death of the old selves
2nd September 2024
For the past few months I’ve been sending my counsellor audios on whatsapp. I thankfully haven’t needed a full sit down session so these short bursts have been great check ins for me. What I’ve been saying to him a lot lately is a feeling that can’t be explained in other words other than, it feels like I’m dying. There’s a suction cup in my chest and I actually feel the need to lie down. Okay, so I’m clearly not actually dying (lol) but for the death of my old selves and my old ways. And mourning time is needed. The visceral feeling that old parts of me are really leaving, parts that once led my life and made my decisions really are going away. It’s a happy occasion, but before I actually can become happier, my body needs time to let go of old parts, even if they didn’t work anymore.
I took a walk today after posting for the fourth time on substack. Do I have any readers? Haha no, but yet I am happy. Not just because I just did what I said I would do, but that writing these posts has been a real joy for me. As wholesome as it sounds, it’s true. I get excited at the idea of getting to slot in a time to write and to put it out there and build my own body of work I love. And therein lies the trigger for an old part of me to die as this new one emerges. The part of me that didn’t know how to follow joie. The one that didn’t know how to lean in, trust and jump into its boat. The one that hadn’t experienced joy’s freedoms, subconsciously eyeing it from afar, but only ever followed the wrong vs right signs. Also called The Shoulds and the Shouldn'ts. And as I slowly walk further into joie’s direction, I’m starting to see for myself that safety lies here too and I can take another step. The further I go, the further my old self is in the distance. It’s a good thing but yet a bit of a sombre thought.
While I am so proud of the inner work I have furiously hacked at to be able to get to this emotional and mental state now, being able to experience joy now has in truth, made me realise how little joy I had experienced and followed before. If this is just the beginning of joie, then shit, I actually have been way sadder in my past years and decades than I have realised. It explained why I have often looked back at my late teens and twenties like it was a grey, forlorn city. When I got home from said walk, it was time to lie on the couch and do what I have learnt to do in the last 20 months, feel my feelings. While not as scary as before, it is still a lot.
There are certain feelings and moments you can name but until you truly experience them, you won’t know you’ve mis-identified them. It’s like thinking you once loved someone, until you really fall in love and realise that you hadn’t been there before. Or hitting rock bottom then really hitting rock bottom. Redefining your past instead of reusing misunderstood adjectives takes time, takes reflection and what people don’t talk about enough, takes grieving. I’ve circled through the stages of grief for just about everything in the past 20 months and yet still it is a hard process. (Though thankfully it's gotten faster overtime, even though that kinda sounds ridiculous when expressed.) So here I was, lying on the couch grieving my younger self, the one that forced actions and decisions towards external goals because she thought that that was the only way to live, and the sadness underneath that old exterior. I let her be sad, I let her be seen and I let her.. go.
I love the aftermath of these moments because I always gain a new perspective (and if I don’t, I know I’m not done yet). And in this aftermath, for the first time, instead of being mad at my self’s old actions and mistaken roads, I became grateful for her. She might have chosen the “wrong” targets and strategies, but she had perseverance and she had guts. Something I had forgotten about until I just wrote that sentence. Ahh, a small yay. She might be gone, but there are parts that remain. And for that I am thankful, maybe all those years weren’t all bad after all.
My counsellor said that this phase is a part of the journey and it too shall pass. For now, it’s a pattern of constant shock, happy surprise and grief for a part of me that no longer reacts, wants, and believes in the things she once so fervently held onto. It’s a shock that time and part of me is over, a surprise that I could change in this way and that a new part of me is emerging, and the grief that I had spent so much time in that previous space. And all towards the process of acceptance. It's a sad and sweet emotional wave each time, but it is worth it. And an emptied out space for a new part of me to sprout sometime, soonish.
Love, Maia
