The Writing Is On The Wall (And This Is What It Says To You)

If “the writing is always on the wall”, why is it that we either choose to ignore it or temporarily become illiterate? While living in current reality, it’s hard to see and navigate a situation at face value, especially when emotions, investment, and expectations are involved. We either learn the lessons when we reflect upon our experiences in the past or it will keep reappearing in future incarnations until we resolve and make peace with them and ourselves.

I recently spoke to a friend who is an incredibly hard worker and proved himself to be invaluable at his job. He proactively took steps by attending intensive evening courses after working long days in the office to further enhance his abilities within his field. Although he believed his colleagues and his employer took careful interest, they barely even noticed. For all his positive contributions and dedication at his company after several years, he knew on a deeper level something didn’t feel right and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe it was the last minute assignments with unreasonable deadlines constantly thrown at him. Or perhaps it was his boss’ ever-steady fear placed within his and colleagues’ minds to make them feel less than worthy of having their position, yet they must show appreciation for it. Although he thought that the salary justified the daily struggle and at times unbearable feeling of dread upon entering the office, he never felt his job was truly secure. It was only time that when he showed up on a Friday morning, just as any other, he was told that he was being let go. Despite the initial floodgate of emotion that was so carefully kept close to his chest as he kept a hard face, his whole world came crashing down. He asked himself honestly, “But why didn’t I see it coming?” As some time has actually passed now he found his response, “Maybe I did, but I didn’t want to see it and tried my best to prevent it.”

The same could be said when a couple sleeps side by side in their bed yet they are thousands of miles apart in their minds and hearts. As a faithful wife, appreciates that her husband is a good man and loves her and their children, but she knows that something feels awry and she isn’t able to emotionally connect with him on a deeper level. She has never found herself and doesn’t even know where to begin. When my friend told me how she was feeling, I couldn’t help but have great compassion for her rather than point out that she should feel lucky for having a beautiful family. “How can I love them fully if I don’t love myself?” she asked me. There was no need to reply. All along she needed to find her strength to admit it out loud and allow herself the time and space to begin seeing and accepting childhood pain that if finally coming up to the surface for review. The heaviness has weighed her down for so long that she didn’t even realize it was possible to let it go and start breathing again.

Each of us can somehow empathize with being placed in situations and engaging with relationships—whether it be with ourselves or with others. We tend to ignore that something is bothering us and causing us unhappiness, but we’re not quite ready to see, admit, and change it. So often perseverance and endurance can be mistakenly applied to a circumstance that actually provides us the message to walk away, give up, and let it be. However, our families, friends, schooling, and society teach us otherwise. We believe perhaps that it’s better to hang on for dear life than to be viewed as a failure. However, the only way to make a sound decision is to train our eyes to read between the lines, trust our intuition to guide us, and build our strength by knowing that no matter what happens to us or our loved ones, we’ll actually be able to handle it. It’s making the choice to be self-aware rather than in denial as this only causes us further delay on our life’s path that is directing us where to go and who we are truly meant to become at our highest potential.