Quite frankly I’m amazed I’m finding the time to even attempt to write this down! It was only on the recommendation of a friend that I do so, and things seem so alive and flowing in life nowadays it only felt right to oblige!

I split up from my ex some time ago now, long enough where I feel I can write about it. I won’t lie, it was pretty rough. During my 5 year relationship with this beautiful person, I can see now how I confused surrendering to love with merging and creating a deep attachment to another person out of fear of losing them. There was love between us, but it ended up becoming coloured by dependence and a fear of loss.

I am realising more and more that when I objectify love like this and make it belong to someone, it creates a lot of trouble. Because then I think the only way I can experience love is when i’m with that person, and that love is an external thing that belongs to them only. This is how attachment and aversion worked for me. I wanted to attach to my object of love and avoid losing it at all costs.

For years I did nothing with my life. After all, the love I was seeking outside of myself belonged to my girlfriend, so that’s all I needed. I didn’t bother with friends or hobbies, I created my whole life around her as I believed thats all I needed to do to maintain this connection to love. In doing this I completely forgot who I was, but It felt safe and like the right thing to do.

So naturally, when the relationship ended, it felt like I had nothing else in life left to enjoy, including love, as I’d put all my eggs in the same basket and that basket had now gone, so to speak.

Now I need a purpose. But what can I do? Nursing didn’t work, volunteering with children was great, but it has still left me with this need to find fulfilment and love from somewhere.

For a long time I meditated my way through every emotion that arose. It was a great way to avoid getting back out into the world and doing something with myself as it felt too unsafe. There was a lot of anxiety and self doubt. And whenever I attempted to try and get up and do something different with my life, the same thoughts would arise and instantly put a stop to something new potentially happening.

What if you get bored? What if you don’t enjoy it? Your health won’t let you do that, 10 years of medical reports cant be wrong. There must be something out there for you, something that you’re good at. But for now, just carry on meditating.

It was miserable but it felt safe. After all, my mind often told me that all the pain in life comes from taking risks and following the heart. So ‘best to stay indoors and stay safe’ became my mantra. Boris would’ve been proud.

The Epiphany

It wasn’t anything grand. One afternoon I was having coffee with a friend and I mentioned that I wanted to try acting on stage and do something to try and create more of a social life for myself.

She suggested an amateur dramatics group and also a social group that’s local to where I live. Before I’d had time to give it some serious thought, or allow the usual voices of doubt and fear to take over, my hands were already tip tapping away on my phone’s keyboard.

A wave starts to form

The next day, I attended a reading for a play with a local drama group. Two days after that, they cast me as one of the leading roles in a one act play which was just two months away.

I had also contacted the local social group and showed up to my first event the day after that. It consisted of a few games of pool alongside some smiling and different but very friendly faces. This progressed to karaoke with a live band, jumping up and down like a man possessed and then dancing in Cameo nightclub in Bournemouth until 3am. This happened on a Wednesday. Shock horror.

As each interaction with a stranger happened, It felt like a tiny piece of the shame that had been keeping my authentic expression and aliveness locked up was being liberated, bit by bit.  It felt very energetic and spontaneous, things came out of my mouth which surprised me as there was such little care or thought given to what I was saying.

There was a letting go of the ideas of how I should be or act. In fact even that isn’t accurate, there was no letting go of anything. Just moment to moment spontaneity and aliveness that was being allowed to breathe again. 

Thoughts that usually told me to ‘wrap this up soon as you’ll be too tired tomorrow’, or ‘be nice and polite because these are new people, you want them to like you’, were just not there anymore.

As for acting as a character in a play in front of a big group of strangers, this triggered a lot of self doubt at first. Before I’d say each line, I would be faced with two options:

1. Play yourself down, play it safe.
2. Let go and see what happens

When number 2 took precedence over number 1, more and more it felt like I was showing up for the first time as the person I actually was, shameless, unmasked and unfiltered. Here I am, this is me. Take it or leave it.

I also realised that these two options were spilling over into other moments in my life, and I began to see that I’d chosen playing it safe over my authenticity for so many years that I’d forgotten who I was.

I’m discovering more and more that when I give thoughts and concerns less attention and these barriers to my expression have the chance to melt away a bit, something else has the chance to come alive. When that ‘let go’ happened, the more authentic and unfiltered expression of myself had the chance to shine through. The authentic expression of myself that had been so violently judged and banished for so many years. 

Flow

With less harmful thoughts and self criticism, it ended up leaving room for a completely different Mikey to show up. One that is dangerously spontaneous and unpredictable, who had been suppressed and locked away for so long without my even knowing it.

Loud conversation, inappropriate joking, authentic expression with little care to how it’s perceived and an organic movement towards flirting showed up with a vengeance.

As for the rehearsals with my drama group, they were going well too. With a lot less room for doubt and self criticism, some age old companions of mine, there was a lot more room for wild expression and a real passion for fun and mischief. And more willingness to push boundaries whilst being open to whatever outcome presented itself.

Don’t get me wrong, there has been and still is doubt and anxiety. I’m human. But I’m learning more and more that instead of trying to block out and shame these parts of myself, giving them a kiss instead brings that love I used to seek so much from others. It’s all part of the wave anyway.

Holy shit sauce. So it was here all along? I don’t need to find it in someone else or with ideal life circumstances?

The wave

The spontaneity of living like this is such a contrast to the well organised and cleverly thought out way I used to try and live my life. Now I honestly don’t know what will happen in the next hour, who I’ll meet or where I’ll end up.

Maybe I’ll attend the local buddhist monastery, end up drinking wine on the beach whilst climbing on those wooden groins until the lifeguard blows his whistle at me, or being with myself at home in my new egg chair in the garden watching the sunset with the cat.

I used to obsess over planning my life meticulously to keep myself from feeling bored, lonely or rejected.  

All it took is a little bit of trust in this flow of life to know that it doesn’t need as much manipulation to look a certain way as I once thought. Life doesn’t need pushing around. I see that a bit more now.

So what am I left with?

I have met amazing people and continue to build connections every day.

Freedom and love is everything to me. Allowing myself to be exactly as I am without as much shame and judgement, warts and all, feels like the deepest and most profound sense of love I’ve tasted.

Freedom to surrender to how the current moment is manifesting and to love whatever does decide to show up, regardless of ideas of right or wrong or how I should be as a person.

And the cool thing  Is there isn’t room for regret. After all everything has brought me to this moment, and I bloody love this moment. 

I’m gradually realising that love and freedom are not dependent on other people, my circumstances, what my financial status is or whether I am fulfilling my previous ideas of living a purpose in life that would bring about what I had been seeking. 

Anyway, I’m slowly discovering that there is nothing I can do through effort that can bring any lasting sense of fulfilment. After all, if love or freedom, or even happiness, is dependent on something, what happens when you can no longer experience that something? I learned that through years of grasping onto being a nurse before needing to give it up. 

No, love and freedom is an ‘inner’ job. This morning my purpose was meditating, then having a coffee and connecting with my sister. Then it was being a dad, taking my daughter and her friend to the park with lots of laughing, eating a meal deal and discussing cars while my car was being cleaned, then it was getting hot and bothered whilst being stuck in traffic, then unsuccessfully trying to figure out some financial problems and worries around work and right now it’s sharing these words with you. 

And every one of these moments feels a unique expression of how life is simply unfolding. No one moment is better or worse than the other. They just show up spontaneously as they are.

The difference between now and a year ago is there is less judgement or resistance over how the unfolding happens. And for that I feel truly grateful.

If there is anything I’d encourage my daughter to take from the years and years of insanity and nonsense written in these blogs, it’s this: no matter who or what it costs you, be your fucking self. 

There is no other expression like yours and life is very short to be hiding it from the world because of sounds that form in your mind telling you that you need to be different to how you are or the person you really want to be!