4 Key Questions to Feel Fully Fulfilled and Content

This was the title of an article from tinybuddha.com that popped up on my facebook feed a while back.
"Fully fulfilled and content." Can you imagine what that might feel like?
Me neither.

Question No. 1: How do I want to feel on the inside?

A much more difficult question than I thought upon first reading.
When I was in my very early teens I went through a period where, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say "stable." Emotionally, physically, financially... I only wanted to be far from the chaos and danger. I didn't want to feel the fear, the precariousness..
Stable is still how I want to feel on the inside, though this is no longer the primary focus. I'm safe now. I'm not on the verge of madness or surrounded by abuse. My life and psyche are far more serene.
I've done a fair amount of writing in recent months about being "the person I want to be," and being "someone I admire." (That's not to say that I want to be someone who is admired)
I want to feel as though I'm always doing my best.
I want to feel as though I take all opportunities to help others.
I want to feel as though my negative qualities are, with work, steadily diminishing.
I do not want to feel desperate need for relationships or things material.
I want to feel understood and deeply connected to my fellow human beings... even ones who are not at all like myself.
I want to be kind, and be patient.
I want to feel peaceful.

Question No. 2: Is my drive to do something out in the world really a wish to escape my interior experience?

Oy vey. Hard hitting questions. *deep breath*
In many ways? Short answer?
Yes.
Perhaps "escape" was a better descriptor in the past than it is now. I think... I hope, anyway... that currently my drives are more aimed at betterment than escape. Though I still use many means for escape. When I'm upset or don't want to be in my own head, I get in someone else's. Being there for other people is the only time I get a break from the chaos in my own mind. In this way, being a therapist is very self-serving. Is this periodic comfort/escape my only reason for my work? Of course not. Does it negate the rest of the reasons why I do the work I do? I certainly hope not. And I don't think it does.
Do I wish to do things like donate organs and join the Peace Corps because of a "wish to escape my interior experience"?
To be honest, I don't know.
Those drives come from a strong need to do as much as I can. Be the best I can. Help as many people as I can. Be as good as I can. And sometimes I feel as though those needs will never be fulfilled, and I will never be "enough"... but that doesn't mean working on it isn't fulfilling.
It's one of the things I'm working on. Letting things be enough.
Are all those needs just a desire to create some sort of saintly facade? Maybe. But does it matter? Does it make the do-gooding less good?
The article cites "things out in the world" like losing weight or buying a new car... not things like career or public service. So maybe I answered it wrong.
Or maybe she did.

Question No. 3: What is my gut telling me?

Presently? That it's hungry. And it feels as though it can demand anything it wants, considering what I've put it through.
My gut is telling me...
That I need more spirituality. More connectedness with nature and the world around me.
That I need time, and space. I need space and silence to create. I need solace, I thirst for this peace.
My gut says that I'm on the right path. I'm making the right steps in my life, the right things are changing.
My gut is usually heard. The feelings and reasoning I can't quite explain are meaningful to me. I think I do a good job of listening.

Question No. 4: How can I accept all that I feel?

Jesus. That is the question. The one I've struggled with all my life.
My first inclination is to say "I wish I knew," but perhaps I should put more thought into this.
How have I accepted all that I feel in the past?
I haven't always. I spent my early teens fighting, railing against them. Pounding away at the immovable, unyielding walls until I collapsed in exhaustion.
I still fight at times.
The only ways I've been able to accept how I feel has been through understanding. Attempting to improve my self-awareness. I've done this through art, therapy, spiritual study and, most of all, writing. The more clearly I understand my feelings the more able I have been to accept them.
Nonetheless, truly accepting all I feel requires a patience and wisdom that I do not yet possess. I reach to Pema for that, and I have much to learn. Accepting all I feel requires an acceptance of myself that is a work in progress.
I accept that.