Through The Eyes Of A Child: Returning To Wonderland

I love that this meme was created/shared by a page called “Falling In Love With Yourself”.

Having an exploration buddy is certainly the dream — road trips, ghost towns, hikes, neat little coves, rivers, and caves (British Columbia Canada is a BEAUTIFUL place 😍) yet I’ve learned that I’ve gotta make my own life an adventure in the meantime, even if it’s just exploring the city streets (not driving has its downfalls 😕).

Every day that I leave my house is an opportunity for magic and mystery as I never know who I’ll encounter or what I’ll see. The way I’ve learned to view the world is what makes it both an adventure and a sanctuary, for the magic resides in my perception, not in the external reality.

The thoughts I think—the stories I tell myself—they shape my worldly experience. Whether I believe the world is an awful place where no one can be trusted and everyone’s rooted in selfishness, or if I think it’s a fairytale full of helpers (in and beyond this realm, — far, far, beyond the human form) then that is what it becomes for me.

What a gift, this power of perception. Now I understand why Einstein compared imagination to genius—why children are so creative. They haven’t forgotten yet. They still believe.

Picasso once said:

“It took me years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

The 2019 to 2021 psychosis was my spiritual awakening. Getting off the drugs, alcohol, and then the psychiatric medications allowed me to begin experiencing this world in a way I never had before: with clarity.

For too long I was glazed over with substances, out of touch with my body, spirit, psyche, and emotions. I didn’t want to feel, the wounds felt too deep. I was afraid. To turn and look—to actually face and feel what I’d spent a lifetime running from—felt like certain death.

Learning to feel—actually feel—has been an incredibly painful experience. The anguish I’ve had to lean into because I can no longer afford to run, has not been easy. No pills, no booze, no sex/men, no drugs, no overeating, no shopping, no television—no more numbing. I’ve had to learn to bite the bullet.

In 2019, I had a near death experience. I had been suicidal for nearly my whole life up until then. I asked to live. The darkness is where I was led.

I see the world through the eyes of a child now because everything has become new again. How the wild birds fly and how phenomenal machinery on construction sites is, building something out of nothing.

I was a drug addict at such a young age…

And, childish and child-like are not the same thing. One is immaturity, the other a playful innocence. 😅

Thank you to the person today who told me reading my blogs/following my posts was like reading pages from my diary — vulnerable and deeply intimate (though yes, that can feel unsettling as well). This is my diary—only what the public sees is barely the tip of the iceberg regarding my written work and the world I now live in. ☀️

There’s always ups and downs too. The storms don’t disappear. The moments of fatigue, of utter hopelessness at the state of humanity—all of that and more is still alive within me. And, like the weather, it passes. All of this passes. The sunshine, the rain, the hope, the despair… life itself is impermanence.

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Opening Meme/ by Falling In Love With Yourself