Where There Is Discontent

The sweet, strong, aroma of brewed coffee at six in the morning.  

The feel of winter breeze. 

The sweet melodies the birds make.

The warmth of my pink sweater and green pajamas.

Contentment.  

Where does it come from? 

How can one have it?

These are sort of the questions you kind of ponder on in the quiet hours of the day.

Insights from a friend or a loved one would prove invaluable. But processing your thoughts and emotions is a big deal especially if you look at areas of your life where there is discontent.

Personally, at first, I thought I’m good. I’m sorted. I don’t have any complaints. I’m taking responsibility. I’ve chosen pains I wanted to endure. I’m living up to the choices I made.

But I took another hard look at my life and lives of people I know and saw it. Like bubbles surfacing on deep waters.

Excessiveness.

Obsession.

Possessiveness.

Sometimes discontentment tries to hide behind those three things.  Talk about excessive eating, partying, social media, commitments, entertainment, or sleep. It can be on the edge of obsession. Too much desire for power, money, accolades, fame, and validation, or perhaps possessiveness when it comes to love and relationships.

Where there is overindulgence, addiction or unhealthy desire for something, there is discontentment lurking in the deepest part of us. It’s insidious. It creeps through areas of our life unknowingly, and to be able to overcome it, I believe we need to heal. 

As I look at areas of my life where unhealthy excessiveness is present, I realize it’s rooted in some deep childhood hurt. A wound that’s still open, likely ignored, or worse, denied.

I think it’s the same for all people. We all walk around like we’re rock solid and strong when most of the time we are but fragile, broken beings. We go out there with our shields up. Unbeknown to everybody and even to ourselves, that we are hurting people, and keep hurting ourselves, because that little child in us, is hurt, in pain and still needs to heal. Our failure or neglect to attend to that wound just allowed it to bleed out as it does so until now.

How do we heal?

Few things come to mind.  

We can either change the past or change our perception of it.  

Most of mistakes in the past cannot be undone. So the only way to accept it is change the way we see it. We can’t attach ourselves to a perception that doesn’t help us become better human beings. It’s counter-progressive.  

Grace is helpful too. It translates to acknowledging our past, forgiving ourselves and other people who we believe may have wronged us, regardless if they ask. We didn’t know better then and so did they. Grace sometimes means knowing the past may have left us some scars, and that’s okay. We’re okay and we will be okay.

Finally, acceptance. To me this means, recognizing the hurt as a part of my past. But, it doesn’t have to define my present. We are capable of change, of evolving as the people around us are. We just need to give ourselves that chance, that permission, to rise and become a new and better person.  

Have you recognized some discontentment in your life? You are not alone. We are all a work in progress. Why don’t we go back to the root of it all and help ourselves to heal? It won’t happen overnight but progress is possible if we show up for ourselves day by day.