Rachel came to see me complaining of anxiety attacks, depression and insomnia. She didn’t really know what was wrong but was taking sleeping pills and anti-depressants to suppress her symptoms. Married, with two young children, she claimed that everything at home was fine, yet her symptoms indicated that she was very much off track with her life. It soon became clear that Rachel was waging an internal battle with herself: her subconscious mind was pushing her in one direction, while her conscious mind was pushing her in another. Subconsciously, Rachel had come to believe that she was not good enough or lovable enough to have the kind of life she wanted and she had given up on ever getting it. As a result, she shut down her heart and resigned herself to the routine of everyday living.
Sound familiar? If so, you are not alone. Being off track with ourselves is the most common human dilemma, and it inevitably results in symptoms designed to get our attention. When we disconnect from our selves, life no longer works. Fears, negative beliefs and insecurities cause us to lose faith in our ability to create what we want, and so we suppress our dreams, switch off our creativity and end up living in the ‘grey zone’—a state of emotional limbo that puts life on hold.
Living in the grey zone is no fun at all, yet it is where many of us live, most of the time. Here, we fail to fully embrace life, remaining, instead, on its fringes, feeling little, living little and loving even less. It is a place of limbo between life and death, yes and no, passion and numbness. When we live in the grey zone, our passion peters out. Our love goes underground, preventing ourselves and others from having it, and we effectively say “No” to receiving it. We don’t believe we deserve success, abundance or fulfillment, and we live our lives accordingly. The gray zone then becomes an area of self-fulfilling prophecy—a realm of certainties preordained by our negative expectations. We get exactly what we are afraid of getting, and then we get even more of it to confirm what we always suspected.
Rachel’s emotional numbness resulted from a lack of self-acceptance, trust, self-expression and integrity within herself—and it showed. She admitted having difficulty taking care of herself, putting herself first, expressing her feelings and asking for what she wanted. She had many sound values but was not acting upon them, which created internal conflict and a lack of integrity within herself. She made compromises that did not feel good yet she justified them in her mind even though her heart rebelled. Deep down, she was disappointed, unfulfilled and unhappy.
Rachel was suppressing many things that mattered deeply to her, cancelling out their importance because she didn’t believe she could change them. Her low self-worth was keeping her from even contemplating the possibility of happiness, promoting a cycle of self-rejection and defeat. In her interactions with others, she behaved as if she were not important, catering to other people’s needs and generally suppressing her desires and opinions. Her behaviour reinforced her subconscious belief about not being good enough, causing her to attract dynamics and situations that confirmed her seemingly inferior status.
Yet when we practise healthy self-acceptance in our everyday lives—by taking care of ourselves, making ourselves #1 in healthy ways, expressing how we feel and working through our fears and insecurities—we can literally transform our circumstances. For how we relate to ourselves internally (as a result of subconscious programming) has a direct impact on the dynamics, relationships and situations that we attract.
Expressing our feelings is part of the solution, since it is their suppression that leads to numbness and depression in the first place. When emotions are withheld, we also suffer physically. The natural flow of energy throughout the body becomes restricted, resulting in feelings of lassitude and fatigue, which perpetuate the cycle. Stemming the flow within us also stems the flow of energy in our external lives, interrupting the natural cycle of giving and receiving. We often instinctively limit or reduce our physical activity so that our emotions do not get stirred up. In doing so, we also inhibit our breathing. Shallow breaths limit our emotional and physical experience, preventing us from fully cleansing and connecting with our body and heart.
Being ourselves is crucial to living the life we are meant to live. It is only when we connect with ourselves internally that we can then connect with what’s best for us on the outside. If we are not taking care of ourselves, trusting that it’s safe to express what we feel and want, how can we create a life that’s in alignment with our values, our dreams or our purpose? How can we build a truly intimate relationship if we have not allowed ourselves to ‘show up’ in the world? When we are afraid to be ourselves, we end up being a kind of social clone.
Distorting yourself in this way ultimately takes you into the gray zone, whereas when you are being proactively, creatively yourself, you can literally make life happen in magical ways. To help Rachel reconnect with her deeper feelings and passions, I suggested she move her body aerobically whenever she felt numb. This requires conscious effort and determination, as the wounded emotional body resists being reawakened. But when it is, our creativity comes to life. Ideas come, wanting to be born. Desires re-surface, wanting fulfillment. To cultivate greater self-acceptance and an openness to good things coming her way, Rachel also had to work at being her own best friend, putting herself first in healthy ways, committing to her personal growth, taking care of her body and opening up to the possibility of having a passionate, fulfilling life. Her body, like her heart, had to be loved back to wholeness.
How much we dare to express ourselves in the world determines how healthy, successful, happy and empowered we are in our lives. No drugs can heal a stalled and heavy heart or help us to be daringly, authentically ourselves. Leaving the grey zone requires making a conscious decision to embrace life, and to allow life to fully embrace you. No one else can bring you back to life. No counsellor or psychologist can help you break free unless you first commit to being yourself. Only you have the power to say “yes” to life by loving yourself out of limbo.
Pathways to passion
- Reactivate your natural passion and creativity with dance lessons, acting classes or art therapy
- Open up your heart with music and reconnect with yourself emotionally by being in nature or meditating in a peaceful environment
- Reconnect with others and cultivate supportive new friendships by taking a personal development course or joining a social/sports club.
- Enhance your self-worth by creating healthy boundaries—saying no to any form of abuse or disrespect, asking for what you want and always doing what’s best for you.
- Commit to facing your fears, building self-acceptance and getting whatever support you need to move forward.
- Don’t forget that you are not alone. There is a powerful universal force ready to co-create with you when you choose to move forward. Ask for help, take a risk, dare to shine and get yourself noticed, and the universe will support you.
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