Something Better [ Post #22]

A theme that has played a part in and been a motivator in my life, in fact it has been my salvation, is the thought, the belief, the certainty that there is something better than what I am seeing before me, my present experience. I grew up being very depressed as a child and in my youth. Friends may find it hard to believe now that I have grown out of that darkness in my early life, but it is true. The internal thought that was in the back of my mind that “there has to be something better than this experience and feeling” truly was my salvation. It literally saved my life.

Somehow I survived my dark early years. I guess I always had hope of something better. I don’t know how I had that knowledge but I did. I knew in my bones, in my soul that there was a better experience awaiting me if I could just make it through the rough times. Looking back, I see now that I developed some strategies and techniques that aided my survival.

My process for breaking free from my shadow of depression and despair was leaving unpleasant situations and moving on. Now, I know a lot of people make a whole lifestyle of leaving situations and people and moving and running away, but they usually just take themselves and their internal emotional and psychological problems with them, never experiencing any real, permanent healing of their wounds or demons. Somehow, in my life, I really made forward movement and experienced true healing of my shadow side.

I experienced my early family life as very toxic and I left home as soon as I graduated from high school. I eventually put myself in a new setting, a new life, by going to college. It was not that I felt that I needed college, but I needed a new life and that seemed to be one way to find it. I healed many of my wounds by doing that. After college and a year of seminary, I left the academic world, realizing that I needed a break. I seemed to know, once again, that there was something better awaiting me if I just followed my intuition. Not long after leaving seminary I landed my job in the airline industry and began pursuing my dreams of traveling and piloting airplanes.

When my first significant relationship turned out to be a disaster I left it and moved on. I did not let it destroy me, and once again I figured that there must be something better. I did not habitually keep making bad decisions and choices and losing behaviors in my life. I made changes and moved on. If I discovered I was surrounded by toxic acquaintances and friends, I dropped them and found better relationships, just as when I left my family when I became aware they were a bad influence on me in many ways.

So, I say all this to show how, in my life, I’ve been driven by the knowledge deep inside of me that no matter how bad things may seem, there is always something better. We can always choose new thoughts, new ways of being, of behaving and relating to the world, life and people, including ourselves. We do not have to be stuck with what we think is a permanent circumstance or situation.

But it’s more than just changing the externals in our lives, running away, hoping something comes along to “save” us. We have to do a lot of internal, psychological work in the process of healing ourselves. We need to be open to forces greater than our limited, conditioned selves. Something better is always available if we open ourselves to that possibility and do the work we need to do. We have to be open, proactive, willing, courageous and sure of the fact that “something better” is awaiting our discovery.

I call that belief, that certainty, “faith.” I have used those tools to beat depression and negativity. Everyone is different and I really feel for those who cannot seem to beat their demons, to drive them out of their lives, those that always seem to live under that shadow of darkness. I am thankful that I have found tools and techniques and spiritual truths that have worked for me and lifted me to new levels of living and new life!

Wally