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Have you ever felt you’ve lost your purpose and are barely finding reason to be and do? Your motivation has faded and your desire to create has vanished. Your tank is empty and even if you find an inkling of life force your mind can’t put a plan together. It can’t decipher nor picture the next move.  You wander aimlessly throughout each day and feel relieved when it’s over. Everything feels so dam hard. You put on a brave face, only offering your nearest and dearest a glimpse of your true feelings.

You were confident once—a courageous achiever; but too many mistakes have sucked the wind from your sails. You sit like a broken boat bobbing aimlessly on the ocean watching your sail flip flop in the breeze, just drifting. Your strength and purpose are under-utilised, vulnerable. You sit vacantly watching. People pass by. They look to you for a reaction, acknowledgement, but nothing comes, only a vacant stare. You see and you hear but nothing computes. You’ve shut down. Ironically it’s peaceful. The outer is calm. But within, what’s the story, what’s your story?

As an onlooker, moving forward is easy. Make a decision. Gather your resources and step forward in the direction you want to head. Allow life to propel you gently forward to your future, towards your goal and success, fulfilment and happiness. But instead, indecision and uncertainty keep you stuck; anchored and chained in this dumbing and vacant moment.

Every direction seems fraught with disappointment and failure, feelings from previous times. What is the point? It’s just way too hard! It’s way too risky and to fail again, well the thought of such despair is unbearable.  It’s easier to drift aimlessly and to just survive another day.

You said to yourself it will get better, and then I hope it gets better, and then I pray it gets better, but now, please, please get better. But, nothing changes, nothing gets better, there is no better. Harsh reality sinks in. After all, you are the sum of your choices and you have fallen short. You simply can’t see yourself making it. You have lost the strength and motivation and, more debilitating, you don’t trust your ability to choose. You are stymied; you can’t make a choice and don’t. Your erroneous beliefs confirm you’re wrong and your choice will bring heartache and distress; embarrassment, loss and ultimately failure. So you sit and don’t choose; it’s just too unsafe.

You find yourself in an unfamiliar place. Once you could easily push forward with courage and determination. Your energy and life force propelling you to find a solution, to take a chance. But now, you’ve been sucked into this void, a void of nothingness. What are you doing? Why? How can you allow this overpowering lack keep you rooted in one place, cemented, immovable? Your mind instantly knocks any new ideas to the kerb so only the nothingness remains.

In this numb, sleep-like state throughout the day, your senses allow outside things to blur the edges, but the nights are lonely, long, and sleepless. Your constant whys, should haves, should not haves and personal thrashings for past mistakes leave no room for new ideas. The dark hours roll into one  and anxiety begins to bubble with the thought of deathly tiredness for another day and trying to pretend all is well, that you’ve got this … life goes on … you can do it … you will do it … you try to fool yourself and succeed sometimes in fooling others.

You frantically search for answers and solutions … like a ball in a pin ball machine … deflecting off the bumpers in a chaotic and unproductive way. Buffeted by something else in control, an influence orchestrating your direction—this nothingness—your mood.

So how do you take charge again? How do you take back control? How do you recharge so you can create again? How can you kick these feelings to the curb? You don’t want pity. You don’t want sympathy. Before you wanted support, but now it’s embarrassing to share, to expose the battle.  Torn, you don’t want others to know your true feelings, to unmask the ultimate failure but you do want them to understand and hopefully accept you and your ache. Humiliation is another level.

So, on the broken boat you stay for a while fiercely experiencing the layers that create the void—the deep unrelenting void of nothingness, searching for your direction, a purpose, your purpose.  Have you ever found yourself here?

I have, but with every life experience, perceived as either positive or negative, a richer tapestry of me is woven and I’m grateful. I’ve come to know to board only an unbroken boat and steer my own course—to humbly take aim at a goal and work towards it—to live by my own purpose with no romantic notion, no earth-shattering reason to be, just free to be me with all my limitations and imperfections. To continually challenge my old perceptions and precepts, stay flexible in my thoughts, hold heart felt intentions to avoid judgement and intolerance and most importantly, keep my mind open and my heart unguarded—for me and for you.

Much love

Naz