For most of my adult life, I’ve suffered from various forms of mental illness. I’ve had over 20 years of eating disorders, 15 years of on and off depression, and lifelong challenges with anxiety. I’ve also struggled to cope with several other traits, that while not mental illness, are often misunderstood and shamed by our culture at large – like high sensitivity, distractibility/ADD, insecurity, and low self esteem. I’ve felt terribly guilty about these traits, as if I should simply be able to will myself into being different. (To put it another way, I’ve felt insecure about feeling insecure.)
There have been other contributing factors – chronic stress, the exhaustion of raising a large family, and financial problems – that created a perfect storm for all my challenges to coalesce and create a sticky, mucky stew that I’ve earnestly tried to climb my way out of.
Yes, I’ve made progress. Yes, I’ve seen changes. And yet as the years go by, I’ll be honest – I don’t like the fact that I’m still – after all this work, and all this time – having to cope with anxiety, or depression, or a spinning, stressed out brain. In other words, I have felt frustrated that I am still human. Deep sigh – I’m still in process.
Today, I can chuckle at this. But a few weeks ago, I was not laughing about this; I was weeping.
If I examine some of my deeply held beliefs, I can see that I approached my healing journey with a very closed fist – a fist that held tightly onto rigid, narrow, high expectations. My expectations went something like this: If I do all the right things (you know, forgive and let go and take the high road and yada, yada, yada), and undertake this healing journey (God knows it is not easy,) then I want a reward, my just desserts. I want a guarantee that I will not hurt anymore: that I will be wealthy and happy and healthy and loved. I want a guarantee that my anxiety, depression and more will just go away.
When I didn’t receive these things I blamed myself. I took my lack of perfection (the fact that I still hurt and have hurts to care for) to mean, “There’s something wrong with me.” This, my friends, is suffering.
My thinking went something like this:
I pray, I do yoga, I pour my heart out to God, I meditate, I look at my stuff, I practice forgiveness, I surrender, I do all the “right” things. And I feel like an abysmmal failure, as if I’ve failed some test from God, that I do all these things, and that I’m still me. Still me with my brokenness and my anxiety that rears up and my tender heart and my insecurities.
I thought if I did all these things I could be a being of just pure light, of pure radiance, and all my human messiness would fall away. It is a subtle, perhaps the most subtle, form of control. In the wake of this control – or rather my lack of it – I feel ashamed. I feel perhaps the deepest shame, a spiritual shame, that I’m failing life 101 and it’s all my fault. I feel like I’ve flunked some spiritual test because I haven’t created my life in the way that I’ve wanted it to be.
If I’m honest, I can see that my personal and spiritual seeking was about trying to overcome my pain, not care for it. In so many words, to make it Go. Away. Now and forever. I hated it. Just hated it. I hated the dark muck of depression, the panicky spiral of anxiety, the wobbly feet of insecurity.
And I have come to see that as long as I am relating to my pain from that place – a bargain of, “If I care for you, will you go away?” – I will suffer. I will feel guilty, like I’m being punished, and ashamed, like it’s all my fault.
So as I sat last week, with fresh grief in my heart and tears dripping onto my keyboard, I bowed to my pain. I surrendered towards it. I said, “It’s okay anxiety, I love you. It’s okay depression, I will care for you. It’s okay sensitivity, I’m here.”
I want, so desperately, to stop the war – the war with myself. When I turn towards my pain and ask it, What do you need from me? It says, “Just allow me to be. Stop judging me. Stop blaming me. Please, oh, please, just care for me.”
My sorrow helped me find a new perspective: maybe my deepest pain, all my mental health challenges, all the anxiety and depression and food stuff, is intentional. Purposeful. Something to learn to love. If I don’t love these parts of me, who will? If I don’t care for them, who will want to? If I don’t open my heart, how can I expect others to?
So today my practice is this: letting go of my attachment to expectations. Letting go of my focus on the externals (how my life looks from the outside.) Letting go of this need to do something only if it guarantees a positive outcome. Letting go of control.
Can I care for my pain, just to care for it – simply because it’s a very kind thing to do for myself?
To care this deeply means to surrender.
We feel ashamed because we can’t control. We can’t control the challenges in our lives, the pain that needs healing, we can’t even control our emotions – they just arise.
But this shame is based on a false truth: that we should be able to control. We were never meant to control life in this way.
Perhaps viewing my mental health challenges, my inherent sensitivity, my humanity itself as something I can control with enough spiritual practice is unkind. Perhaps if I surrendered to it, instead, I may find a much gentler – and wiser – way of relating to it. And perhaps in this kindness, I will find a freedom, a peace, a peace even in the midst of anxiety, or sadness or sensitivity.
When I stop judging my insecurity, my anxiety, my depression, and just allow it to be, I feel free. I feel free because I’m not so tense, fighting against myself. I don’t blame or punish myself for feeling sad or lonely, I reach out for support. I don’t feel so caught in, “It’s all my fault.” Instead, I surrender to the wisdom of detachment. As my friend Deidre says, “It couldn’t have happened any other way.” To surrender to the messiness of life and say, “It couldn’t have happened any other way” is another way of saying, “You did the very best you could.”
This morning the Beloved whispers to me, “Oh, Karly, you were never meant to be in control. You were never meant to take on so much. You were never meant to carry so many burdens. Let go, dear child. Let go.”
There is so much about life that is not in our control. Do we have the courage to let go, to accept this, and to open to grace? This journey, as all journeys do, comes back to love. Can I love all of me – even the dark, most painful bits? Even my very, very messy humanity – humanity that may never go away?
Can I surrender? Can I stop looking at my healing journey as a finish line – whose end is a perfect Karly – and instead accept that there are parts of me that may not change? Can I be okay with that?
I know it sounds counterintuitive, but befriending and caring for our human messiness – rather than controlling it – is what creates the space to relate differently to it. Something powerful shifts inside when I no longer look at my challenges as something to control, but something to care for. It’s a different kind of relationship with these frightened, hurting parts of myself – a relationship that is kind rather than self abandoning.
Rumi put it this way:
Learn the alchemy true human beings know:
the moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given,
the door will open.
Perhaps our brokenness – our humanity – is the call that brings us back to love. We fight against it and try to evolve out of it and try to make it go away or hide it and then, exhausted and discouraged, we return to love. Can we just love ourselves, right now, in this moment? In this moment where we’re feeling afraid, or anxious, or distracted, or lonely, or sad, or discouraged?
May we all remember who we are: fully valuable, enough and worthy with all our tender humanity. The New Testament says, “the truth shall set you free.” This is what I know to be true: that each and every one of us is lovable, is worthy, is precious, just as we are – with all our human muck, all our mental health challenges, and all our pain.
We are wonderfully and beautifully made, and we are good; very, very good.
Needing some hands-on help?
If you’d like to read more about my journey of acceptance with depression and anxiety, you may enjoy these posts here:
- Making peace with our imperfection, an audio blog on my acceptance on depression
- How I befriended depression with kindness
- Loving where you’re at (an example of what befriending anxiety looks like)
- Healing the shame that keeps you stuck
To learn more about tools like acceptance, dropping blame and shame, and befriending emotions, try my overeating program, Heal Overeating: Untangled, 12 audio sessions to create emotional healing from food.
I also work 1 on 1 with a limited number of people as a coach. Learn more here.
Karly,
So many times I too, have “felt insecure about feeling insecure,” to use your words. There seems to be no end to the many ways we can feel bad about ourselves, but your post helps us step back and accept our pain while seeing our gifts. Thanks!
Holly,
My mind has *lots* of ways of feeling bad about myself! I love how Tara Brach puts this – “The mind has no shame.” So true. And comical.
I am learning not to take this so personally. It can be very funny to live inside my head sometimes.
I feel happy that this post resonated with you and I greatly enjoy hearing about your own journey!
In love and care, Karly
“My expectations went something like this: If I do all the right things (you know, forgive and let go and take the high road and yada, yada, yada), and undertake this healing journey (God knows it is not easy,) then I want a reward, my just desserts. I want a guarantee that I will not hurt anymore: that I will be wealthy and happy and healthy and loved. I want a guarantee that my anxiety, depression and more will just go away.”
Karly, you expressed this beautifully. I’m coming to a deep realization that this is what I’ve been doing too. Utterly and completely. I was willing to work, I was willing to suffer, I was even willing for it to take some time– some years. BUT… eventually the reward was supposed to come. My expectation was that I would come to a time when things just went away. My hurts, my struggles, my pain– what you call humanity. That in itself is the realization right? It’s a part of the human experience to deal with these things.
I guess there’s a whole movement within the spiritual arena that believes that once you heal… once you’re “enlightened,” everything works out. You walk around in bliss all the time. “You’re established in a higher state of consciousness.” You’ve finally figured it out or burned off your karma or healed your mistaken beliefs and then POOF! the world is a beautiful, happy place. YOU are beautiful and happy.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be happy. I think that’s also a natural and probably intrinsic part of the human experience. However, I ask myself now, where is the line between wanting to be happy, and wanting to escape and move beyond actually being a part of the human experience. When does the desire to be happy, actually become an ego attachment? Or better yet, perhaps just a spurious dream that keeps you on the treadmill of life, rather than actually being present and living with acceptance?
Thank you for your post. I really really appreciate you bringing more clarity to my path and thoughts. I love you!
Kelley,
I appreciate your vulnerable sharing here! It sounds like you are healing some deeply held beliefs, and while this is painful, and at times even despairing, I also hear that it is liberating for you. I think you are growing, growing, growing, and I admire your courage to look inside! You inspire me, and I feel less alone in sharing my path with you.
I am learning to appreciate that just as nature has seasons of dark and light, and spring and winter, so do I. So much of my energy (and suffering) has been about trying to control my experience so that it’s 70 degrees and sunny all the time, as that’s what I thought was the way to happiness.
I am finding such freedom in letting go, in surrendering to all parts of me, loving and accepting everything, including the parts that are dark and uncomfortable. I am sloooowly (ha, ha!) learning that one of the kindest things I can do for myself is not to abandon myself when I’m in pain or discomfort.
That search for someday left me so defeated, hopeless, and unpresent. This is my life, with all the muck and joy and glee and the whole beautiful mess.
In experimenting with this – and this is my own experience, and recognize that it may not be true for everyone – I feel that the path to beauty and happiness is to find even the beauty and happiness in things like depression, anxiety, financial strife, disagreement, loss, etc. as well as joy, delight, and “success.”
It is the letting go that brings the freedom and the happiness. It’s what moves me from control to care – how do I relate to this? How do I care for it?
All I really, really want – at the core – is to *love.* To feel and be and give and receive love. So if I have to love depression to love myself, I suppose I get the opportunity to practice loving depression. Today, this feels easy and doable. Other days, a struggle, more like a war, ha, ha! And I feel that is okay too.
Oh, the heart is big enough…..
In love and care, Karly
Hello Karly,
I’m so deeply moved by your courage to speak…Everything you say about all the things you’ve done in hopes of getting a payoff are so true for me as well. There is something inside of me that just doesn’t get this love for love’s sake or how to allow surrender. My sense is that the controlling one inside of me is just so very scared and that it’s the “deal-making controller” that perhaps needs love the most of all. She has been a disowned and rejected aspect of myself even as she’s run me from behind the scenes. I have the sense that she’s a very small and frightened child. Stephen Levine said something like “May you be so blessed as to have something show up in your life that you can’t control.” I’m a tough nut to crack, Karly. As much as I want the peace of pure love, I just as stronly fear it. And that’s just the truth of it for me. I know the Beloved doesn’t want we small humans to carry such heavy burdens, but I’m so freaking scared to lay them down.
Love you,
Jeannine
Jeannine,
Precious soul, I bow, bow, bow to your brave heart.
I love how you describe the deal maker controller, as you put words to my feelings. Yes, that’s exactly what she’s doing and how it feels. How can I tenderly love that part of me?
This just left me astounded: Stephen Levine said something like “May you be so blessed as to have something show up in your life that you can’t control.” (I love SL.) I am chewing on that like food today.
It is so scary to let go – thank you for speaking to this. I have been humbled by how I not only run from pain but how I also run from love and joy, the intimacy and peace I seek. Seeing that with clarity feels like a big ouch. Ugh.
I suppose the path then is loving the part of us that fears intimacy, and allowing that part of us to be present, too – to wrap that part of us in our arms of love.
Everything in me wants to be loved. Can I stretch my heart – even as it hurts to grow and stretch – to love all of me?
I think you are beautiful and brave, and I see your bountiful, big heart.
In all my love, Karly
Thank You THaNkYoU THANK YOU, Karly!!!! your courage to defy stigma and speak your truth feels so incredibly liberating to read and witness – the 1st sentence felt like wings to me – your boldness contagious.
… you helped me loose the shackles of shame & step more boldly into my own particular journey with life & mind – the various ways my struggle has been defined by the DSM along the way… autism generalized anxiety bulimia clinical depression addiction schizophrenia ptsd schizoaffective bipolar mpd/did… and this learning to live with off-the-charts skinless spine on the outside sensitivity – perpetual work with creating some sense of protection from absorbing this world’s palpable suffering – adrenal burnout – the endless “what is wrong with you?” judgement from the outside – comparison amidst how our society defines success – lifelong inner inquiry “what is wrong with me?” “what am i doing wrong?” – how my desperation for healing has taken so many forms in shadow & clarity, from psychotropic drugs to street drugs bingeing starving endless therapies homeopathic alopathic holistic anthroposophic acupuncture energetic shamanic esoteric prayer meditation network chiropractic – much time in silent retreat learning to sit witness befriend the mind respond not react unwind on and On & ON… “why?” endless why… this longing for quiet peace – abundance – love. how still the fight so loud inside – the ways i continue to resist relaxing into deathless peace on the inside – how still i fall into longing for love to take form – come save me – i want the destination – a carrot – anything – something to give me a sense of… “oh, so this is what all the struggle has been for.” i ricochet between rage and self-pity – terror grieving – and then here and there between breaths i rest inside being okay with all this not knowing – surrender – bravely unclenching clenched fists fighting so hard to feel safe – for this moment i am embracing mystery inside my own particular brand of inevitable suffering – doing my best to not add layer upon layer of pain on top of pain – the optional over inevitable, with food and booze drugs & endless running in all my various ways of running… how i fall again and again into the muck of my own will – and so it goes – round & round – this ride of a lifetime …
today i am learning to find tiny moments of holding my heart with the tender limitless Love, i’ve always been so famished for – how i’m learning (excruciatingly slowly) to be the peaceful abundance i’ve been waiting for.
Thank You Karly, for helping me soften into courage ~ I’m so thankful to know i have fellow travelers along the way.
Ash,
You are so welcome. I love that “to soften into courage.” Beautiful.
And this is inspiring: “today i am learning to find tiny moments of holding my heart with the tender limitless Love, i’ve always been so famished for – how i’m learning (excruciatingly slowly) to be the peaceful abundance i’ve been waiting for.”
Our hearts are so big.
I feel happy that my sharing about what is most painful for me is a balm to your spirit. We are not alone. That’s why I wrote it – to break the silence we all feel and experience.
We are not alone and we are so, so much more than any challenge we experience, any illness, any disorder, any disability.
We are Beyond.
In love and care, Karly
Ash,
I’m so moved by your post. Thank you. I resonate with so much of what you shared. Running through the endless list… looking for the carrot. I get it completely. Thank you for writing.
Kelley
Karly,
Your word and those of everyone who have replied to this post is like a blanket of warmth and love.
These are the words I needed to hear. As Susan M Haller said, “you have put my struggle into concrete words.” This rings so true!
Thank you for your incredible gift to write so beautifully and articlulate our deepest struggles.
Thank you to everyone for your courage and support.
Kathy B.
Kathy,
You are so welcome. Knowing we are not alone is one of my goals and intentions. I feel happy that writing about my deepest struggle brings light to your own.
Thank you for taking the time to write and share.
In love and care, Karly
How you have put my struggle into concrete words — where I have felt that I was in the middle of a ocean of emotions, lacking a compuss that would direct me to shore — you have done that, my therapist keeps telling me that I need to reach out and build relationships — which being a social isolate scares the heck out of me, HOWEVER what you just wrote makes total 100% sence — I have a build a relationship with all the various “me’s”, the anxious one, the depressed one, the binger, the inner child who is hiding from fear and shame, all of me. You have put that old age question of “who am I” to rest — I am all of it and I need to understand that all of it is ok ! I also have printed mult copies to have in the car, bedroom, work, journal so when that part of “CONTROL” wants to sneek out, I can say nope, I would rather build a relationship ! Again, you have thrown a rope to one who was drowning, and I thank you
Dear Susan,
I think all of life is relationship – how do I relate to my emotions? My needs? My many different selves? I was in a women’s business group last week and we were all laughing about how we never know which “self” will show up on any given day! I love that we normalized this, that we all feel this way. (Thank goodness we’re not the only ones.)
Relating to all of these parts of us with such tenderness – perhaps that is what being human is really about. Because it is also true that the more kindly I relate to my selves the more kindly I relate to other’s selves.
I love that – “I am all of it.” We are all of it and beyond – so much more than our struggles and even our many selves.
I feel happy and grateful that my words were a help to you and feel overjoyed to share this journey with you, precious soul.
In love and care, Karly
Wow, Karly, U are surely divinely annointed to point us toward our own healing. Thank you for your courageous sharing.
Barb,
I am grateful that this spoke to you and feel happy that you joined us here!
In love and care, Karly
I also went through 3 years of very bad anxiety. Every once in a while I still have a panic attack but I identify it for what it is…just that…’oh..I’m having a panic attack…I need to go home and go to bed now’. I’ve accepted it as part of me. Have you ever tried asked yourself what the positives are? I know that going through anxiety attacks has made me more empathic and understanding of others. Most people only see physical disabilities but I tend to notice things about people that others don’t. It’s made me speak up on behalf of others when others have shown disregard for others. Would I trade my 3 anxiety years … that’s hard to answer … the pain I felt at the time was horrible but atleast I’ve learned to put a positive spin on it and not be resentful of. As regards for panic or anxiety attacks now, I take it as a sign that I need to take a day off….and just nurture and rest.
I agree – I wouldn’t trade my challenges for anything, as they have opened my heart, grown my compassion (I think I would’ve become really, really impatient and arrogant without them!!) and enabled me to let go of control. I love that your challenges have made you courageous and a defender of outsiders – that is a gift, too, and a precious one.
Whenever I open to my feelings – even difficult ones like anxiety – there is peace, even in the midst of them. The resisting is what causes so much pain.
I love your suggestions that your anxiety is simply a sign to nurture and rest. I will remember that, as that also rings true for me.
I feel grateful and happy to share this journey with you!
In love and care, Karly
Karly,
Thank you for writing this. I can only imagine how difficult it is to be so open with your struggles but it makes such a difference for us here. Because of the work you have done and in your writing, in your uncensored honesty with your pain, I have begun to accept mine and after 20 years of an eating disorder, that is such a blessing. Today, I was feeling so frustrated that 20 years later, I am still beating myself up with the same mental dialogue, struggling with depression and anxiety, and making progress only to “fall back down”. Today, instead of reaching for sugar when I really really really wanted to eat my weight in chocolate to stop feeling and to admit defeat, I came back to your site and gave myself a break. I found this post. You have made such a difference in my life and in the lives of the other women on here. You have given us hope and connection and I hope that the beauty we see in you warms you. You deserve it. A big hug to you and to all of us.
Dearest,
I agree – a big hug to all of us! I feel grateful and happy that my work has helped you find unconditional love with all parts of you. It’s the richest part of the journey, in my experience.
I love that you gave yourself a break and the connection you needed, instead of chocolate. Wow, that is so powerful. So I’ll hold up that mirror to you and say that even though you “feel” like you’re in the same place as before, you’re not, and this is just one example.
I am cheering you on every step of the way, and fully support you in your journey. I hold the highest and best for you!
In love and care, Karly
Oh Karly. I think ALL pain has a purpose – and I know for certain your pain has had and will continue to have a purpose. I mean really, Karly, if you didn’t have these issues where would you be today? Can you imagine all the women who would be lost and floundering because you weren’t there to go through it first so you could explain it to us? Karly, you have no idea the rippling effect your work has…just this morning when my dear niece told me that her dog has cancer and won’t be around much longer, I was able to tell her “Grieve. Don’t be afraid to cry and be sad about this. Cry your tears and take all the time you need to grieve this.” I was able to tell her that because YOU taught me that grieving is not only okay, but NECESSARY. And that’s just ONE thing off the top of my head, there are many more things I’ve learned to embrace from you.
And even if you had never taken on this burden of helping other women, you would still be just as valuable. You have so much to offer this world, and more importantly you have so much to offer yourself. You are enough – even if you don’t do another day’s worth of work, you are enough right now just as you are. I’m so glad you have come to this realization that you are worthy and valuable and loveable – I’ve known it for a long time, and I’m glad you know it too.
((((hugs)))))
Jill
Jill,
I love the reminder that all pain has a purpose, that it is never lost. You are also right – I wouldn’t be able to write about any of it without experiencing it first myself. (I confess I chuckled when I gave birth to my daughter with a male OB. I remember thinking, “How can he know what this feels like?” Ha, ha!)
I feel so touched that you were able to comfort your niece in her sadness. I think that is such a powerful story and one that shows your strength and wisdom, in that you were able to offer her that gift. More and more I’m learning about the power of grief – it’s what enables me to grow up and mature, over and over and over. It’s how I can say yes to life, even the hard parts. I feel incredibly touched that this is trickling down to others…..
Jill, thank you for your kind, kind words of support and for holding up a mirror to remind me of my worth.
I count my blessings in knowing you!
In love and care, Karly
OK – I am printing this out to keep copies at my desk, my nightstand, my makeup mirror. Thank you for pointing out something I just never even thought of before.
You are so welcome, Dolphin! I feel happy that this spoke to you.
In love and care, Karly
Thank you so very much for this Karly. You put into words exactly what I have felt for so long. I greatly appreciate your sharing this with me. Thank you again!
You are very welcome, Sadie. I’m glad my words could help you feel less alone.
In love and care, Karly