Hello, dear soul, and welcome to the Light Bears Library. My name is Kate Harmony. In today's journal entry, I want to talk about this feeling that I'm having lately of feeling like my whole life is feeling like a failure. You know, my husband and I were talking this morning. I was like, ah, I just I don't know why we're living here. And this is not how I envisioned my life. He's like, oh, you didn't envision your life being in your 40s, living in a basement suite in this town that we live in, and you know, living the life that we're living. He's like, I feel like I did, you know, I'm uh like I always dreamed of being almost 50, and you know, so we had a good laugh. And maybe you can laugh along with that. Um, but sometimes it just feels like we're doing everything wrong. And um it got me thinking about uh was listening to a little bit about um Freud's superego. So take it or leave it, you know, I it's it's just a helpful, a helpful idea. And and I think we can all sense that there's there's parts of it that that it ring true, at least for me it does. So he talks about the superego as our as our moral conscience. It's it's shape it shapes our behavior and our personality, and it's developed by it's developed in the first five years of our life, give or take, some say seven, you know, um, developed by internalizing parental standards and societal norms. So all of that is in there. It's it and when we're here as adults, um, we're part of us is aiming for this ideal, ideal that was set in us for ideal of society, ideal of our parents. And, you know, so then the the idea of this is that we can then feel guilt and or shame um when those standards in our life aren't met. And when I when I was reading about this, I was like, yeah, that's kind of how it feels, you know, um, especially if you know the personality um typology with Myers Briggs. It's like I ha I'm an INFP and my mom is an ESTJ, which is very, very different. Um, but but that's kind of how I feel. I've said this before. It's like I feel like I should be my mom as an adult. And that's because part of that is personality and and she's my mom, but part of it is this programming that I get got as an early child. Like, this is how it is to be an adult, you know, my mom's standards of of adulting and the world's standards. And I feel like, you know, we're I feel so drained all the time because I I I have this knowingness that I'm not living up to her standards and I'm not living up to maybe even my own dreams and visions. Like I said, you know, um, you know, I went to university and studied history and had this idea of like maybe, you know, living in Italy and being a, you know, working for a museum in art history, or, you know, like lots of different, different dreams and ideas. Um, and kind of where I'm at now, it's I feel I feel like I'm in a holding pattern. This is this is definitely not how I how I dreamed my life would be. But, you know, there's still hopefully there's still time, right? I still have tomorrow, hopefully, and more time after that. And that's that's I better get on with with making some changes. But I think the thing is is too, so we've got that that childhood kind of stuff going on. But then I was thinking about how, you know, we feel like so that part of us, maybe that this super ego part would make sense that it's concerned with keeping us safe, keeping us on track with societal kind of societies. And it wants us to stay safe and correct. And it looks for, it looks to the outside of us. It looks to just like when we were little, we look to our parents or we look to, you know, our our teachers or, you know, people that were in our lives that had some authority, and we look to them to keep us safe. So I feel like we still do the same thing now. We look to outside experts that, you know, the modern experts on that are on YouTube, that are on like blogs and internet and the news and whatever. You know, it's it's you can't it feels like you can't get through one day without kind of some kind of expert, you know. Expert says you should live, eat this way, you should breathe this way, you should walk that way, you should, you know, um not not do this because that's narcissistic, and not do that because that's selfish, or not do that because you might feel guilty, and not do that because you might feel shame. And it's just like, it's exhausting. I don't know about you, but it's I feel paralyzed with all of that. And I don't spend that much time on like watching YouTube videos or getting information, but it's just the little bits that I do do, you know, even reading about reading stuff about highly sensitive people, you know, and or or little bits of personality stuff, and it's it just feels like you should do this, you shouldn't do that. And exp like equally qualified experts, I've talked about this a lot, but having opposite opinions about things is like whoops. Um so it just feels it feels like we I I can't like act or live when I'm tuned to the outside. And so I think I think I'm I'm trying to pull it back in because I think there's this um addiction to that that need for expert, like tell me how I can live my life better. I just want my life to be better, I want to feel happier, I want to feel safe and secure when you know the world around us is crazy and you know it's it just so we look maybe there's an addiction to looking outside, and that's not where the answers are gonna come from. But there's no clear, you know, it's an inside job. We have to go inside, and and it feels like there's no guide, book, or roadmap to to doing that. And maybe there is, and I'm I'm working on searching, but then you get into the mire and the weeds of all the experts, and it's just like, okay, when did it become so complicated to just live uh uh uh like a just a just a normal life? I don't know. Is that even a thing? Was that even a thing? I don't know. And I don't wanna I don't want to live like you know a normal life. You you'll know if you're a bit a bit I'm a bit of a bit of a rebel, bit of a, you know, I like to do things my own way. So I don't want that kind of a normal life, but I just want I don't even know. Maybe that's the problem. I don't know what I want. Or maybe I do. I think part of me absolutely knows what I want. But because it's nowhere near where I am right now, it feels so ephemeral and like I don't even want to hope that that can become a thing for me because what if I don't get there? Then it's it's extremely disappointing and painful. And I don't know. Anyway, I've been thinking about because I have to move at the end of this month somewhere, because the house sold, so we now have a deadline to be out by the end of the month, and not sure where we're gonna go, but I'm needing to figure it out quite quick. So needing to go inside, finding what my soul needs are, and you know, asking some reflective questions. So here's some some reflective questions that I'm going to be working on to seeing like where to move next. Is you know, this this inner voice, when we start tuning into the inner voice, is it a voice that sounds kind of harsh, critical, cold, like we should do this? Like, is that so so and guess I'm I'm what is what is the voice of you know the superego slash external expert slash parent, whatever, right? So what does that voice sound like inside or feel like inside versus our soul speaking, there are like our internal compass? So or so is that voice cold and harsh, critical, cold, yeah, or is it warm and inviting and have have more energy? So does it make me, if I choose this direction, does it make me feel aligned with my soul compass? Like this will maybe take me closer towards my my my vision and dreams, or is it kind of feel hollow and drained of energy and um and then kind of like a simple one is is one of of is this in my body, you know, our body, our body has great wisdom and it can it can help, it can lead us. So is our body saying yes, or is it saying no to the thing that's of like in our in terms of physical sensations and and in over me in terms of where I've of I've moved a ton in my life um in the last 10 years, we've moved more than 10 times. Um so it's kind of like is there a yes feeling or a no feeling? And where I'm struggling with this right now is that it seems like every option just feels like no, no, no, no, no, I don't want any of them. It just feels like you know, pick pick the least worst option. And that doesn't feel inspiring or life-enhancing, and so I'm feeling that sense of paralysis and stuckness. So I'm just waiting for this. I'm waiting, I'm waiting. And often that's the thing, is is our soul asks us to be patient, to wait for the right option to show up. And you know, and and we so badly want to know where we're going, know what to do, have all the options sort of like have it narrowed down and figured out earlier than later, um, because that's quite safe. Versus the soul, it it's it's it can take its time. And sometimes it requires us to be patient and wait for the right moment, the right opportunity, the right yes, you know, waiting, waiting for a place to come up on the rental sites or whatever that that is not there yet. And um that is maybe the place that is a yes that aligns with, you know, our budget and you know, our feeling, like we spend all of our time in our house. So it it needs to feel cozy and or at least livable. So many of these places are like prison basement suites, and my my heart and soul are like, I can't do it. I can't live there. Anyway, we we currently are like, well, beggars can't be choosers. That's currently what we're living in, and it doesn't feel nice. It doesn't feel nice, but what are you gonna do? So those are those are my journal thoughts for today. I I would love to hear from you if you have felt this this this internal superego kind of thing, um, versus you know your soul compass, your soul, inner soul speaking to you in whatever way it does. I would love to know from you how it is that you know when it's your soul speaking to you, what it happens in your in your body, in your mind, in your in your dreams, in whatever it may be that that guides you. Um because I think more and more as the it just keeps getting louder and noisier outside of us, right? We need to to bring that that awareness and attention back inside to s to see how we can navigate our path. And this this goes to to intuition. I will leave this the next video um about yeah, tuning out the world's noise to find our intuition. I spoke about that in that that video. It was pretty good. So yeah, please subscribe and give this video a thumbs up if it was helpful to you. And I'd love to hear from you in the comments if this sparked any thoughts for you. Okay, well, I'm wishing you so many blessings. Signing off for now. XOXO Kate.