Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy.”
Eckhart Tolle
The quote above has been on my mind for the past week as I’ve been facing aging shame around my 28th birthday.
The shame doesn’t come so much from my age as much as it comes from what my life looks like at this age. Or rather, what my life doesn’t look like at this age and how it was supposed to look at this age.
I recently read a blogger write that she was eager and excited to get older each year up until she turned 25. Then her eagerness disappeared, and each new year felt like dread. Sadly, I can completely relate.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
We envision a life that’s far surpassed our reality, we attach it to an age, and then we make ourselves feel bad if we don’t achieve that vision..
You know what feels lighter? The Eckhart Tolle quote above, which I’m 70% sure is from A New Earth but might be from The Power of Now (both amazing books!).
Instead of fighting against where we are and rejecting our current lives as wrong or shameful, what if we just accepted it as if we’d chosen it?
My Ego and My Move to LA
The very utmost worst thing in my eyes at the age of 24 was to be living at home past 25. So, I did what any sane person would do and quit my job to move to LA and achieve my dreams! Two dreams specifically: 1. The dream of becoming a comedy screenwriter and 2. The dream of living on my own at 25 years old! (Read my perspective of turning 25 right after I moved to LA here!) 🎉
After a fun and enlightening year in the city of angels, I moved back home a couple days before my 26th birthday with a drained bank account.
While Los Angeles was wonderful, living on my own wasn’t exactly the fairytale I had imagined it to be. Don’t get me wrong, I learned so much about myself and truly believe that I needed that experience, but if I wasn’t so eager to be out by 25, I might have taken some steps to make my transition to LA smoother than what I gave myself.
My mom later described my move to LA as so urgent that, quote “it was like someone was chasing (me).” She was right. My ego was chasing me!
When we’re driven by our ego, we’re drawn to make decisions that look good on the outside but don’t feel so great on the inside. When we make decisions and craft our lives in response to a rejection of something, the outcome is tainted by what we don’t want.
I didn’t want to be home at 25. So I wasn’t! But I also wanted the stability of an income, a fulfilling job, a cozy home. I didn’t focus on the things. I just focused on getting tf out!
A healthier approach is crafting our lives based on the things we do want while accepting the circumstances that we currently have.
Accept that where we are is perfect for where we’re going.
Identifying the Ego
If you’re new to this concept of ego, here’s a breakdown of how I use the term.
How I see it, the ego wants whatever is externally validating. The ego goes for the degree that the most people deem worthy, the car that most people deem worthy, the clothes, the hairstyle, the apartment, the city, etc. etc. The ego is driven by likes and validation with little concern to our personal feelings and authentic desires. Think of socialites and famous actors and their glitzy lifestyles that attract envy from most of society. The ego craves that kind of attention and validation in whatever way it can get it.
On a personal level, our ego is the part of us that attaches to and gains value from things we acquire. Our titles, our job, our income, our Instagram pictures. On a spiritual level, all of that is a distraction from what is truly important and valuable: our soul. Each of our souls are the only proof we need to know that we are inherently worthy, regardless of the golden rings we collect.
Granted, we live in a world where we a degree and a job and an income are valuable in that they help us navigate our day to day. The trick is to not attach our worth to those things. To not fall prey to adjusting our preferences to what the ego thinks looks good and instead tune in to what is right for us specifically.
This is how we achieve authentic living and thus joyful living.
We were never meant to just follow the status quo. We were never meant to chase the gold rings that society holds on a pedestal. We were always meant to turn inward and feel for ourselves what exactly is true for us. What makes sense for us? What is best for us in this particular phase of our life? And if that’s not the norm or if that’s deemed unworthy, we can choose not to accept that rhetoric.
We can remind ourselves that no matter what our life circumstance, we are still worthy because we are always worthy. We can remind ourselves that our lives aren’t meant to be the norm.
Your life is mean to be the perfect fit for YOU and no one else.
Find the golden nugget where you are
As I say all of this you may be thinking, that’s all fine and great but I still wish I had a different circumstance and that’s valid. I’m right there with you, BUT the first step is accepting where you are.
Have you ever considered that if you keep ending up in the same or similar circumstances that you keep ending up there for a reason? There may be a lesson that you need to learn. An old wound you need to heal. Something that you need to gain from the situation that you keep missing because you immediately reject it and try to change things.
Try something different. Ground into the reality of where you are and find that golden nugget thats been waiting for you. Learn that lesson that’s been hiding in plain sight. Sometimes we repeatedly find ourselves somewhere we don’t want to be because it’s holding wisdom that we need to receive.
This is what I’ve been learning lately from my coach, my therapist, and a highly trusted astrologer.
For me, I’m living in my childhood home at 28. I’m unemployed. I’m driving my old beat up car from high school. BUT I have a roof over my head and plenty of space to move around with just my mom sharing the space. I have food in the fridge and resources to buy whatever I need. I have exciting creative projects that I’m working on. I’ve used this time to invest in coaching, therapy, improving my family relationships, and networking with inspiring new people.
There’s always some good to find from whatever circumstance you’re in and pointing that out to yourself does wonders for your mindset and self-image. And from there, you can go out and create the next iteration of your reality, after you’ve reached acceptance of what is.
A Self-Soothing Exercise
I have an exercise for you that I did before my birthday to calm my ego-identifying inner critic who wanted to make me feel bad for how my life looks. It helped me see all the ways I was actually doing much better than the picture that “living at home at 28” paints.
Set aside 15-20 mins, grab a journal and a pen and at the top of the page write: “Whatever my current moment presents, I accept it as if I had chosen it.”
Then start with the first bullet (or you can write in paragraph form as stream of consciousness) and write “I DID choose it. I chose _________.” Fill that first bullet with something in your current reality that you are really grateful for. For me I wrote “I chose to move home to rebuild my savings… and I did it.”
Keep going down in your mind all of the things that you chose with foresight which have led to where you are now. It’s not about lying and pretending that you like where you are but instead about the decisions that you made for yourself from a place of love and self-nourishment.
This exercise will help you regain your sense of agency and help you feel grateful for the things you do have.
Maybe you don’t have as much money as you like but you chose to bet on yourself and start your own business or to follow your intuition to take a particular trip. Maybe you moved home because you chose to leave a relationship that didn’t feel good. Maybe you’re not where you want to be because you chose the unconventional path that fits your personality but takes longer than your peers. There are so many ways that you can fill out this page. Get creative and think of all the nooks and crannies of your life.
Accept and then Move Forward
My point isn’t that we should accept our current circumstance as where we’ll be forever, and therefore we should just give up. This exercise and this whole post is encouraging you to drop the self-judgement. Drop the shame. Drop the guilt and regain your self worth.
Once you do that then you’re primed to take the steps necessary towards where you want to go. Once you accept where you are and get all the juice out of your present circumstance, you’ll have no choice but to move on to greater things. It’ll be a natural next step.
Because the secret is, we’re always in transition. We’re always going to be looking over that next hill dreaming of what’s to come. That’s the human condition! As long as we’re alive, we’ll be dreaming of something new and something more. Dreaming and working towards that new and that more is what gives our life joy and meaning.
So, settle in, friends! Where we are is perfect and where we’re heading is perfect — perfect FOR US. Embrace this life journey with less resistance and see what magic unfolds. As always, I’m right there learning and practicing beside ya.
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Have you been feeling any age anxiety or have some tips to share for me from the other side of it? Share in the comments or hit me up on IG! I love to connect and would love any tips you may have. Did you give the journaling exercise a try? I’m curious to see what came up for you! Share share away 🙂
