Good morning, good afternoon and good evening readers,

On Monday morning (UK Sunday evening), I spoke with three very close friends who had just completed their Essence course. I am so unbelievably proud of them for doing it and felt very emotional about it. I cried. When you haven’t cried that much in your life, it’s hard to reverse the stopping mechanisms you have created. You end up with this cry that strains your throat and comes out in random, gross splutters. I love a good ugly cry.

But I wasn’t just crying for them. I was crying for me and everyone on my Essence course. I felt so free after and used SO much of what I had learnt whilst I was in Armenia and India. Then I go to Australia, and it’s like I forgot half of it. I was walking around in this half dazed, fully anxious state of mind. I might as well have been wearing a sandwich board with large capital letters “FUCK OFF I’M WEIRD!”.

Thanks to my wonderful friends, those I have known before and those that I that I met throughout my Outlook journey, I have given myself a thoroughly good kick up the arse. I may wake up anxious, I may go to bed anxious, but I will still enjoy all the small things that arrive on my doorstep. Just like the man who was belting out unacceptably loud music, driving down the road and waving his arms like he just didn’t care. I wanna be that guy. I am that guy.

Here’s a little poem I wrote of how I feel about this little box inside of me, one which I hide in and stops me from being who I truly am.

Little Box

I fell back into mediocrity, or rather
it fell back into me.

I longed for colossal waves to crash through me,
Inflate my veins,
Saturate my heart,
Those waves so gigantic that when they approach you aren’t sure
whether you dive or drown,
A little part of you wishes the latter,
Until that tiny frightened laughter escapes your lips,
And you think,
Here is where I feel most alive.

But I have a little box
One that I return to.
It always feels so familiar,
Though not at all like home.

Outside that little box I found you. I held you in my arms and whispered, “You are always safe”,
No matter what happened to you before,
Or how it tainted the decisions you have made,
You’re still my little child who keeps me awake in the night.

Inside that little box I lost you. I wept for days, weeks, months.
I cradled your ghost and sobbed, “Where did my child go?”,
You were weeping also but so silent the birds could not hear,
And I was still aimlessly searching aisles.
Left. Right. Left. Right.

Little box, why do I let you keep me contained?
The pillows aren’t as plumped,
The softness numbs my soul,
Your tightness, it suffocates me,
And your closeness, it makes no room for others.

I’ve spent too much of my life alone.

Let me tell you little box, or rather don’t.
I’ll tell you all the same.
Listen up, get comfortable, let your lid down, we could be here for days.

No longer will I sit within your jagged walls,
Those that pierce me with internal claws,
No longer will I take slumber in your shadow,
Or nestle in your deathly silent throws,
There’s a child that I am looking for,
And you hold no windows.

I do not begrudge your caging pain,
And I now dance within the light,
Never do I long for the end of your rain,
I now tie ribbons with birds in flight,
There’s a child that has been waiting for me,
And you hold no light.

Little box is crushed, torn into tiny fragments and thrown into the recycling.

In contemplation,
C x