What You Want From Others Might Just Be What You Need From Yourself

There was a part of me that thought my life would begin feeling whole and complete as soon as I had a boyfriend in it. After spending much of my life single, I met a guy, fell in love, and assumed everything after that would be rainbows and sunshine. Nope, I still struggled with the same void. I always told myself that when I had a boyfriend this would go away, but now I was in a loving, fun relationship and I still went to bed feeling lonely.

Because of this, I had trouble going to sleep. I would find this painful void of loneliness coming over me just before bed. This one night, I decided to take out my journal and write, “If I could do anything right now, I would go back in time and find myself lying in bed all alone, all those nights I felt so empty and felt so alone. I would find myself daydreaming about having a lover, a partner, a boyfriend, and tell myself that nothing outside of me could ever take that feeling away. I would hold myself and tell her that she needed to feel the feeling, she needed to surrender and let herself feel lonely instead of wishing it away with fantasy. Because that fantasy was going to come true, and the feelings would still be there.”

Suddenly, I felt inspired to paint. I got out of bed and sat down on my living room floor with black paint and a blank canvas. As I began creating strokes, I thought to myself, “Maybe the loneliness was my art, my creative being, coming into me, wanting to be felt and experienced. Maybe me feeling like I wanted to be experienced was actually me, myself, wanting to not be experienced by a man, but by myself.”

I was completely immersed in the present moment, gaining so much insight on my way of experiencing life. I loved when I was able to get so introspective while painting. It was as if the entire material world disappeared and it was just me and my vibrations.

What vibrated within me that night that I once interpreted as cries within me for partnership suddenly felt as though it was truly a cry from my higher self, my artist self, to be experienced. I always had bursts of creativity at night my whole life. Everything made sense.

I didn’t want a man to hold me. I wanted the canvas to hold me. 

I wanted love and support from my own self, in that I could create and live my purpose as an artist.