Recalibrating your foundation

Do you know the feeling of being clusterfuk’d in your thoughts? I felt like that last week, not necessarily in anything in particular, just an overall feeling of everything that had happened in the past year, I had felt overwhelmed and confused about where I was going. I bombarded myself with ideas and emotions with no end simply because they were unclear. However, in the past few months, since I began focusing more on myself, I have realized some valuable lessons. 

First, I am reading a book called “The Art of Letting Go” by Damon Zahariades, which explains different techniques for letting go of situations or moments that have brought you down or held you back. They are quite helpful if one begins to do them, and to say the least, if you respond to the exercises, you also start to see the results. A recent exercise was how regrets are only present if one does not learn from a mistake that has been made. We hold onto grudges and resentment for the sake of comfort and reliability on the outcome. Yet, we find ourselves questioning the past and coming to conclusions or even justifications rather than seeing the clearer picture. But the thing I got from this exercise was an understanding of the value in life and the experiences we have, the people we interact with, and how we treat ourselves. 

The second aspect of decluttering my mind was a shift in perspective: “To grow, we need to cut off the dead ends.” This is something that I had heard a lot of but I had not understood until recently. I was disappointed with certain things that happened around me because they were not living up to my expectations, and I also felt confused as to why things were simply falling apart. But then I realized that when we connect more with who we are, we also start removing the things that no longer serve us, and begin to resonate and attract more of what does. The disappointments were merely a result of these things falling apart and the instability that it made me feel. Yet, when we begin to grow and change, we also have to recalibrate the things around us (or it happens on its own). To create a stable foundation, we don’t build on what is already unstable, but we have to remove the rotten or broken bases and build it up again in the way that now works for the person you are changing. We sometimes have to accommodate, adjust and alter some ways of being and maybe perspectives we have been accustomed to so that the foundation can continuously calibrate to who we are and maintain its stability. 

So taking a step back and looking at who you are now, seeing how you have changed, and visualizing where you want to go allows for the roots to be aligned with you. When I began to see how my foundation was and questioned whether it was stable enough for the person I am becoming, I also came to terms with some things that were falling apart and how others were coming together. We may not have control of the external shifts happening around us, but we do control how we are and the balance we have within us.

Lastly, the thing that I revisited was my values. I asked if the things around me were aligned and adding onto values or if they were taking away from that congruency I wanted to maintain with them. It was one of the core pillars of my foundation for it to stabilize. I realized that if we don’t know or have clear values, we are likely to deviate or get sidetracked by things that don’t necessarily resonate with who we are, but rather be absorbed and driven by what is around us. The long list I used to have, became few, not because they were less important, but because the main values I had were the ones I knew would allow me to have a sense of balance and stability. I think when we narrow down certain key aspects of our present life, it allows the guidance and the next steps to be clearer in the sense that we don’t have to check off so many marks, but rather keep it simple. 

So, I ask you, how is your foundation? Are you building yourself on top of rotten roots and broken pillars, or are you creating new and stronger ones? Are the things that are surrounded by your foundation aligned with your values or are they unbalancing the stability?

Z.