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Normally, when we’re out of our center, a sense that something is off can pervade us. We may begin feeling unease and anxiety might kick in. We may not feel like ourselves and, taken too far, find ourselves feigning and faking. Our energy levels might suffer too, depending on whether you’re the kind of person that is significantly charged or drained according to how aligned or misaligned you are with your true self. Overall, it is not a positive or constructive state. It can be tolerated and endured, but it is not optimal - especially if you wish to live a genuine and fulfilling life.
At the core of you are your most deeply and strongly held principles, values, and gifts. These sit there to guide and aid you through life toward manifesting your greatest potential as a human being.
In some cases, the center of someone can feel like a small area that one must constantly watch out for to not step out of. But in other cases, it is wide enough for you to basically forget about while you move around. Both cases (and everything in between) have their pros and cons and serve their purpose in the diversity of life. However, more likely than not, it will expand over time to some degree as roots and trunks do to hold the spread of broad and thick branches.
Unfortunately, we can lose ourselves to people and situations. Meeting them where they are and adjusting to them. Often compromising a bit too much to go along and get along. People and situations can certainly promote growth and expansion, but if they are significantly steering us off course or chipping away at us, it is time to reconsider our position. The environment we’re in may not be suitable for our personal development and could be improved or should be left. Yet, at times, it is more a matter of taking some time away to reclaim our center after the environment’s stimuli heavily influenced us, pulling and pushing in different directions, and recognizing where our limits are to be firmer with them when we rejoin.
Once you let go of what had been taking you from your center, you can be disoriented or even void. You may have forgotten what moves and fills you independently from it. You may realize that much of what you were being and doing wasn’t really “you”. As though you were under some sort of spell. Or drunk and just now sobering up. This is natural.
To reclaim your center, you can begin by giving yourself space and silence to be alone and return to yourself. This can be done by meditating, going on walks, journaling, etc. Then, continue on to engage in activities that you know you love or suspect you would love. Take your time. (Particularly if you have been severely neglected and/or abused.)
It also helps, for future occurrences, to set or create a “home” point. Somewhere you can go to that effectively brings you back to your core. This can be a place, a room, a mixtape, a scrapbook… Whatever prompts or transports you to where what most matters to you is. Feel free to get artistic with it until it successfully centers you. This way, you can venture and roam, temporarily visit and stay in foreign areas that may have you out of your element but still be worth experiencing, without many worries - since you have established a spot with links that can automatically or quickly “reset” you.
