All That Glitters
Everything is a “vibe” these days, and that’s great. It makes the intangible tangible, but there is deeper meaning.
You were such a happy little girl. What happened?
This is something my mom has said to me more than once, usually when I was in a deep depressive state. Not that either of us knew I was depressed, in fact I avoided identifying with that label at all cost. I had Anxiety, not Depression. Once I even asked a therapist to change my diagnosis when I saw the dreaded D in my file. I don’t want that on my record, I said.
Another therapist once told me I was a naturally blue person. He said, Can’t you just drink a cup of tea and not worry so much? He meant well, and while his comment wasn’t helpful, it did inspire a great deal of thinking, especially in juxtaposition to my mother’s assessment. I’d been born naturally happy and was now naturally blue. So which is it? What is my true nature?
My familial line is littered with forms of mental illness and substance abuse, so perhaps there is some measure of inherited disposition toward melancholy. But even without the influence of DNA, life can feel disconnected and formidable. So is much of the human experience, and we all self-medicate to some degree.
My brother, who died of a heroin overdose days before the declaration of the global pandemic, was also a happy child. I remember him sweet faced and thoughtful, a dreamy little boy born into a world demanding leathery bravado. We were (I still am) empaths, both of us energetic sponges prone to losing little bits of sensitive selves on the jagged edges of a bootstrap world. Even if you’re born with or figure out how to grow a thicker outer shell, life is caustic.
If we are all made of Love, if we are all here to Connect, it makes sense that our energetic beings famish in existences that seem to lack access to both. We may lay down in a verdant garden and die of hunger, blinded by culture telling us to eat this, not that. So much of our human experience disguises true nourishment, distracts with shiny objects and stony, hollow promises.
Lately I’ve been thinking about vibrations. Everything is a “vibe” these days, and that’s great. It makes the intangible tangible, but there is deeper meaning. Our energetic frequency, both unique to who we are at our core and manifested by a world shaped by individual choice and situation, is the emotional-equals-mental state through which we view our experience. It’s connected to like begets like and having is evidence of wanting. Life is a mirror reflecting truth. Change your mind and your ass will follow, etc, etc.
I used to feel insulted by my mother’s comment. What happened? Oh let me count the ways! But now I see it as a divine poke to pay attention. My authentic self is not depressed or anxious. I am naturally happy.
During my freshman year in college, my crush said to me, You’re always happy! Do you ever get sad? I remember thinking, Not any more! I was reveling in the greatest freedom I’d ever experienced, surrounded by people I adored, all of us making art for the pure joy of it.
Of course that vibe didn’t last. I crashed hardcore and floundered. I was desperate for outside approval, to be liked, loved, and chosen, and I performed all manner of internal and external acrobatics to win these favors. I made questionable decisions, put myself in risky situations, and prostrated myself like a fool, usually for romance. The depression I’d felt off and on as a child burgeoned exponentially, dissolving me into fits of sobbing in doctors offices, and while medications did work - like a dream! - they came with such unbearable side effects I abandoned each and every one. With time, a lot of therapy, self-exploration, dependable friendships, a solid, unconditionally-loving relationship, and practices of true self-care, I climbed out of my invisible despair.
The challenge is sustaining, and it requires a spiritual buoyancy during life’s turbulences. I still fail all the damn time, and I am learning how to recover more quickly with more grace, how to let dark feelings pass through me and not take up residence, masquerading as truth.
Our minds are not willing partners. They are expertly egotistical and self-serving storytellers spinning ceaseless webs. This text means that! That email says this! Did you hear the subtext of that comment?! If I’ve been ghosted do I even exist?! I don’t know about your mind but mine makes Swiftian dramas out of any damn thing, side eye or forward frown.
So I continue to learn how to press pause on these brewing emotional storms, how to quiet my mind and tune inward to ask myself, What is true? What is authentic to who I am? Is this the vibe I wish to cultivate?
I have identified many ways to reconnect with my higher self: writing, creating art, yoga, meditation and prayer, spending time in nature, admiring beauty, eating delicious foods, spending time with the people who stoke my heart flames. When I do these things I feel my vibrancy reignite. I feel my vibrations slough off the weight of judgment, doubt, need for approval, and lift into the feathery, glittery divine.
Rumination is my vibes’ Achilles’ heel, a sneaky little bad habit with a preference for witchy office hours. It flips on the lights at 3AM and casts everything in a sickly, dire glow. Lately I have been spinning over the potential loss of friendship, like a worn worry stone. I am hurt, confused. I feel rejected by a repeated lack of response, and I know I need to let it go. None of us have control over anyone other than ourselves. We can only orchestrate our own reactions.
Wish this person well, said my coach. Bless them and move on. Let go of what does not serve you, of anything that lowers your vibration.
Just the other day I was lying in bed, scrolling, when a notification indicated a new Substack in my inbox. The subject line caught my attention: “The case for slow replies, and insights on facing fear and finding hope.” Inside was a link to a NYT article about why it’s ok and even advisable to not respond immediately to email. One line spoke directly to me: “How quickly people answer you is rarely a sign of how much they care about you.” (Here’s another.)
I live for these moments of everyday magic! This perfectly-timed article gifted me a new, needed lens to examine my experience, and while I maintain that friendship requires shared respect and care, it was an amazing reminder that sometimes, shit just isn’t about me. I don’t have to own, or understand everything. Trying to do so lowers my frequency.
I said to a friend, I keep thinking of this phrase: blood from a stone. That’s how I’ve felt, now and before. I am drawn to people who withhold, a pattern I am still unpacking.
Ah, she said in reply, What occurs to me is: all that glitters…
At the point at which these two axioms meet, is a universal human folly. So often we see and believe only what we think we want to see and believe, which is rarely what we need (or even truly, authentically want). Our busy, impressionable minds and swiftly hoodwinked egos keep us distracted with prolific stories, when our Heart - if we are willing to still and listen - has the power to reveal Truth. And Truth is high vibe.
You are whole and complete, just as you are. You are enough. Seek and nurture the vibes where your authentic self may slip from her robe and play in the dappled light of joy. Experience pleasure whenever possible, embrace bliss, cultivate comfort for both mind and body. Squeeze the hands of the loved ones who show up for you, and set free anyone unable to reflect your affection for we are each on our own journey. Release whatever lowers your natural frequency.
✨ Wishing you the highest, sweetest of vibes. ✨
"seek and nurture the vibes where your authentic self may slip from her robe and play in the dappled light of joy." beautiful, vulnerable, healing. thank you.