The Power of Acknowledgement

 

This trip wasn't about going to one country and then going back home. I am creating a lifestyle change. The plan was Panama 🇵🇦, then Colombia 🇨🇴, and then, if fate allowed, Costa Rica 🇨🇷. And it did.

My journey in Costa Rica has just begun, and honestly, it didn't start off great, but that's a story for another blog post.

Here, I want to talk about my stay in Colombia.

It was very eye-opening, to say the least.

I had an amazing, cozy Airbnb in the heart of Chapinero. I walked to the grocery store every two days. I bought chorizo, rice, and a whole lot of fruit. I was serious about that fruit diet I wanted to do. If you read my last post, you already know that. 🙄

So I would cook and chill. Nothing too big. I was very comfortable.

Colombia feels like fall every day, and that's my favorite season, so I was absolutely here for it.

One day I did a reading, and I didn't understand it. But something told me I would eventually. Because sometimes that's how readings work.

I want to clarify something. Readings are NOT meant to predict the future. They never have been. They are meant to confirm what you already know and, sometimes, pinpoint something buried in your subconscious that needs to come to the forefront so you can understand something about yourself.

That's it. That's all.

This reading was no different.

A few days later, for whatever reason... no, let me take that back. There was a reason.

I wanted to destroy something.

A feeling.

At first, I thought it was a feeling of not wanting this desire anymore. So I went to all the places on the internet that I usually go to when I want to make myself upset, hoping to destroy this feeling, this desire that I have been carrying for eight years now.

Needless to say, it didn't destroy it.

It never does.

Was I temporarily upset? Absolutely.

I was so upset that I cried most of that day. I cried myself to sleep and woke up still upset.

During that day, I begged the Divine to release me from this desire, from these feelings.

I have done this many times before, but this time it was different. It was harder.

I have seen all these things before. The rumors. The gossip.

Usually, I take a lot of it with a grain of salt. My discernment has to be on ten, and I usually only do this once a year because it takes its toll.

But this time around, I broke down completely.

I have done shadow work for a long time.

It seems like shadow work has to be hard, right? Looking at yourself, analyzing yourself, recognizing your patterns.

But a lot of shadow work doesn't require all of that.

Sometimes shadow work is very simple.

You acknowledge.

That's it.

You acknowledge that something is there.

Here is an article with a psychiatrist's perspective as well HealthBoost

That's exactly what happened the next morning when I woke up.

I realized that I have been struggling with disappointment.

Not just disappointment with the desire I have been carrying for years, but disappointment with many things in my life. Money. Career. Love. Everything in between.

I have dealt with disappointment a lot.

So much so that when I do readings, the Five of Cups shows up most of the time.

In a Tarot deck I created, the Heroine's Journey Tarot, the card depicts a woman sitting on her disheveled bed looking confused and upset. Her expression says, "Really? Again?"

And that's exactly how I feel every time I get disappointed.

Like really? Again? What I wanted didn't come through?

I could sit here all day and list every single thing that has disappointed me.

But you know what I didn't do?

I didn't recognize disappointment itself.

Hard stop.

Not what disappointed me.

Not who disappointed me.

Just the fact that disappointment was there, living inside of me.

That's shadow work.

True shadow work.

The moment I acknowledged disappointment, it released.

Not the things that made me feel disappointed.

Just disappointment itself.

It was like a weight finally lifted off my shoulders.

I wasn't carrying disappointment anymore.

I'm not saying that analyzing yourself isn't necessary. I think it is. I think it takes that to become self-aware.

But sometimes a thing simply wants to be acknowledged.

For you to look it straight in the face and say,

"I see you. I know you're there."

The relief you feel when you finally do that...

My God today.

It's worth it.