A couple of years ago I went through a 6-month period where I couldn’t sleep, I was exhausted. I would wake up multiple times in the night, and I had no idea what it was or what to do with it. There were times I would leave my bedroom as if to try to ‘get away from myself.’ It became so familiar I just referred to it as visits from the beast.

The beast began to visit after a very intense period in my life came to, what I thought, was a close. The events were over. A toxic divorce, a major confrontation with a significant client, and an ending of a relationship, all within months of each other.

I never allowed myself the time to feel and heal from any of these significant events, I just carried on. I never connected the dots that these events led to my insomnia; after all, they were all ‘over’; I had not anticipated the ‘aftershock’…the beast was the aftershock, the aftershock was anxiety.

One night the beast was particularity insistent, I found myself in my kitchen looking out the window. There was a moment I caught my own reflection, and just beyond were dark shapes and shadows.

You look out a window, you see a mirror.

I realized at a deeper level; I was at the center of all of these events. I caused them! I left my marriage; I confronted the client, and I ended the relationship. That realization was liberating; I needed to feel and heal. The beast was telling me something was wrong, this set me on a path of deep healing, slowing down and allowing.

Taking responsibility for the circumstances and conditions of your life does not have to be guilt-inducing, it is liberating. It was at that moment I realized I can be both strong and weak. I can be broken, and whole and I can rest. This was the year of allowing myself to sleep, heal, ask for help, be messy and whole, and seek a more profound connection to my soul. To own my brilliance and my ‘jiggly bits’ to clarify my boundaries and step into all of my potential.

Tell me, have you ever felt this? Have you ever tried to ‘get away from yourself’? Have you looked outside yourself as the cause of your suffering and the solution to your troubles?

Look out a window, and you see a mirror… you are at the center of your life, you can both heal and be healed, you can be healthy and weak. The only way to healing, to grow, is to own it and to reach out.

It’s a paradox, really. We must help ourselves, but this cannot be done without the support of others. Behind your reflection, no matter how faint, is a possibility, and you must first see yourself as the source of all action, reaction, and potential.

Being willing to travel there is what being Massively Human is all about.