You\u2019re not a puzzle to be solved you\u2019re a room to be sat with<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I keep forgetting this as I keep treating myself like a problem that needs fixing as I keep reading books about how to optimize my brain how to manage my anxiety how to be better faster more functional just keep building routines and structures and systems to contain it all as if the mess is wrong as if the point is to become someone other than who I actually am<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do this to other people too see someone struggling and immediately want to help them want to give them answers want to hand them the philosophy books and the coping mechanisms and the step-by-step instructions as if they\u2019re puzzles as if I can solve them as if solving people is even possible or kind or what anyone actually needs<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re all doing this all trying to solve each other and ourselves all reading the self-help and going to therapy and taking the medication and building the morning routines all trying to optimize our way out of being human trying to fix the unfixable trying to organize the inherently messy trying to become solved when maybe solved isn\u2019t what we\u2019re supposed to be<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not a puzzle I\u2019m not something that needs solving or a broken thing waiting to be repaired all I am instead is a person just a space that contains hell and calm and anxiety and love and confusion and certainty all at once and that\u2019s the point the point is just to sit in the room to be here just to exist without trying to become something else or fix something that was never broken to begin with<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I help people now I try to remember this try to just sit with them try to be present with their actual mess instead of immediately reaching for solutions try to say \u201cI see you I hear you this is hard\u201d and not \u201chere\u2019s what you should do,\u201d because what people need isn\u2019t answers what they need is someone willing to sit in their room with them willing to be present with the mess without trying to reorganize it and all I know is mess maybe that\u2019s why I\u2019m so good at this<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019re not a puzzle to be solved you\u2019re a room to be sat with and I\u2019m not a puzzle to be solved I\u2019m a room to be sat with and we\u2019re all just rooms containing multitudes containing contradictions containing mess and beauty simultaneously and the sitting with is harder than the solving but it\u2019s also more honest more kind more true<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I spent so long trying to solve myself trying to become the optimized version the functional version the version that doesn\u2019t need three cups of coffee to think straight and all that solving was just another way of not being with myself not sitting in my own room not accepting that this is what I am and this is enough and this doesn\u2019t need fixing all it really needs is presence<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes I still reach for the books and the routines and the fixes sometimes I still try to solve myself and others sometimes I forget that sitting is enough but I\u2019m learning that being with is more loving than fixing that rooms don\u2019t need to be puzzles they just need to be inhabited<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019re not a puzzle to be solved you\u2019re a room to be sat with I\u2019m a room to be sat with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You\u2019re not a puzzle to be solved you\u2019re a room to be sat with I keep forgetting this as I keep treating myself like a problem that needs fixing as I keep reading books about how to optimize my brain how to manage my anxiety how to be better faster more functional just keep building […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":26478,"template":"","categories":[70,10],"class_list":["post-26421","stsp_text","type-stsp_text","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-35","category-prosa"],"yoast_head":"\n