You Know Nothing, Alyssa Snow

Like a song you can't get out of your head, this is what keeps repeating in my mind lately: You know nothing, Alyssa Snow.

Have you ever had this experience?

Everything is going fine. My business is thriving and may need a tweak or an adjustment here or there; but otherwise is flowing and growing well. My family is healthy and happy. I'm healthy and happy.

And I find myself without any external goal or vision to strive for.

This is a really uncomfortable state for my Ego so my Ego latched on to something it thought it could achieve; a deeper spiritual experience or practice.

So I found myself 3rd eye deep in spiritual books seeking to unearth the shadows to create a deeper connection to the light.

What I realized was that somewhere along the line, my spiritual practice had morphed into a self-improvement crusade. I unearthed the belief that if I didn't work hard for it; it wasn't successful. When it came to my business, this was an epiphany that changed the way I worked.

Now I realize that I've been doing the same thing with my spiritual practice. Working my ass off.

When I sought to unearth these “shadows” I realized that they were there for me to see all the time.

Impatience and lack of trust that it's all going to be okay (without me MAKING it okay). Anger; anger that things aren't EXACTLY how I want them. Disappointment in myself for not doing “better”.

Here they were, and I was hiding them. Resisting them with positive thinking, prayer and general refusal to let them have a seat at the table. To exist.

I had an awareness that these emotions that I refer to as shadows are simply faces of my beautiful humanity. And in my quest to purge them; I've been denying aspects of myself that don't fit into the paradigm of “spiritual person”.

And denying parts of yourself that you don't like is hard work.

Because you see my friends, a “spiritual person” is patient. A spiritual person ALWAYS trusts that its going to be okay. A spiritual person doesn't get angry. A spiritual person accepts herself and her life exactly as it is....all the time.

Yeah, um, totally got that one wrong.

In my earnest quest to be all “spiritual”, I've been denying aspects of my humanity. I have been withholding compassion to the deepest parts of myself that are starving for it.

Light and dark are two sides of the same coin. It's become so deeply clear that I cannot love and accept myself completely until I also accept and love the aspects of myself that I perceive as negative.

And stop working so hard at it. Just accept. Just be. Just fucking relax, already.

You know nothing, Alyssa Snow.

But my soul knows. My soul knows that underneath this feeling that I know nothing (which is really just a sign my ego is stepping aside a bit more) that at the deepest part of me, I know what I need to know to fulfill my destiny.

And not knowing is the beginning of a magical journey...somewhere.

As I said, I don't know.

And that is FINALLY okay with me.

To read more of Alyssa Snow's work, click here.

#stories #opinion