All My Words Are Gestures, Imperfectly Attempting to Signal Truth

The effort of living honestly.

Hi,

How are you, really?

Wooded Landscape by Hans Gude (Norwegian, 1825– 1903)

Most of my essays tend to the notion of softness—how it lives within us, and how it permeates the animate and still spaces all around.

I’ve always believed, and I still do, that it is *the soft and supple that will prevail,* as Lao Tzu wrote. Although I tried at times to exile these qualities from my own landscapes—to be serious and strong, static and predictable, measured and timid, as I was told I should be—I eventually surrendered all this effort of becoming something fixed and foreign to one: living honestly.

This commitment to embody the truth animating my being was born as a response to the limiting narrative which grew as an undercoat of my whole life. It made me believe that I didn’t fit in the world and that I should hide parts of myself that were “too much” for others. This story has grown deep roots in my soil, and although I’ve managed to pluck out most of its offspring, it still tries to reach for the light—especially when I’m at my softest and most vulnerable, in those intense seasons of transformation and skin-shedding.

Many of us, I believe, struggle at times to see ourselves as an integral part of the larger tissue of society and the world. Here, I share bits of how it looks for me—parts that don’t usually make the cut in most of my essays.

I know that Stacking Stones gathers many gentle souls, and I also know, because you emailed me and shared in the comments, that there are more than a few Highly Sensitive People among us here. I’ve created this space to hold the many hearts of our community when they become weary and heavy, and today, I come to lay my own heart within this embrace, which, these days, has been particularly tired and troubled. It feels good to have a space to call home, warm and safe. Thank you for holding it with me.

I remember I wrote recently, in response to one of you, that I often forget I am a Highly Sensitive Person too. In the effort of uncovering and rewilding all that I had learned to suppress and hide, I sometimes forget that the ways I operate in the world can be so much different from those of others. More and more, it feels like the only possible way—the only modus operandi that has ever been available to me—and one which I must embody and enjoy, since, frankly, there has never been an alternative that could keep me sane.

As I silently committed, with courage and honesty, to undertake the lifelong exploration of the vast inner landscapes of my otherwise narrow being, external reality began to align with whatever I dared to embody. Over time, the circles of people around me changed, and most of my friends are either Highly Sensitive too, or at least highly empathetic and open-minded, so they accept and love me as I am—which, of course, I do my best to offer them in return as well. I’ve also been able to connect with clients who are flexible and empathetic, allowing for a more fluid work environment, which has made my life so much easier. And finally, I am lucky to be able to co-create this space here with you, which both challenges and sustains me through the movements of life.

While I might live in a bubble to a certain extent, I am, of course, not separated from the rest of the world. The recent months have reminded me, quite painfully, that my ways are not the most prevalent ones. It’s clear that the larger context of our lives has not, and likely won’t anytime soon, support the variety of human experiences or allow the free flow of softness when needed. Rather, it pushes us into pre-made moulds and punishes our attempts to move at a different pace or follow an unknown track. Our society is highly individualistic, yet we fear the individual, unique expressions of humanity. This leads to a great loss of many voices that will likely never get a chance to reach full blossom, as they’ll always be denied the much-needed, nourishing warmth and supportive space to grow.

I am still hopeful, however, for I can recognise that this state of the world is gradually changing as the collective tends to lean more and more towards the eternal vessels of diversity: Indigenous wisdom, spirituality, mental health, holistic medicine, ecology, community, localisation, economic fairness, and so on.

We need to hold space for this transformation to unfold steadily, and many people are doing a wonderful job offering their spiritual and emotional gifts to help others pass the threshold from acceptable to embodied and real. It is also through our personal efforts to move into softness—the tiny hidden transgressions of everyday life—that we keep this momentum alive and progressing.

In my writing and personal life, I try my best to contribute to this collective effort as well. However, these past weeks, I struggled to find the strength and centredness to do so, as I was repeatedly faced with the “not there yet” aspects of our shared reality. And since the programme that had been running within me my whole life was that of immediately questioning my accuracy when faced with a conflicting reality, I began to feel inadequate and ill-equipped. The instinct that followed told me to hide and retreat, to protect myself from possible rejection and hurt.

I learned long ago that the path I’m walking won’t be understood by most, and that I have to befriend loneliness, for it will likely accompany me my whole life, lingering in the liminal spaces of daily life, as I constantly move between the known and the undefined, the acceptable and “too much.” I’ve often been too much—feeling too intensely, analysing too deeply, loving too vastly. At the same time, I’ve also managed to be not good enough—not what others needed to feel comfortable and content around me.

The extremes that defined me in others’ eyes were also the forces moving within me, like the tides orchestrated by the Moon, causing my waters to advance and retreat, often dramatically, before finding their steady flow. One could say I was always testing the two opposite ends of my human capacity before I learned to inhabit the spaces in between, and I suppose that would be true. And yet, I grew to believe that finding the middle ground between “too much” and “not good enough” wasn’t something accessible to me. So, as many of you can probably relate, I learned to shut down my hunger for the richness and variety of experiences, the exuberance of my heart, and the urge to dive deeply into the secrets of life. I did my best to become acceptable and not draw too much attention to the expressions of myself that I was told weren’t fitting, or were even weird and bothersome.

This is a story that has grown deep roots in my soil, and although I’ve managed to pluck out most of its offspring, it still tries to reach for the light now and again, especially when I’m softest and most vulnerable, in the intense seasons of transformation and skin-shedding.

Currently, I find myself in one of those liminal spaces where, upon recognising the non-continuity of self, I can sense the undercurrent of oneness with all creation, no matter where I am or what I do, which evokes a greater capacity for acceptance of all expressions of life. Such a state of understanding creates an invitation for everyone and everything to express themselves to me as they are in any given moment—and that invitation extends to me as well. Yet, as I began relaxing into the truest and freest expressions of my being, I saw them struggling to fit into the larger context of society once again.

In the meantime, I’m also learning how to be angry. It’s something I never knew how to do—I’d always push it deep, deep down, immediately turning it into sadness that haunted my existence for as long as I can remember. Moving from one extreme of never feeling anger, I am now entering another: rage. It’s raw, unpredictable, and wild, and I have to grant it its righteous space after years of keeping it buried.

As a result of these events, and other internal changes, I’ve entered new ways of being in the world—ways unfamiliar to my surroundings. And so, the story was revisited: the looming belief that I don’t, and will never, fit; that who and what I am is wrong, and that I should do a better job curating everything that leaves my terrain and shows its face to the world. For a moment, I mistook it for my truth once more.

But, as life has it, I was rescued by the very world from which I tried to hide. Every day, I go to the ocean, sit at its shore or offer my body to its waters, and ask it to teach me the wisdom of ebb and flow—of moving gracefully and effortlessly as the gravitational forces of life pull back, forth, and sideways. I also visit the stones resting by the cliff's face nearby. I kneel by their side and place my palm on their firm surface. The first time I overheard myself humming to them, I was caught by surprise. It was a melody I had never known; I still don’t know where it comes from. I’m also not someone who hums or sings. I’ve always considered myself non-musical, forgetting that my whole being, just like all of the universe, is, inherently and inadvertently, musical, and it sings the most beautiful of songs: life and connection.

And so, as I sat by the stone and hummed to it the soft song of our shared existence, I felt how it radiated and resonated with grace and tenderness, even though its body is rock-solid. Although it may appear that the stone took upon itself something which it was not, as I tried doing for most of my life, nothing could be further from the truth. Without saying a word, it reminded me that the home of extremes is found in stillness. That there is no right or wrong in who and what we are—so long as we let ourselves resonate with the melody shared by all, we will always be able to hold everything else. And in the flow of the ocean, I recognised once more the comfort of surrendering to the rhythms of life. This recognition created enough of a gravitational pull for me to shift into effortless alignment with the changes taking place inside me.

Steadied and comforted, I was able to use my freshly reclaimed anger as a tool. I turned the statement of the lingering narrative—quietly pushing me into exclusion—into a question: “Is this true for you? Are you unfit for the world?” And by doing so, I realised I was no longer willing to accept the kind of life that was being narrated for me. I knew I had a choice—I could either let the fear of embodiment kill and bury me in my own dark soils, extinguishing my light evermore, or I could take it all in and “flare up like a flame, and make big shadows I can move in,” as Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, using it to pave a new path for myself—a reality in which I can embody all that I contain.

It is not the first time I’ve made this choice, but it is the first time I’ve confronted this belief fully and realised it had no ground. What I believed to be its roots were just the cold fingers of fear, holding me in their tight grip. Now I see that it was simply another element of the momentum of self, which I was told during my recent meditation retreat, I would need to let loose and allow to die off naturally. It’s all new, and I don’t have much reference for what I am experiencing, so I try to tread slowly and attentively, as much as is made possible by the contexts of my reality.

There’s one last thing I want to share with you now. I struggle to write these days, and I struggle to keep up with my other responsibilities. As I type this sentence, I ask myself if I am trying to explain to you why I’ve been inconsistent with my regular schedule of weekly essays, and why I’ve been quite absent from this space in general. I suppose it is partially so. I value your presence here, and the time you offer to read my work and participate in conversations that unfold as a consequence of this interaction. I am immensely grateful for you co-creating this space with me, so that each of us, when needed, can retreat to it with a wounded and heavy heart. That’s why I thought I’d like to share a bit more about what’s been going on. And this letter is an attempt to do so.

This is not all, however. Despite this space and sense of community, I often feel held back by another force—perfectionism. What I still recognise within my being is an underlying need to get things "just right," which prevents me from sharing my work with trust in times of greater transformation. After asking myself repeatedly what is at the core of my struggle to write, and understanding that, yes, it is largely due to the fact that I have been unable to find stable accommodation for a few months now and have been in a constant search—attending viewings, exploring listings, and talking with landlords—I have also grown fearful of putting out something that feels ungrounded. I feared it would give testimony to the fact that I struggle to let myself be seen when I’m in seasons of confusion and skin-shedding, unsure of what will emerge on the other side. I know I need to break through these walls repeatedly as I reach new thresholds of embodiment. Each time, I must leave behind the modes and states that once felt comfortable and safe.

Through my writing, I strive to encourage softness, openness, shared vulnerability, and sweet imperfection—yet I deny myself the right to embody these qualities in certain areas of my life. I am still unsure to what extent I want to do so in my writing, but I know I need to test it and find out; otherwise, it wouldn’t be an honest existence, which I committed to, if I kept this aspect of it unexplored and locked away.

To aid that effort, I like to remind myself, as Willow Defebaugh writes in Atmos, “Over the Moon,” “All my words are gestures, imperfectly attempting to signal truth.” Writing this today, I am making room for this very imperfection. While I give myself permission to be lost and undone, I only do it in solitude. This is not how I want to be, and this is also not the song I want to hum to the world, knowing it always listens and will always resonate with whatever I offer it. I firmly believe that if I want to live in an inclusive and open world, I first need to welcome all that I contain and continue facing all the fears surrounding it, until there is no more hiding, until I’ve seen it all and offered it all.

Perhaps this piece is a means of moving into the extreme of sharing, of opening up without curating too much. If that’s the case, I am excited to see what will remain as I settle into the spaces in between. And I hope that you, too, reading this, feel welcome to come here amidst your unravelling and sit down with your palms turned up, your hands tired and scratched from the daily effort of trying to live honestly, and let yourself be seen just as you are. I hope you'll trust that your presence, like mine, will always be heard—even if you don’t say anything. Even if you just hum.

Dear all, 

I will be in a meditation retreat once again, just for a brief four days, in an effort to integrate and deepen all that has been moving within me with great intensity over the past weeks. 

Wishing you a wonderful week, and sending lots of love 🤍 

The world shows us in each moment the depths of our potential. Just like us, it is capable of holding both beauty and terror, and giving them both a rightful place in the vastness of existence. The other day, I was sitting at the beach, admiring the sunset, which was extraordinarily red and intense that evening. Only later I found it was due to the dust in the air coming from the massive wildfires in the North. Upon realising this, I could recognise a deep sadness spilling across my being, but still, a touch of the lingering beauty I witnessed that evening. It’s a particular kind of discomfort to sit with them both at once and realise neither defines anything, and both are a simple yet powerful testimony to how things just are.

And invitation for you, dear reader:

Come, allow yourself to hum and be just as you are.

With much love,

Justyna