Sometimes it’s easy to lose the freshness of life. The sheer naivety of it. The beautiful and effortless brain space that looks at nature and sees safety. The fair notion that we are many versions of ourselves; knowing those versions is being powerful. The practical idea that we are a body of water and feelings, trying to make sense of a world bigger than we can legitimately imagine.
When the James Webb Space Telescope captured images of the invisible universe and Jupiter, my brain went to a place it feared. How could the atmosphere continue; How does expansiveness sustain us and hide us? I cringed as if I could only see through the smallest keyhole, and seeing all those galaxies made me forget who I was. At first, instead of appreciating the galactic wonder, I came to terms with the obvious. We float. All I know to be sure: We spin and spin and spin.
So how do we ground ourselves? How do we find joy in the basic goods of life? While seeing the galaxy in such detail leaves us completely baffled, how do I allow stale experiences beyond the important stuff to offer a sense of purpose again? And above all, how the hell do I get back to earth?
What exactly is self-actualization?
In my daily routine of reading, browsing Instagram, and meaningless walks in my garden while listening to podcasts, I discovered the phrase “self-actualization.” What exactly is self-actualization? In psychology, it is the process by which an individual reaches his maximum potential. Good, excellent. But what does that mean? Exercising is a process that I know I can use to reach my full potential. So why does anticipating going for a run make me want to turn into a pile of ash? Shouldn’t it be “up to date” making me feel happy no matter what?
To better understand this, I turned to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. According to an article by Scott Barry Kaufman in Scientific American (Writer’s note: Who doesn’t spend time on a science website at all hours of the day?), Maslow’s emphasis was “on the notion that self-actualizing people are motivated by health, growth, wholeness, integration, humanitarian purpose and the ‘real problems'”. of the life'”. It is important to keep in mind that self-actualization is not perfection or that things always go smoothly. You can self-actualize and still face difficulties (Case A: Me, imagining 10,000 galaxies somehow pushed into a grain of sand.)
To better understand how this process worked, I began to define self-actualization as the simple act of knowing who i am And power reside within that space for a while. Or, as Maslow would wonderfully put it, “healthy self-actualization on the path to self-transcendence.”
Simplify the idea of personal acceptance.
Everything I write about attributes to self-actualization in some way. I am constantly trying to define myself, understand myself and share myself. And in today’s world, based on technology and the ever-loved hustle, self-actualization has become more crucial than you thought. And harder to achieve. How do I have time to accept my quirks and live within them?
According to the internet, we have time to accept all these things. Self-actualization is acceptance and authenticity and equanimity and purpose and humanitarianism and a good moral attitude and glimpse experiences and WHO IS TIRED OF READING THIS? I know who I am.
I am constantly trying to define myself, understand myself and share myself. And in today’s world, based on technology and the ever-loved hustle, self-actualization has become more crucial than you thought.
How can we simplify the upgrade for ourselves? How can we get closer to who we are and accept it in a way that feels like surrender? instead of battle?
Two words: alone time.
in a girls night in newsletter, Jodi Elliott wrote a presentation explaining how she began referring to her alone time as “catch-up time.” She writes: “What I do is go downstairs and get into my rhythm, the rhythm of my 20-year-old self, my 30-year-old self, and my 41-year-old self and think thoughts and write words and spend time with myself. I think daisy-fueled thoughts of lost love and post images of aspirational designs on my bulletin board. I read poems and empty my inbox. In short, I update the shit by sitting and ruminating and being with me, all my love and peace of mind, and motherhood and success and lost dreams. I feel every inch of it for a few hours every other night.”
Oh, that’s happiness.
Shouldn’t we focus on constantly ruminating? Take time for the things that bring us such soft joy, your directness helps us to be calm and listen to who we are. We rarely build a space to spend time with ourselves, and we should. We are not good for the world unless we do. We owe it to our children. We owe it to the environment and to our family.
Here are some things I do when I have update time:
- water and prune my plants
- Paint a horse and pony by numbers while watching reruns of fixer to fabulous
- Prepare a box in my house for Good Will
- Painting butterflies on flat river rocks
- stand next to a horse
- Read old journal entries
- Spend countless hours in an antique store.
- Drink some wine alone and listen to Fleetwood Mac
- Tear inspirational house photos from old magazines and paste them into a notebook like I used to do with Justin Timberlake photos.
- Listen to music without words – imagine all the lives I didn’t have or couldn’t have
A lot is happening right now. Most of them require me to be quiet, so I can sit with my thoughts; come face to face with the reality of my flaws and quirks. I remember who I was when I was a child and compare it to now. I quickly realize that we are very much like nature and that the only constant is change.
Here are a few things that ruin any sense of upgrade:
- A doom-scroll session on social media
- Amazon shopping stress
- Being around people in a small room (also known as networking)
- Reply to multiple Teams messages at once
- Read a book I don’t like
- Counting how many likes I got on my Instagram post
- Validate my self-esteem through popularity
When I mess up my upgrade process, I get overwhelmed with my spirit. I get distracted easily. I’m nasty. I’m cunning and I drive carelessly. I spend too much money and feel guilty for longer. I’m frustrated with my anger and, like some kind of cruel domino, I feel this flickering urge of things falling all at once. I let myself unravel slowly, almost without realizing it. I get stuck in these cycles, and I know we all do.
I’m not sure if I would define self-actualization as growth.
I know Maslow does it, but I struggle to feel the pressure from myself. Consciousness is attributed to growth, of course. But while a “writer must write” to feel happy, self-actualization can also be the worst. A writer must also be a bad writer, stop writing, sit in the water and understand who they are without it. The best of ourselves must also be the worst of ourselves. We must be a bad me and a good me, stop “self-asserting” completely, sit in the water, meditate and understand who we are without the rest.
Elliott writes at the end of the newsletter: “I have come to think that ‘updated’ is not the brightest, most successful and most ambitious part of me. But the humblest and truest part of me.”
She is correct. The simple fact of the matter is: We are who we are. We have to sit with it. Go update the shit of your life. Right now, in this moment, we are all we have.
Brittany Chaffee is an avid storyteller, professional empath, and author. On a daily basis, she gets paid to strategize and create content for brands. Outside of working hours, it is a well-lit place, hot bread and good company. She lives in St. Paul with her cat brothers, Rami and Monkey. Follow her on Instagram, she reads more about her latest book, Borderline, and (most importantly) she goes hug your mom.
