What does it mean to come alive?

It’s a question I find myself coming back to often these days. And yet I don’t think most of us ever really stop to ask it. Partly because many of us are just moving through life, getting it done, and partly because the answer seems obvious, doesn’t it — but is it? It’s like asking: do you know how to breathe? Yes. But am I breathing well? That’s the real question.

And I think most of us assume it means existing, surviving, achieving, doing. Meeting obligations, schedules, milestones, checklists, expectations. Following the path in front of us. Following the rules given. That seemed the way. And that’s definitely how I used to see it.

I was doing all of it, and doing it well (or so I thought). And yet I still felt incomplete. Not fully present. Like something big was missing. And I just never questioned whether I was actually living in these moments or just existing. It didn’t really cross my mind.

Until I was forced to transform. To shed an old identity, to crack my heart open, to heal deeply and lay bare everything for examination. That’s when it hit me — while I was existing, and existing well according to society’s standards, I wasn’t really living. I was only partially there. I hadn’t yet connected fully with my core self: heart, mind, body, soul and so I was existing in pieces instead of whole. I felt alive in moments, but never fully. Never completely.

It doesn’t mean I wasn’t fulfilled in some ways. It just felt like only parts were fulfilled, not my whole self. Never realizing that what was missing was wholeness.

I don’t think this is just my story. I think most of us are living this way. Existing in pieces, going through the motions, sometimes on auto-pilot. Never quite feeling whole or fully present. Some of us never stop to question it. Some of us live an entire life that way.

We have become comfortable with existing as is, without going deeper or stepping further. Never exploring what it means to be a fully present, connected, whole self in every sense as a person: as a daughter or son, parent, sibling, friend, partner, leader, creator. As a full person in every space we occupy. We have never really questioned this. At least I never did.

And I think that’s what’s potentially missing — not only in us, but between us. In our relationships, our communities, our creations, our world. Because we’ve been told for so long that only doing, achieving, accomplishing is what we need. But what if what the world needs isn’t just more doing but more being. It’s more people being fully themselves, fully alive and then showing up that way.

This is a conversation and the work we owe ourselves. I know I owed it to myself, years before I was dragged into it by life’s circumstances.

So many of us are beautifully loving, kind, generous, talented, and oh so powerful — and yet just existing. Not yet fully seen. Not yet fully present. Not yet fully alive.

What would this world look like if we were? What could we create, what could we give ourselves and each other. Who could we become?

That’s the question. Are you living — or just existing? And what does this mean for you? ❤ ~ C
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