Quarantine | Losing My Mind or Finding It?

By The Wild Inspired April 07, 2020

Well, I’m not quite sure what day it is. All of them seem to blur together. Last I recall, we had a national pandemic announced, and since then the days have meshed into one. As if they are the sky during sunset...each color holding hands with the other, smashed and meshed into a beautiful overlapping. There is no time. There is no clear ending or beginning. And while so much flaw is being uncovered in this world, to the ways our focus has likely been on the wrong things, I’m searching to find levity in all of it. And that’s hard because right now we are being taught some deep lessons. Or at least I am, so I’ll speak for myself. I realize now more than ever, just how much I have run from in my life. I have used constant work and busyness, money, my creativity, traveling, building my businesses...all the while not realizing just how much running I was doing. Man, I should be an Olympic long distance runner by now. Gold medal.

But all that I have to show for in this long and weary race is resilience & strength, lots of life experience, and confidence in my ability. And while these things are wonderful, I cannot forget that I have not stopped often enough to fall apart or to even celebrate my wins-and there have been many. Instead of patting myself on the back for jobs well done, or goals surpassed, I've gone on feeling like a failure. And so it sets the endurance running all over again, only to find myself constantly running away from my self-deprecation and into walls, full speed ahead. Even in quarantine I have somehow been working 40 hours per week. I mean, how desperately does my unconscious mind want to escape? And so like most, I realize I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted from finding my value in the things that aren't correct for me. They have been the harmful fossil fuel that has driven me to pollute myself. They are the unclean energy that I have been using to "get ahead" all the while escaping from my presence.

I don’t have all of the answers, and honestly I don’t even know where I’m going with this, just like most of my writing... what I do know is that I’m breathing into the present moment. I’m learning to let go of self induced pressure to have it all figured out, to grow my business over night or to be something specific to the world. Now, more than ever, I am taking conscious time to slow down, to self care even more than I already was, to be patient with life and to enjoy the goddamn journey. There is no destination. It’s here and now. This is about feeling it all, allowing space for whoever I am right now & allowing that to flow and change with the current of life.

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, can be taken away. It took this pandemic to finally nail that reality into the coffin for me. So I put my old ideas to rest. I say goodbye to wanting more than what I have right now. I am breathing life into this space & this time I have been given. And I guess to find some levity in all of it, this weekend I decided to take hours for a much needed creative break for this self-portrait project. I wanted to portray some lightness. So, this is me not taking myself too seriously and letting it all go. I’m grateful for this time to fall apart, and come back together, and find gratitude, and feel loss, and dig deeper, and connect with people I love, and find creativity from a raw place again.

I'll leave you with something I have said for a long time, but is finally settling into my cracks now... "If all that I am right now, is all I'll ever be, am I enough?" For me, the answer always is yes, even in the darkness. And the reason I say this is because, all of the outside stuff ebbs & flows, what I have control over is allowing myself to revel in the wonders of life & to find my value within. The world will change frequently, and as we are seeing, even drastically. Our inner world is the place we can go to find our homeostasis and to establish foundation. So, today, I look within to find my balance, my courage & my value.

Love you all & praying for everyone’s safety & health.

xx Alaxandra