Sometimes it’s easy to lose the freshness of life. The sheer naivety of it all. The beautiful, effortless brain space that looks at nature and sees safety. The righteous notion that we are many versions of ourselves; to know these versions is to be powerful. The practical idea that we are a mass of water and feelings, trying to make sense of a world larger than we can legitimately imagine.
When the James Webb Space Telescope captured pictures of the invisible universe and Jupiter, my brain went to a place I feared. How could the atmosphere continue? How does expansiveness hold us back and hide us? I shrank as if I could only see through the smallest keyhole, and seeing all these galaxies made me forget who I was. At first, instead of appreciating the galactic wonders, I accepted something obvious. We float. All I know to be sure: we go round and round and round.
So how can we ground ourselves? How can we find joy in the basic goods of life? Even if seeing the galaxy in such detail gives us pure perplexity, how can I allow stale experiences beyond the big things to make sense again? And most importantly, how the hell do I get back to earth?
What exactly is self-actualization?
In my daily routine of reading, browsing Instagram, and taking idle walks in my backyard 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 their full potential. Okay, great. But what does this mean? Exercising is a process that I know I can use to reach my full potential. So why does anticipating a race make me want to turn into a pile of ashes? Shouldn’t being “actualized” make me happy, no matter what?
To better understand this, I turned to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Based on 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 focus was “on the notion that successful people are motivated by health, growth, wholeness, integration, humanitarian purpose and “real problems”. of life.’ » It is important to note that self-actualization is not perfection and things do not always go well. You can thrive while facing difficulties (Case A: I imagine 10,000 galaxies somehow grouped together in a single grain of sand).
To better understand how this process works, I began to define self-actualization as the simple act of knowing who I am and be able to reside inside this space for a certain time. Or, as Maslow would beautifully put it, “healthy self-realization on the path to self-transcendence.”
Simplify the idea of personal acceptance.
Everything I write attributes to self-realization in one way or another. I am constantly trying to define myself, understand myself and share myself. And in today’s world, built on technology and the ever-beloved hustle, self-realization has become more crucial than I thought. And more difficult to achieve. How can 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, authenticity, serenity, purpose, humanitarianism, a good moral attitude and insight into experiences and WHO IS TIRED OF READING THIS? I know I am.
I am constantly trying to define myself, understand myself and share myself. And in today’s world, built on technology and the ever-beloved hustle, self-realization has become more crucial than I thought.
How can we make updating easier for ourselves? How can we come closer to who we are and accept it in a way that feels like surrender? Instead of fighting?
Two words: alone time.
In a Girls’ night out newsletter, Jodi Elliott wrote an article explaining how she started calling her alone time “refresh time.” She writes: “What I do is go down and get into my rhythm, the rhythm of my 20-year-old self, my 30-year-old self, and my 41-year-old self, of thinking, of writing words and spend. time with myself. I think margarita-fueled thoughts about lost loves and hang ambitious design images on my bulletin board. I read poems and empty my inbox. In short, I realize myself by sitting, ruminating and being with me, all my love and peace, my motherhood, my success and my lost dreams. I feel every inch of it for a few hours every other night.
Oh, it’s happiness.
Shouldn’t we constantly focus on rumination? Taking time for things that bring us such bland joy, their frankness helps us calm down and listen to who we are? We rarely build a space to spend time with ourselves, and we should. We are not good to the world if we do not do this. 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 refresh time:
- Water and prune my plants
- Paint a horse and foal by numbers while watching reruns of Fabulous Repairer
- I’m packing a box at home for Goodwill.
- Painting butterflies on flat 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 out some home inspiration photos from old magazines and stick them in a notebook like I did with Justin Timberlake photos.
- Listening to music without words: imagine all the lives I haven’t lived or could have
A lot happens during these times. Most of them require me to be quiet, so I can sit with my thoughts; come face to face with the reality of my faults and my quirks. I remember who I was when I was little and I compare that to now. I quickly realize that we are a lot like nature and that the only constant is change.
Here are some things that ruin any feeling of actuality:
- A social media doom-scroll session
- Amazon anti-stress
- Being surrounded by people in a small room (AKA networking)
- Reply to multiple Teams messages at once
- Read a book I don’t like
- Count the number of likes I received on my Instagram post
- Validating my self-esteem through popularity
When I ruin my updating process, I feel overwhelmed by my mind. I am easily distracted. I’m bad. I’m sneaky and I drive recklessly. I spend too much money and feel guilty for longer. I am frustrated by my anger and, like some kind of cruel domino, I feel this wavering push of things falling all at once. I let myself untangle slowly, almost without knowing it. I get stuck in these cycles, and I know we all do.
I don’t know if I would define self-actualization as growth.
I know Maslow does it, but I have a hard time feeling the pressure from myself. Awareness is of course attributed to growth. But even though a “writer must write” to feel happy, self-realization can also be the worst problem. A writer must also be a bad writer, stop writing, sit in water and figure out who he is without it. Our best self must also be our worst self. We need to be a bad self and a good self, stop being “self-centered” altogether, sit in the water, meditate, and figure out who we are apart from the rest.
Elliott writes at the end of the newsletter: “I have come to view the term ‘actualized’ not as the most brilliant, successful, ambitious part of me. But the most humble and truest part of me.
She’s right. The simple fact is that we are who we are. We have to stick to that. Go update the fuck out of your life. Right now, we are all we have.
Brittany Chaffee is a passionate storyteller, professional empath, and author. On a daily basis, she gets paid to strategize and create content for brands. Outside of working hours, it’s all about a well-lit place, warm bread and good company. She lives in St. Paul with her little cat brothers, Rami and Monkey. Follow her on Instagramlearn more about his latest book, Limitand (above all) go kiss your mother.
