Man guys, what a rollercoaster 🎢 of a ride for the past 24 hours. I went from feeling the whole universe aligning to my needs to feeling totally disappointed with myself and a whole range of emotions in between. If I had to describe my last 24 hours using only emojis, I think I can use pretty much all of them (except the sickness ones).

As I am sitting here now, doing my best to “connect the dots” of everything that I’ve been experiencing for the last 24 hours, I’m also beginning to realize something about myself. The walls that I’ve used to build up around my different selves, wasn’t really to cut those parts of myself off. What I was really trying to do was to wall off those emotions because I have been hurt or disappointed by those emotions at one point in my life. So, I cut them off, one by one. And before I know it, I was only able to “channel” one of them at different moments of my life.

Feeling Hopeful and Optimistic Once Again

True story, I had been hurt and disappointed by my own failures back in 2017. And because of that (not the entire fault of my hopefulness or optimism), I began to cut it off from my life. I felt that it was my hopefulness that resulted in how disappointed I was feeling. And for years, I depended on being practical, realistic, pragmatic, and there was very little hope and optimism in my life for the next 8 years. Now until now.

In recent weeks, I have successfully completed a process of “self-integration”. This is the work of finally seeing myself for all that I am for the first time. Period. The change and transformation didn’t happen immediately. It was a process. I needed time to be reacquainted with the different parts of who I am again (frankly, I haven’t really gotten to know them through the years). And over the course of maybe 2 weeks, I finally got to see who I am and what I was really capable of when I started to trust the different parts of myself in handling and facing different situations. I felt like I was going through a real life crash course of self-integration.

Now that the whole self-integration is finally complete, I have managed to unlock a part of me that I didn’t even know was there. I love how Mr. Optimistic/Hopeful (the youngest brother of the group) is finally welcomed back into the fold again. Locking him away for 8 years was unfair to him. And frankly I miss having him in my life. Through all of the things I have experienced this past two weeks, I’ve come to understand with absolute clarity that he is the one that has gotten me through some of the worst moments of my journey. Without him, I really wouldn’t have made it this far. So, thanks little bro! I love you! Thank you for allowing me to experience hope again.

But hey, let’s keep it down yeah? We don’t want to be overly optimistic and start planning for things that haven’t been confirmed yet. (He nods eagerly in a corner).

This is What It Means to be Truly Human

As I was sharing, I’ve been sitting here this morning, processing all of my disappointments, sadness, confidence, conviction, determination, excitement, positivity and thinking…wow, how is it even possible to experience so many emotions all at once?? And then it finally hit me, this is what it truly means to be a human being.

Human Beings are raw, and complex emotional creatures.

When we are no longer trying to wall off parts of ourselves, cutting off love because we are afraid of being hurt again, cutting off hope because we are afraid to be disappointed again, cutting off joy because we’re afraid it would be gone in an instant; once we begin to move pass this fragmented way of living, we begin to understand that YES, it is actually normal for you and I to experience all of these emotions, sometimes even all at once. Trust me, now I know I am normal. I am a normal, complex emotional being. And so are you, and there is nothing wrong with us.

And here’s what’s most interesting, it is this complex mixture of who I am (all of the different parts working together in unison) that has allowed me to finally unlock an area of untapped potential. In recent days, I have felt like I’m finally operating on a whole another level when it comes to how I managed my ADHD and chronic anxiety disorders. On the professional front, what was formerly my PEAK PERFORMANCE is now my NEW BASELINE. My whole life has changed, not because I was trying really hard to compartmentalize myself, but because I have finally decided to knock down every single one of those walls. I am no longer just using 20% of myself anymore, I am not beginning to experience the full experience/power of what a 100% of myself is truly capable of. Man, I have been constantly surprising myself every single day since my self-integration was complete.

Take a Moment…

I could have just let the blog post end right there, but listening to my own inner voice (Mr. Zen, the oldest and wisest of the “brothers”), he wants me to provide you with an encouragement, perhaps even a personal challenge. Take a moment today, be it during lunch or coffee break time, or even at night after work. Be with yourself and and notebook and write down…have you been walling off parts of yourself in recent time? Or perhaps for some of us, it can be something that we have walled off years ago (like feeling hopeful and optimistic for me in 2017). Write it down. The first time to true self-integration is to first learn to see yourself for your WHOLE SELF, and not just the part of yourself that you are channeling right now.