This work began on December 11, 2017. At that time I was a mess… well at least a worse mess than I am now. I was struggling at the end of my first year of being a solo physician in my own practice. I had no idea what I was doing, only that my soul felt like I was on the wrong path. Nothing was easy, and it felt like everything I did was a step in the wrong direction.
If you’ve ever been there, I’m truly sorry. It’s a terrible way to feel.
About the only thing I was certain of at the time was that something was missing. I felt like I was living someone else’s life, spending my days in somebody else’s recipe. The problem was I didn’t know what my recipe looked like, just this deep overwhelming sense of being out of alignment with who I really am and what I really feel.
And the knowledge that something had to change.
So I began writing this work. I can’t tell you exactly what instinct made me do that, other than writing is something that has always come fairly easy to me. I had written a few long form pieces on Facebook a couple of years before that, but hadn’t really done anything with them. Yet something intrigued me, so I sat down one day to see what would come out.
In my very first post I talked about being broken, and the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is restored with gold.
I had no idea that I was doing that very process to myself, although at the time I would’ve considered myself broken. The truth was very simple - I wasn’t living my truth, and when you do that long enough, you start to lose connection with your own soul. Eventually that process will grind you down until you’re just a shell, disconnected pieces of a person who could be whole if only someone could help put them back together.
So I started doing the work on myself.
Day after day sitting at a computer, snatching the words out of the chaos of my head, crafting a different reality than the one I had been led into. Coming to understand who I am, what I believe, and how my understanding of the universe is put together. I don’t claim to know everything, and in fact most of the time I think most of what we know is more of a wish than a reality.
But writing this work allowed me to let go of so many things that weren’t serving me.
There’s an incredible power that comes from becoming congruent with how you really feel. Most of all, it gives you the courage to be able to admit that there’s so much that you don’t know. We spend so much of our time grasping for certainties in a universe that promises anything but. The more aligned you are in your soul, the less you need external absolutes.
Because you start to realize that you’re actually enough.
Every piece I’ve written has contained a small portion of my soul. I shared experiences and thoughts, moments and madness. The original goal of this work was to try to help me, and yet the feedback I’ve received has helped me realize that I have a chance to contribute in a way that would have seemed ridiculous so many years ago.
Coming to know myself has been an incredible process.
Don’t get me wrong though, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Doing this work has required a radical level of self honesty that sometimes I wish I didn’t have. I’ve had to make apologies for the way I behaved, and I’ve also had to extend that level of understanding to others when it would’ve been so much easier to wallow in a sense of offense and injury.
Because when you finally understand why you’re doing something, you can understand why other people are behaving in their own way.
Coming to know yourself is the journey of becoming fully human. Cognizant of your strengths, patient with your weaknesses. Accepting your soul at the foundation level, and choosing your future based on what you really want, not what others want for you. Finding courage and strength that you never knew existed, to step out into the void of your own journey, resolute and relentless.
Because the prize of claiming your own soul is worth everything that it costs you.
Once you own yourself, the noise from others falls away. You come to rely on very few opinions, because you’ve done the work to fully own your own. Always open to new theories, but knowing that the final decision will is, and always will be, yours.
Because doing the work has given you the right to have faith and confidence in yourself.
The journey I began five years ago will last a lifetime. Always awakening each day knowing that there are new things to see, deeper levels to unlock, demons to slay and lessons to learn.
The adventure of claiming my soul is the most powerful and productive journey I will ever take.
If you’re new here, or if you have been following since those first faltering steps, please understand how grateful I am for you. Every follow, every like, every comment and every message served to remind me that this is indeed the way forward for me.
I pray my service will be of value to you.
Today, and always.
Best wishes.
Alan.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings