By Kalena Reynolds | Staff Writer
Sometimes you are in a season of life meant for finding yourself, and other times, you are losing yourself. Both eras are equally important but arguably vastly different.
At the beginning of the semester, I went through an extremely traumatic event that ultimately changed the trajectory of my life. Within a matter of seconds, my world crumbled in front of me like a shattered plate slipping through my fingers, and I was left with a million questions and a shredded self-esteem.
I had experienced trauma before, but there was something different about it this time. It burnt in an almost unexplainable way.
While you would assume this would feel like chaos, it felt like silence to me. I remember looking in the mirror, feeling empty at the time and a wreck at others.
I didn’t know how to soothe myself or how to cope. I knew that time was the answer to my healing, but time felt like the enemy.
As the weeks went on, humanity started to creep up on my bedroom door again. To my surprise hope began to appear on the horizon.
There’s something to be said about feeling again for the first time after complete darkness.
At the intersection of rearranging my inner world and studying for a Spanish exam, I decided to sit down and watch one of my favorite movies —”Eat Pray Love” — which significantly impacted my healing journey.
I’ll go ahead and put a disclaimer on this story. I will be the first to admit this movie is a cliché “chick flick” in one light, but in another, it is the perfect bedside table for a rather empty-feeling bed.
The main character, Liz Gilbert played by Julia Roberts, gets divorced and goes on a personal journey of finding herself while traveling the world.
About halfway through the film, I began to think about my life pursuits. I have often felt that my thoughts have hindered me in life. It was as if my self-awareness and anxiety were chains keeping me from ever fully enjoying things.
As I sat on my living room couch approaching the bottom of my Sonic Blast, I thought, “What if, from this point on, I stop thinking and just act?” While this seems like a naturally curated response, my lifelong addiction to intellectualization combined with a daunting inner awareness made this an extremely tall order.
At that moment, I looked back at the past two years of my life and felt a complete sense of “FOMO.” I felt like I missed out on so much joy and life experience all because of my thoughts and worries.
That is when I embarked on my “Eat Pray Love” journey. In the following weeks, I’ve realized that doing gets you a heck of a long way farther than thinking. While I’m still only a few steps down the road, the things I’ve learned so far have completely changed my outlook on navigating the world.
1. Conversing and socializing become immensely more fulfilling when you aren’t standing outside your body hyper-fixating on every move you make.
2. Shedding your self-awareness won’t make people hate you. The world won’t end when you stop analyzing your every move. The bottom line is people really don’t care.
3. Every day feels like a gift. The world becomes so much brighter when you no longer worry about how people perceive you.
4. It’s okay to take up space, be loud and have an opinion. Life is meant to be lived — not analyzed.
