While enjoying my walk on the 29th of December, I started thinking about the things I achieved in 2020.
I felt a tight knot in my throat.
Strange, I thought.
All these trees around me, I’m breathing fresh air and practising gratitude and … I’m having this knot in my throat?
I should be feeling relaxed, energised and grateful!
I continued to walk and list more achievements in my head.
But the knot was getting tighter and my heart was beating faster.
The more accomplishments, the tighter the knot.
I stopped and I asked my unconscious, “What is the purpose of this knot?”
And my unconscious talked to me:
“You haven’t achieved yet what you really want to achieve”.
“You’re throwing all these accomplishments at me—but you know they are not enough.”
My unconscious was right.
The reason I was practising gratitude that evening was to mask the things that I hadn’t achieved yet.
Also, my expectation of how I should be feeling was overriding how I was truly feeling.
This is how emotional repression works—and this is how physical symptoms manifest.
Is there anything more honest and beautiful than accepting that you haven’t yet achieved all the things you want to achieve?
Why use gratitude to mask your unwanted feelings?
Is there anything that signifies more self-respect than accepting the part of you that’s crying “not enough, not there, not quite yet”?
Isn’t that true self-love?
And then, sure, you may wish to practice gratitude or … you may not.
As for me, the knot only disappeared when I felt grateful for my “ungratefulness”.
Only then did catharsis occur.
And I enjoyed my walk that evening.
For the most part of my life I’ve strived to appear unshakeable.
But I have learned that to become unshakeable you must let go of striving to appear so.
I know it sounds scary. I know that a part of you won’t want to accept this—but trust me—it works.
Loving you, Angelos