Is this all there is?
Photo by Lukas Medvedevas on pexels.comIs this all there is?
I’m going to tell you a short story about the events of my life that answered this question for me.
My good friend alcohol and cannabis
I was about 5 years sober and asking myself, “Is this all there is?” Life was supposed to get better once I got sober. I know for a lot of people it does. But for me, if anything, life was harder.
I didn’t know what good friends alcohol and cannabis had been for me. They both helped me numb the dull ache of existence, the undefined sorrow, the rage and anger, and the fear. Nothing was too much to handle when I knew relief was only a few beers or tokes away. But now that I was sober, I felt no relief.
I was 32 years old, married with two kids, going to recovery meetings, holding down a full-time job, and staying sober. Instead of sitting in front of the TV or shooting pool at the bar with the guys and drinking beer, I was sitting in meetings drinking coffee.
That’s about all that had changed. Sobriety was something new and it was uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Getting sober didn’t make life better. My wife and I still weren’t connecting. My impatience with the kids was just as bad if not worse. The challenges at work still landed as they always had. By not engaging in my addiction, I felt increasingly overwhelmed by life with no end in sight.
Why hadn’t life gotten better?
Was this all that life had to offer?
This persisted for about 20 years until finally, I found evidence that there was indeed more.
Looking back, I realize that those 20 years of abstinence and 12 step recovery, although often confusing, despairing, and painful, formed the foundation to build my life on. Simply staying sober while attempting to apply the principles of the recovery program put me in a position to recognize the opportunity for personal development. That opportunity presented itself when I learned about The Work of Byron Katie (TheWork.com).
The Work and my thinking
For as long as I could remember, I believed there was something wrong with me. But, The Work showed me that there was something wrong with my thinking – and that I could correct my thinking simply by evaluating it. This made an immediate and permanent difference in my level of suffering and capacity for change.
Before finding The Work, I believed my moods, attitudes, and feelings were determined by the circumstances of my life. Gradually, as I formed the new habit of self-inquiry, I realized that how I feel is determined by what I believe and think about the circumstances of my life.
This was a life changing realization. Abstinence put me in a position to recognize the need for more work. I just didn’t know what work there was to do. Byron Katie helped me begin to wake up from my nightmare. It had been so difficult to hang on to any hope that life could be better.
I thought I was broken.
It didn’t seem like others suffered and struggled as I did with money, jobs, and relationships. I saw myself as broken and expended great amounts of energy trying to find a fix while simultaneously hiding my brokenness from others.
Because I thought I was broken, self-improvement seemed to be what was called for. But eventually I learned that I was never broken and that there was nothing wrong with me. What was broken was my programming. My beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and responses to life resulted in dysfunction and chronic suffering.
With an ACE score of 7 (indicating a high level of early childhood trauma), I realized the past was directly affecting my perspective and my responses to life. If you would like to learn more about the ACE Quiz, click on this link.
Self- awareness
Over time, I saw that personal discovery and self-awareness were the keys to inner peace.
Self-awareness shows me:
Who I am and who I am not
What is true and what is not
How to access my personal power and choice
How exciting to learn that I am not at the mercy of externally imposed limitations!
The journey
My personal development journey spans four decades. I mark the beginning of that journey as my first day of sobriety which was on November 15, 1982. I sometimes still wonder if this is all there is, and when I am willing to do the work of healing the past, I find there is always more. The question itself is an invitation to go inside and get curious about the part of me that is asking the question.
The sense that something is missing is a form of suffering which ranges from unsettling to excruciating. We enter and exit jobs and relationships attempting to ease the suffering. We shop, eat, drink, use, lie, cheat, steal, and hide attempting to manage it.
Who can I trust?
I believe there is a correlation between this state of malcontent and our level of self-trust. We suffer when we allow others to direct our lives and fail to take responsibility for the choice to do so.
Why would we allow others to make our decisions for us? Ultimately, when we do so, we are choosing to let someone else direct our lives. We believe that the values and logic provided by someone else is more valid than our own because we don’t trust ourselves.
And we don’t trust ourselves because we don’t know ourselves.
My insides and your outsides
One of the things I heard in a meeting several years ago was that we compare our insides to everyone else’s outsides and come up short. How true this is.
We can see our own weaknesses, vulnerabilities, fears, and shame. But we work hard to make sure no one else sees that version of ourselves. To some extent, everyone else is doing exactly the same thing.
Whose life is it anyhow?
We assign authority to spouses, bosses, mentors, counselors, coaches, ministers, authors, parents, actors, politicians, law makers, siblings, friends, corporations, advertisers, social media gurus, and more. We trust them more than we trust ourselves.
Consciously or not, we defer to the opinions of others who are not burdened by the consequences of their advice. We follow their formulas, embrace their beliefs and values, work hard to meet their expectations, and try to please them.
And then we are surprised that our lives don’t work.
Don’t believe for a moment that the life that has you asking, “Is this all there is?” is the life you must settle for. Find a path to discover what blocks you from living from the true and highest version of yourself. Whether you become a student and practitioner of The Work of Byron Katie, Internal Family Systems, or another modality or curriculum, embrace a path that takes you inside so you can learn to trust your own wisdom to choose what is best for you.
