when we have become accustom to it. I always had ‘my person’. At times where you desperately need the mental, emotional and physical intimacy to support you through a shit time, they serve as an emotional buffer. Now without that, the void is vast. But instead of trying to fill it with distraction, I’m diving headfirst into it. Sometimes with liberation and renewed spirit, other times with aching emptiness. All times with the same desire – to grow.

I’m attempting to unravel my psyche and pry apart my insecurities in a bid to really know myself and understand just how much I value myself without the interference of others; be it in words, human interaction, comments or likes. Delving into the darkness where fears of abandonment, loneliness and rejection lay in hungry wait. To my surprise, I’m very much the opposite of alone when it comes to feeling lonely.

According to the Australian Loneliness Report, 1 in 4 Australians are lonely and 1 in 2 Australians feel lonely for at least one day a week. Nearly 55% of the population feel they lack companionship ‘at least sometimes’. With a sample size of nearly 2000, I acknowledge that this is no overarching statistic to be applied to all, but it certainly highlights a growing disconnect.

Being alone is terribly uncomfortable for some people. For others it’s freeing, like being sprawled naked in bed at 7:30pm on a Saturday night writing this. (FOMO can get fucked). Interestingly, loneliness as a social pain shares the same neural pathways as physical pain. That sickness in your stomach and tightness in your chest isn’t a figment of your imagination. Our bodies physically respond to our emotions. Google it if you don’t believe me, or listen to this lil morsel.

Anyway, it’s a handy biological function when you think about it, collective knowledge has increased our chances of survival. So is this desire to connect, to validate our feelings and experiences, all just an extension of our biological conditioning? It’s almost as if that connection adds an unlanguageable ‘something’ that wasn’t otherwise there.

As we build relationships with people, patterns of human behaviour are logged in our brains and endorphins continue to be released as intimacy increases. Technology can aid us with things like video calls, to people we can’t be in physical contact with. This medium allows our brains to recognize that same eye contact and body language we experience in person, instigating a small injection of serotonin and oxytocin; chemically induced happiness. However, as a whole, social media necessarily circumvents this neural and emotional connection. You simply can’t substitute being with someone.

When we are out experiencing something new and unknown, it seems more special for that newness to be shared. Social media is arguably our most significant example of this desire to share our lives with the world, while ironically disconnecting from the moment of real life itself. Endorphins are released when we are in the flesh with someone; conversing, absorbing their body language and gaze as a part of our dialogue. Check out this podcast; Look Up and Connect for some more inspiration to do so (science n shit).

Sometimes it is hard to resist experiencing something without sharing it. Especially in a state of loneliness. Instant gratification, instant connection.

We appreciate when we recognise parts of ourselves in others, the good parts at least. We also appreciate when others go out of their way to share personal moments with us. Beautiful little bonds between souls. Maybe it’s just another form of pattern recognition that we know will be appreciated and reflected by a certain someone. Maybe it’s just those biological survival skills resounding. Although, the reasoning may stem from a deeper place of vulnerability. From an unnerving crevice of our ego that begs to be fed the indulging words of others. The same place where our own appreciation appears not enough.

Happiness is only real when shared.
Christopher McCandless (Into the Wild)

How you gauge your own personal loneliness meter I suppose really depends on how often you are without human interaction, while feeling as if you’d prefer the opposite. I’d argue that we often need to be alone, despite this feeling. In fact, especially when we feel these uncomfortable feelings. Whether that time is spent going for a walk, meditating or taking a small solo break somewhere, it allows us the mental/emotional spacetime to purge our thoughts without the interference of others. It pays to turn your phone off or drop off social media for a while. Unplug from the virtual world; take a nip hardening swim in the cold ocean, hike through the mountains, get scratches on your skin and feel the sun warm you from the outside in. Whatever conduit for change and growth you choose – use it to seek clarity and acknowledge just how grateful you are for the basic comforts you have been afforded in life. There will always be persons greater and lesser than yourself. Be grateful for the people and relationships you have cultivated and acknowledge where they need tending.

So then, where does the equilibrium between a healthy relationship of independence and co-dependence, or isolation and socialisation exist? I spent nearly the entirety of ages 13-23 in two different relationships… maybe I’m not qualified to answer that question. All I know is this:

There is love to be found in everyone you meet and everything you do. Time spent in love, of any and all forms, is never time wasted. Yet, there is only one person that you can ever rely on to show up for you when shit just gets a bit fucked.

You.