When Our Souls Go To War With The World

​I recently read this line by Elizabeth Gilbert in her new book ‘All the Way to the River’:

“The desire for love, attention, validation, and acceptance — what I call LAVA — can drive us to abandon ourselves, to lie, to chase, to manipulate, just to get that hit of being wanted.”

I am in the process of writing the final pieces of the story of my life. The finishing has been very hard, quite frankly. When I committed to completing this book, I said it was 75% complete.

I now know why it has remained so incomplete for so long.

The unwritten parts of the book are the parts I have most wanted to avoid. I have longed to write the story of my life while at the same time feeling compelled to hide large parts of my life. There is no greater tension for a writer - hiding from the truth.

The parts I have most NEEDED to write are the parts I've least WANTED to write.

The tipping point between not writing the end and no longer being able to NOT write that end was my demons becoming too big to hide. The demons within me raised such a ruckus about being seen that it became clear they would no longer be complicit in my hiding them.

So I write.

I find courage in reading others write the things I know deeply were hard for them to write. I find courage in reading others acknowledge they too have been addicted to a need to be seen and loved and accepted; I know that is hard to admit. I find courage in reading others own just how far they'd go to feed that addiction.

Honesty is not often well received in the world. The world is often much more comfortable with who they want us to be than they are with who we are or who we have been. But it turns out dishonesty is not well received by our souls. And I believe for us all there comes a point where the individual soul goes to war with the whole wide world.

I am sure my war has been a long time coming.

But maybe it is that war that forces one to be brave enough to say I have been a liar. I have been a manipulator. I have been so cold to others that it would appear that one so addicted to love is tragically incapable of it.

So I write.

At times brutal honesty about who we have been can feel like an excuse for what we have done. I have found as I power through the writing of this book that I no longer have much need for excuses in my life. They hold such little value.

What holds value is honesty.

For my soul is at war with the world and I've come to believe honesty is the only weapon that will conquer that world.

As I read the words from Elizabeth Gilbert, I found myself thinking, you are not alone Ms. Gilbert.

Maybe that's what winning the war - honesty - can ultimately become. An assurance to others that they are not alone.