Pensées by Sid

I’m not gonna lie. It took me awhile to write this. I wanted to write it to start off the year. Things, however, have been rather hectic. 2022 took me for quite a wild ride. It was definitely a roller coaster of emotions. The highs were highs and the low of lows.

I was taken aback by some of the things I discovered myself. The goal of trying to know one’s self is an ongoing journey. The revelations one receives are both welcomed and unwelcomed. Welcomed because it’s always good to know things about yourself. As the oracle of Delphi once famously said, “Know thyself.” But it’s also unwelcomed because now that you know the truth, you have to do something about it. I don’t think it may come as a surprise to others but it was sure a surprise to know for me that I realized that I was a people pleaser. I guess I had an image in my head of what a people pleaser is and somehow I guess I didn’t fit that image. You know the look: head down, subservient, and doesn’t say a thing. I thought I was too opinionated to be a people pleaser. I complain a lot and I do speak my mind from time to time so I thought that didn’t apply to me. Boy, was I wrong! when you see something, it’s difficult to un-see it. When this truth was revealed to me, it didn’t take long to start thinking about my past and suddenly, I can pinpoint how this people pleasing atittude was playing itself out with how I relate to myself and how I relate to others.

What now? It’s been a weird journey. Why can’t I answer basic questions like “Who am I?” or “What do I really want?” How can I separate what I want vs what others’ expectations for me are? They have become so intertwined that I no longer know how to untangle them. At the same time, I know that I have to give myself a lot of grace and compassion. Decades of wrong thinking won’t be fixed in 30 seconds. Easier said than done, I guess.

What this process has also revealed for me is that I’m not very attuned to my body. I don’t know how to listen to my body. I know that a huge part of it is because I have bought into the capitalistic lie that I’m a machine, not a human. Growing up in a culture that doesn’t really value the body’s well-being unless it is somehow connected to materialistic production and output, it’s no wonder I feel so disembodied. Add to that my disgust for humanity and it becomes a recipe for a dysfunctional relationship with the body.

So here’s to a desire to be made perfect. Not in the sense of perfect as in perfection aka no blemish or no error because this is not attainable and a foolish desire but perfect as in made whole. Complete. Without the fragmentation of self. Intact. To be able to feel emotions, instead of the desire to numb emotions. To be able to release negative emotions rather than pretend they don’t exist and in the process, gets trapped in my body, mind, and soul, unreleased but felt through aches, pains, and anxiety.

Here’s to a perfect 2023.