Building a New Foundation

I’ve been thinking about my last post on “trusting the mud.” I think it’s easy to feel like being in the mud is a bad thing—but is it? The Lotus flower is used as a symbol for so many things because it blooms from the mud. Can we also bloom like the Lotus flower from experiences that feel muddy and dark?

I’m not entirely sure when it happened but I feel like my spiritual foundation crumbled beneath me and I’ve been in freefall for over a year. I continually try grasping onto anything that will create some sort of stability, searching for the trigger that made the collapse happen in the first place. If I knew what it was, then maybe I could fix it and get back to the faith I once felt.

There are several experiences that occurred that could shake one’s foundation. However, I’m coming to realize that maybe it wasn’t one single event. Maybe my foundation wasn’t secure in the first place and this journey of choosing an authentic life started to expose all the cracks.

That probably doesn’t make choosing an authentic life sound very appealing. In some ways it has created tremendous chaos and friction between various parts of me. I have felt disconnected from God and have even questioned staying as a member of my church. Yet through the cracks, light could finally shine through and something beautiful began to grow causing the cracks to grow wider.

Eventually the foundation collapsed because it was built upon all the masks I thought I had to wear instead of being built from my true nature. Honestly, my relationship with God was based more on the idea that I had to be perfect to be loved. That only led to a fixation on doing everything right and internal beratements when I felt I didn’t measure up.

I’ve lived my life so focused on living by all the rules I was taught to follow that I’m not entirely sure I learned how to make choices based on what felt right for me. I learned to distrust and disown my own natural desires, disconnecting from parts of me who were portrayed as evil villains to be avoided at all costs or eliminated if possible.

Fortunately, this foundational collapse has allowed space to explore these so-called villains and come to see them as vital and cherished parts of who I really am. I’ve been feeling so miserable during this freefall when I’m not sure I’ve been falling at all. I almost wonder if my foundation had to crumble so I could descend into the mud to explore and embrace all parts of me to connect to my true nature.

However, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do what I’m talking about. Accepting all aspects of myself contradicts some spiritual beliefs and has created a lot of fear and worry about my own eternal wellbeing. But I also feel that fear comes from the belief of still needing to be perfect to be loved.

I want to build a new foundation where I can trust my own intuition and make choices that are aligned with my true nature. I want to trust that I am loved by God because of who I am and not for what I do or don’t do. It’s a work in progress as I test out each new brick to see what does or doesn’t belong in my foundation. I am both nervous and excited to see what new foundation I will create.