Think of yourself as a newly sprouted tree. You’ve overcome a lot just to break through the surface of the ground. Just as a seed has all the information, all the potential to grow into a tree with deep roots and countless beautiful branches, your fully realized self already exists in potential reality. Your job to get there is to ascend your energy up the trunk of your tree.
You don’t want to be held back by keeping some of your energy for growth entangled in old habits and emotions from the past. You could use all of that energy to grow, to ascend to your full potential.
Each time you break energy free from the past, it is available for you in the eternal future present — the present aligned with the future you want for yourself.
Regardless of why you developed obsessive compulsive disorder, the freer you get, the more energy you will have to enjoy life and grow toward your dreams. It may be helpful for you to think of OCD as “noise.” Noise has no power over you; you can let it go. Practice doing things that normally trigger OCD with the intent to avoid the OCD during that task. The more you practice, the more routine it becomes and the more energy you free for your desired life.
There may be a lot of other things your energy is needlessly tied up in. Perhaps you project personality affects in order to define yourself to the world. You might declare yourself in a social media bio to be a “sports fan” or a “chocoholic.” Maybe you’re a “cat lady” or a “plant person.” While you may have an affinity for all of these, these things are not you. These are superficial attributes that you project as you.
Is a butterfly an egg, or a larvae? Those identities were helpful to the butterfly, but I suspect that if it had an Instagram account, the butterfly wouldn’t list them. In fact, the butterfly is a little bundle of eternal life energy, connected to all life energy. To even call itself a “butterfly” is short-sighted.
You are not:
- Your name
- Your occupation
- The bands you love
- The sports teams you love
- Your favorite recreational activity
- An addict
- Insecure, shy, brave, fat, thin…
- Your OCD
You can enjoy some of these things, hate others. If you want to get your energy back, you have to detach yourself from the notion that these things make up who you are. You are much, much more than your personality quirks or physical characteristics. If you meditate on releasing your self-identification with this noise, you will find it all the more easy to ascend up the trunk of your tree and see where your branches can grow.
At first, people may not recognize you as your truer self. “But, you love shrimp, Bob! You always order the shrimp!!” But they are not your audience, and you are not a character in your story. You are the writer of your story.
