To express your existence

Have you ever had the experience where you’re surrounded by people, yet you feel invisible? To say it's painful doesn’t fully capture it. It’s confusing, shocking, and dare I say fascinating. Fascinating may be a strange choice of words, but I’m thinking back on my own experience with this (which happened with my family) and I think, “wow, that really happened.” It’s a unique experience to have your very existence denied, disregarded, ignored. 

I feel vulnerable sharing this because being estranged from family carries a host of emotions: shame, sadness, anger, confusion, disbelief, hope, grief, despair. But, I’ve done a lot of healing work around this, and I know I’m not alone in my experience. It’s why connecting with others, and expressing our existence is vitally important. We need each other. We need to share ourselves. Our very existence depends on it. 

And it may not be a situation where you’re being ignored, but perhaps you are frequently doing for others, feel invisible in your service, and want to scream,

“I’M HERE!!!! What about me?!” 

What about you? How do you express yourself, your existence? 

This is where you get to play with independently addressing your spiritual hunger to express your existence and leave your mark on this earth. 

You can immerse yourself in an activity, and experience it fully. You can engage your senses, especially touch. You can create. I like pulling all 3 of these together for an immersive, creative, tactile experience. There are so many ways to do this! Perhaps you sew or knit, sing or dance, write or paint. 

I like to get creative in the kitchen. Especially this time of year when I receive my weekly farm share and make up new dishes with the veggies I receive. A few days ago I experimented with making kimchi using veggies I’ve not used before. I have an abundance of cucumbers and salad turnips, so I made a batch of cucumber kimchi and a batch of turnip kimchi. I don’t yet know how they’ll turn out (still fermenting, and tasting better each day) but they sure look vibrant and beautiful. I engaged all of my senses in making it and was fully present in chopping the veggies and using my hands to mix it all together. Plus there’s nothing like the smell of fermenting veggies to remind myself and others… I am here! 

Sometimes creativity doesn’t work out quite as you plan, like a recent loaf of bread I made that was very flat… but it’s the experience of creating and expressing that makes the difference. 

When you create space to express your existence, you effectively say, I am here, I exist, I am important, without this mark, without me, the world would be a different place.  

“You are like a candle in the Sun. Oh, you’re there all right. Along with a million, gazillion other candles who make up the Sun. And the sun would not be the Sun without you. Nay, it would be a sun without one of its candles… and that would not be the Sun at all; for it would not shine as brightly. Yet, how to know yourself as the Light when you are amidst the Light - that is the question.”  ~ an excerpt from The Little Soul and the Sun by Neale Donald Walsch

With love,

Jodh

P.S. Download our Guide to Spiritual Hungers here. This is a valuable tool for self discovery, emotional intelligence, and reflection.