The Most Perfect Saboteur

"Alone" by @devine.labs

Before taking my leave of absence, having a still mind was almost an impossible task for me to cross off of my seemingly never ending to-do list. I genuinely felt as though I was losing my mind… I had to take a literal break and just stop doing everything I was doing for a moment to simply exist. I really am grateful for having such an understanding mother...

The Saturday after I submitted my application for the leave of absence for the semester I went to the beach with my friends. We all needed the break to just disconnect from the overstimulating reality of university life and have a moment to just be. I was undoubtedly high as hell floating in the ocean and in that moment I noted that I had never felt so free in my entire life. It is such a strange experience to put into words… I can’t explain how much of an immensely spiritual and joyous feeling it was.

At that moment I was in pure unfiltered source energy. Since then my heart always gets so tender when I am alone in nature. How lucky are we to experience that? How loved I feel by the universe as I observe the “minor” synchronicities of life that keep the fragile balance of our existence intact. We never truly stop to appreciate it and it makes me so sad.

I think now, looking back, that overwhelming joy I felt was a result of the act of consciously deciding to take control of my life and to not just try and fight to survive anymore. Over the past few weeks I’ve done a lot of self reflection, reading and “soul searching”. Very intense stuff. Everyone makes selfcare and journaling and taking control of your life seem so glamorous and easy but it's not… I was like “damn…” It is probably the most ugly, gut wrenching and emotional thing you will ever do in your life as a human being.

Acknowledging that you are in control of your life and addressing your past, your traumas; truly learning yourself without a self pity bias and looking at everything that happened to you as if you were watching a movie to write a paper on it is hard. It’s really really hard… but it’s necessary and it’s not impossible. I’m trying and it’s getting easier. I've learned to accept that I am moving at my own pace and that my time is boundless.

Talking to myself as though I am a parent, a lover and a friend is extremely helpful as well. Oftentimes we are so unreasonably hard on ourselves, I had to stop and assess why I was being like that to me. Do I not love me? Why am I speaking to and about myself as though I am an enemy? As though I am the person who “ruined” my life so I have so much resentment for myself.

Then it hit me… that’s it… I am so resentful towards myself because I do in fact keep myself back with unreasonable insecurities, I deter myself from doing things I yearn to do because of problems that do not exist outside of my head, I allow silly anxieties to kill the dreams my heart burns for before I even try to reach for them. I was the murderer of my happiness and I truly hated myself for it. I’m not going to lie, that realization shook me to my core… I bawled my eyes out and reasonably so.

How do you come to terms with the fact that you are your own worst enemy? How do you move forward knowing that you are your biggest opp? How do you kill your ego for acting to protect your subconscious inner child by keeping you away from situations that resemble traumatic events of the past, even though the environment is nonexistent and the rewards exponentially outweigh the risk?

It was and still is my biggest moral dilemma… This little assessment allowed me to see the shades of grey in everything and everyone… things are not just the way they are for no reason… Every single problem we face always comes back to the most perfect saboteur, the human ego. I’m making a mental note to do a lot more studying on it because...

I know what anyone who reads this is going to say “Why don’t you just go to therapy Mpule?” well I mean for one it’s expensive and I’m quite literally unemployed aha and secondly I just didn’t feel like doing it. I don’t mean that in a “I don’t believe in therapy” way. I believe that therapy is amazing and mental health doctors should be just as valued as physical health doctors. The human body is quite literally just a meat sack with an impressive metabolic system without the mind. I just personally felt like I owed it to myself to try to work on slowing down to my pace and loving myself first before I outsourced. I felt like it was an extremely personal and necessary journey I had to tenderly hold myself through. I also feel like it'll be quite difficult for me to find a counselor locally that would align with my beliefs, which is incredibly crucial.

I started asking myself if I’d talk to my friends the way I talk to me, if I’d deter my friends the way I deter me. I love my friends dearly and I ALWAYS encourage them to do what’s best for themselves without imposing my personal beliefs and ego on them. I started doing that with myself and the growth was immense. I speak to myself the way I’d speak to someone I am completely and unconditionally in love with, acknowledging my fears and never invalidating them yet always adding “But what if it works out the way that you want it to beloved? Wouldn’t that be amazing?” This line of thinking also made me realize that I lowkey did not believe I deserved things working out for me, why else would my ego taunt those fears at me if not for the fact that my subconscious believed it?

I am accepting that healing and existing as a human being is like floating in the ocean, you just have to let go and trust that the waves won’t drown you because the waves are bound to come. The moment you tense with fear and resistance is the moment you sink and drown.