Once upon a time, I believed that being boring was the worst fate that could befall someone. I pitied the people I deemed to be boring, and thought they were rather pathetic. Lacking passion, excitement, a sense of adventure, vitality. Life!
What I didn’t understand at that time was that I had mistaken chaos for passion, restlessness for excitement, avoidance for a sense of adventure, and distraction for vitality. That wasn’t life I was living. What I misunderstood most is how peace can look boring to someone who doesn’t have any clue as to what it may look like.
I was loud. I lived loud. I laughed loud, spoke loud, everything was grand gestures and big. I was big and loud and boisterous and lived life hard and fast. And I was pretending. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t fulfilled. I was super disconnected, not only from myself but others also. And I was lost.
It’s not until recently that my bestie came to me and was telling me about how much he’s struggling with another friend at the moment. He’s one year sober. And his energy has shifted dramatically from being extremely frenetic, to signs that he’s finding more peace inside. I recognise this shift, because it’s the shift I have been working through over the years. And now he’s struggling to find himself around that frenetic energy that his friend has, that we so often mistake for passion and excitement. We had a discussion and he decided to put some boundaries in place (of which I was so happy for him, as boundaries are something many of us struggle with honouring ourselves with, and it’s new for him to do so). I applauded him and assured him it’s still possible to be a great friend with boundaries in place that honour ourselves as well as the other.
The thoughts around that discussion, however, have been swirling around in my mind, and I realised something this evening. A lot of my struggle with that shift from frenetic was the fear of becoming boring. But I see now I didn’t become boring- I became softer and quieter. Subtle. I’ve become the presence that people don’t recognise at first as comfort. And that has only come about because of all the work. The endless tears and introspection and walking through the fire… to find a place of stillness.
Stillness is the opposite of chaos.
And it can’t be forced. It’s not a “thing.” And it doesn’t look a certain way. It’s a stripping away. An emptying. A beautiful feeling of space within. A removal of all the lenses. A removal of all the emotional “splinters” screaming at us to be removed.
It’s nice to have small reminders at times to be able to see how far I’ve come. It makes it easier to keep doing the work. To know that it’s all worth it, even if it’s forever ongoing.
Who knew that by becoming the very thing I feared, I would actually find the secret to my soul.