pages never read

Scrolling Instagram, a post read,

‘Take me back to the first night we met’

Thinking to myself how there isn’t anyone I’d want to meet again,

You stepped through the door, walked across my mind’s stage.

Meeting me in a duvet fort, engraved with sweaty endless smiles.

Caught like a lily pad floating at the top of my throat,

Imagining what it would be like to re-experience our first scene,

Draped over the sofa,

Like the silhouette of two butterflies

Fluttering nude, laughing.

I kissed you.

I can hear the pages turning

as this half-opened book dangles through my chest,

Like a sinking weight into my heart from shoulder to shoulder.

I’ll never forget you.

© Victoria Venturella, MA, Wait a Meta, Existential Dialogues

Incandescent

Smoldering from the depths of me,

Smoke rises.

Out my vented chest

Butterflies flutter--

Your iris painted

the color of my minds sea.

Labradorite cinereal.

My silvered lantern.

fissured branches,

glowing ember.

Effervescent beauty seeps through me.

Chromatic metamorphosis.

Like moonlight you cast a beam,

On all the places that must

be seen.

Sepia budded vines entangled,

Growing.

I'm already something new.

© Victoria Venturella, MA, Wait a Meta, Existential Dialogues

Do you sometimes feel that this global pandemic will never end?

We seem to have hit another place collectively. Many of us in disbelief that this is still happening. We have become concerned as to how long this will continue. All the social distancing, travel, and large crowd restrictions, and having to wear masks in all indoor places. Parents concerned to send their children to school. Kids worried about going to school whether its due to social anxiety or their own fear of covid and not having the vaccine just yet. Polarized views on the safety of the vaccine are causing major divides within friends and familial systems.

We still must make space for hope. Hope that one day it will not be this way. That we will have overcome this. After all, we will never have this moment back.

Savor this present experience as it is.

What a beautiful moment here in the chaos of this which we call life.

Take it all in. For all its uncertainty. All that is present in the here and now.

In this historical time to be alive.

Look at where we are.

Sit with what you are grateful for.

Cherish your travels. Every path you take in life.

Whatever direction this pandemic has taken you we all grieve the absence of what we collectively experienced. Before covid existed.

We must remember that all things that we experience in life contribute to how we interpret the world. This pandemic has given us all something to create from. Even in such grave tragedy beauty blooms brightly in the darkest corners. What feels like the end of the world becomes a gift to learn from.

During the pandemic life has continued to prevail, people have gotten married, divorced, met their partners, moved to a new place, started a new job, had a baby, started a business, started therapy, wrote books, created art, reimagined what life could look like in the future suspending how we always knew it to be.

Have compassion for how you are experiencing this situation.

Have compassion for the you that has been experiencing this situation the entire time.

© Victoria Venturella, MA, The Existentialist, Existential Dialogues

Moon Clock

Moon Clock

In full vulnerability

Illuminating bright

Luminescence.

You see yourself glimmer

In the gaze of the Other.

Temporal rotation.

Within a shadow

We meet ourselves.

Where are we?

With myself how do I see myself?

In thought? On the page? In a recording?

In my reflections of my recent experiences.

I see myself in you. I see you in myself.

Part of each other’s present evolution.

You no longer are where you were.

One section of chapters becoming the palate to paint the next section.

Opening my evolution from the page I am on today.

Moon Clock

Time to illuminate the world to reveal who we are to ourselves.

Without the world who would we be?

How could we see who we are without all that exists beyond us?

We would be nothing without the world.

© Victoria Venturella, MA, The Existentialist, Existential Dialogues

We Already Know

Dropping in,

here we sit.

Present with such certainty.

You will feel someone love you just as hard.

You’ll never be too much.

Energy completely matched.

Mutual. Same page.

Perpetually pursued.

Like a parachute,

Expanding widely in your wind.

In a tree house,

dangling our feet,

the universe feels,

our gratitude.

Emerging,

Spilling over my cup,

My saucer,

My heart.

Vividly living

the prime of your life.

All those relationships didn’t work out so you can experience the one that will.

© Victoria Venturella, MA, The Existentialist, Existential Dialogues

#growtogether #relationshipwithself #lifelonglearner #transcendence #metamorphosis #change #evolving #growth #truelove #lovefully #heartbreak #love #loveyourself #communication #relationships #futureself #existentialquestions #victoriaventurella #existentialism #phenomenology #existentialphenomenology #existentialangst #angst #beingwithyourself #existentialpsychology #centralpurposetherapy

Victoria Venturella, MA, Existential Phenomenological Psychotherapist

My heart.

Where are you?

Heart pieces shattered floating inside.

Sinking weight of sadness.

Not sure where you went.

Roses drooping swaying in the wind,

Old seeds sprouting,

The movement from there to here,

Inside the petals,

Caught in a pre-emptive bloom.

Holding my knees,

Drenched in the musk of you,

Notes of dialogues flutter in,

All those authentic gestures,

Willingness to see,

Awareness of being seen,

We bloom again.

Meeting the edge of each other,

Perpetually asymmetrical.

Saying the things people never give space to,

Encouraging hard conversations.

Wading in the full truth we swim.

© Victoria Venturella, MA, The Existentialist, Existential Dialogues

People Who Mean Something to Us will Always Mean Something to Us

What does it mean to truly let someone go?

It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right.

Sitting in the pit of my stomach,

I don’t want to rid myself of you.

Do I have a choice to never remember someone I care deeply for?

How could you let someone go if you forever remember them?

When we let go of someone we love,

All those experiences, all those words of wisdom,

all that prior presence,

manifests itself as part of the things that consciously and unconsciously change you.

People who mean something to us will always mean something to us.

Them just meaning this much means something.

Your interpretation of the thing makes meaning. The meaning associated with the thing itself evolves as you experience new experiences. Where the previous interpretation presents itself in a new light and therefore this new interpretation contributes to the meaning of the original thing.

The same thing infinitely evolving within your finite existence adding meaning to this life you’re presently living.

To let go of someone you love,

You must consciously acknowledge you cannot reach them.

They cannot be turned toward, leaned on,

seen.

You will never know how you’ve impacted them or how new experiences have contributed to any future interpretation of their everyday life.

You will no longer bear witness to them.

To let go of them you can consciously choose to take them with you.

Letting go when you’d rather choose not to.

Teachers of humility, courage, and free choice.

Ethical mentors that perpetually reverberate the things we’ve learned in life,

Our relational sound boards.

Our space for private inquiry and internal exploration.

Our therapists.

How has your experience with this person contributed to your understanding of who you’ve come to be thus far?

Why do we let go of people?

People who we love dies.

People who would rather not communicate.

They couldn’t confront themselves or you.

They couldn’t grow with you.

When someone who saw you no longer sees you.

What it felt like to be seen when they saw you comes with you.

What if you notice no one sees you like them?

What does that end up meaning to you?

Revelatory moments of ourselves.

Never-ending.

You know what it feels like to be truly seen.

People manifest as change in us across a lifespan.

They fall to the tapestry of lived experience reappearing from the engagement with something that elicited original thoughts of them.

Coffee shop in a museum of art.

Dirty chai.

Leaning backwards. I look up.

Accordions dangled from the ceiling above me, how couldn’t I think of you.

Sipping and swirling with notes of insight.

With the deepest sense of gratitude for free choice.

What a bright light. . .

#insight

© Victoria Venturella, Existential Dialogues, The Existentialist

#futureself

#time

#space

#agency

#freechoice

#change

#presentmoment

#bepresent

#presence

#beingseen

#beingheard

#showingup

#vulnerablity

#courage

#memories

#existentialangst

#angst

#hereandnow

#whatsatstake

#beseen

#lovedeeply

#existential

#existentialdread

#trusttheuniverse

#existentialphenomeology

#victoriaventurella

#relationshipwithself #communication #transcendence

#futureself #infinitepossibilities

#existentialpsychotherapy

Relationships do not magically begin where you want them to be

Relationships do not magically begin where you want them to be. You must work toward having a shared existence you both want to live in. However you expected it to be won’t be how it actually is. Your partner is an entirely different human being with their own mind, and they have their own ideas as to how they imagined this going.

We all like to think that we could find “the one” that fits perfect with us, but in all reality the ones that fit perfect with us in the beginning ends up eventually having ruptures and dissonance that will need to be worked through together. Two human beings that come together will never be absolutely on point at all times. The only thing you can do is acknowledge when you are not and make space together to figure out where to go from there.

If what you imagine wanting in a relationship is not happening in the first few months with someone, consider what it is you are really wanting. Is it marriage? Is it kids? Is it everyday cuddles? Is it the everydayness of life you want to share with someone? Is it that you want to build a life with your best friend and support each other’s growth and dreams? Now consider how do you get to that point with someone? Do you skip the dates for dinner and a movie? Do you skip the endless conversations to figure out who each other are? Do you start from knowing deeply, loving deeply, and living fully enmeshed? Relationships take work to get to a place where longevity is prominent. It takes time to be the others other in this full-bodied all-encompassing way.

Then there are those people who meet and after only a few encounters they know they must be with that person. Are we all living for a situation like this to occur? These stories are rare and prevalent enough for them to exist as a rational possibility for us all to imagine it would occur for us too. If we never experience it, are we missing out? Is finding someone and facing the raw hard reality with the other meaningless? Even those people who feel they must be together after just a few encounters come up against the reality of their differences in who they are as people. There will be times where you do not understand each other, where you miss the other completely, where you disappoint the other without even understanding why, where you want to do something, but they want to do something else, where they think it is totally fine and you absolutely disagree. How you work together through these fissures is what moves the relationship along or contributes to its potential disintegration. You must learn to grow together, or you will grow apart preventing each other from fully blooming.

© Victoria Venturella, Existential Dialogues, The Existentialist

#relationships #infinitehuman #sharedexistence #beingseen #beingheard #activelistening #everdayliving #relationshipsarehard #relationshipsarework #communication #bepresent #besupportive #marriage #justmarried #theone #centralpurposetherapy #existential #existentialphenomeology #victoriaventurella #relationshipwithself #communication #transcendence #futureself #infinitepossibilities #existentialpsychotherapy

How many unsent letters do you file in your mind?

How many times does it take you to form the first sentence?

Back spacing in deep thought.

Where do you put all those love letters?

last words never said?

What about all those questions?

potential proposals?

all that honesty?

sudden arrivals of insight?

Why haven’t you told them yet?

Are you afraid of true love?

Why do you think you have forever?

Why would you wait to tell them what you continually wish to share with them?

Being vulnerable is transformative and healing.

What about those moments that you no longer feel like you are where you were?

Where do you file all the letters you write yourself? Those meaningful monologues of the deepest internal texture?

You don’t have to journal everyday to journal.

#journaling

#unsentletters

#writeletters

#havehardconversations

#fallinlove

#livedeeply

#lovedeeply

#liveloudly

#loveloudly

#beauthentic

#existentialquestions

#askmorequestions

#existentialangst

#angst

#hereandnow

#whatsatstake

#beseen

#lovedeeply

#existential

#existentialdread

#trusttheuniverse

#existentialphenomeology

#victoriaventurella

#relationshipwithself #communication #transcendence

#futureself #infinitepossibilities

#existentialpsychotherapy

Victoria Venturella, MA, Existential Phenomenological Psychotherapist

© Victoria Venturella, Existential Dialogues, The Existentialist

Even dogs leave us too soon

It doesn’t feel good to feel your heart hurting.

You give yourself to the universe knowing your heart will be broken over and over again. To experience the full breadth of love.

Even dogs leave us too soon.

A life without letting yourself feel fully doesn’t feel any better.

If you proceed into whatever will be without holding back, you may experience something that it is significantly different than the rest.

Where the potency of its knowing, seeing, hearing, being with, enlivens you.

The power of the future not yet.

What if the best experiences of your life are still not yet lived?

It might hit you one day. Out of nowhere.

You are in the living room tying your shoes.

You hear them coming closer, their bare feet across the cherry wood hall.

Dancing in silence, as if your favorite song was on, their scent lingers.

Enamored, in awe, you acknowledge this is the human you built this all with.

People arrive and you have no idea when they will be here.

What are you waiting for?

Go on, lean in.

Why are you saving to feel this later?

You may outlive your dog but what if you never felt that much love?

It is better to have felt the full breadth of love then to protect yourself from feeling heart break?

There will always be tragedy in life. Live your life vibrantly.

Knowing what it feels like to love something this much, mirrors the beauty in living.

How could you experience the fullness of what love has to offer if you only bring a part of you in?

What does going all in look like for you?

What are you afraid of happening if you let yourself love them fully?

How long do we teeter on the edge of something that offers us much more?

If you believe the mystery ahead is special, it will be.

#mindset

#whatyoutellyourselfmatters

#letyourselflovefully

#livividly

© Victoria Venturella, Existential Dialogues, The Existentialist

#liveloudly

#youmustfullyparticipate

#love

#dreambigger

#beseen

#beheard

#feellove

#lovedeeply

#loveyourself

#yourarepowerful

#youarehere

#youexist

#existential

#existentialangst

#existentialdread

#trusttheuniverse

#youchoose

#createyourlife

#compassion

#existentialphenomeology

#victoriaventurella

#relationshipwithself #communication #transcendence

#futureself #infinitepossibilities

#existentialpsychotherapy

Victoria Venturella, MA, Existential Phenomenological Psychotherapist, LMHCA

Separation does not inherently mean permanence.

As you walk along the sidewalk your feet cannot merge with the earth. The leaves in trees will forever blow beside you. As long as you are living the sky will exist above you. My hand against yours will forever be smaller and no matter how hard we press upon each other we will never completely merge. You can spin me out into the floor of life, letting go while still feeling my presence. We dance alone while still dancing together. Magnetically we coalesce cultivating our rhythmic promenade. Spiraling outwards into all the coordinates of this floor and then meeting again in the middle. We languish. We are forever foreign no matter how familiar. We enunciate where we are while we occupy the same space. To move together we must speak each other’s language. As we evolve individually new words will need to be translated to express the full scope of where we now find ourselves. To dance on the same floor, we must remain innovative. We will need to find new moves to grow together.

We choose to dance on the same floor for the rest of our lives within the world of floors. One day one of us will stop dancing. The floor will never reflect absence into our eyes quite like this day. Where the music streams together scenes of our shared moments, you imagine leaning me backwards. We both feel weightless. I am a memory within the permanence of our separation. Forever in your arms, forever separate.

As you whisper silence softly into my ear, embers flutter all around us from the burning fire of adventure we both loudly ruminate on. While we travel, we still dance. Alone I travel at the edge of the world along the tracks of this sacred solitude. I lean my head against this leather seat watching the trees merge from constant motion. Lifting my cheek from the seat I draw my attention inward staring at the empty seat before me. Imagination begins to paint you into where I am. Your eyes smiling at me, you tap my foot with yours. As you look out the window with me, your laughter echoes through my mind, and I am here. Where I am. Becoming aware of the time, I am no longer somewhere else. The mountain side takes the shape of our windows. You are not home. I listen to the bird singing outside, and I accept that what will be, will be. Separation does not inherently mean permanence. Your absence does not sadden me. Even if I sat along the floor weeping in the reflection of your Truest absence, I would still dance once I stood up. Often in your honor. I will not always have something to hold on to, I may be twirling solo infinitely through the center of the floor. I can exist without you, enjoy the world I live in, and still await your presence. Wherever we are, we are. It is possible for two people to be together without belonging to one another. Where they have a sacred relationship that takes on its own form. No one is obligated to stay, to be the others Other. The choice to be together is always on the table.

Cherish the experience you have in world with all things. Even a separation of impermanence could unintentionally be permanent. Life has its way of casting tragedy upon us and giving us new gardens to eat from. In the absence of the Other you may see how much their presence means to you. Even if when they are present you know this, in their absence it becomes clearer.

You are a being-in-the-world. You live in a fundamental separateness from everything that exists beyond you, while you can never separate yourself completely from the world while you are living. No exposure, no disclosure, no nakedness, no corporeal friction will ever dissolve our asymmetrical nature. We will forever live-in relation to The Other.

© Victoria Venturella, Existential Dialogues, The Existentialist

Do not regret what you have done: Existence precedes essence

Every experience you have lived thus far contributes to the human being you are today. If you had the power to change your previously lived experiences, it would change who you have come to be and potentially the trajectory of how you have lived your life. You may not have been driven to study the things you have, your interests may have been different, you may not have found yourself in the specific relationships you have encountered. You may not know your children as they are, maybe you did not have children. Your personality and the way you relate to the world would no longer exist as you currently experience it.

You are born into a world that is not of your choosing. You cannot decide who your parents are, where you grow up geographically, what your name is, how you will be educated, what kinds of interactions you will observe, how you will be punished or treated, if you will be respected, protected, and loved. As a child you cannot choose to forego abuse, neglect, and any other traumatic experiences. These experiences shape how you interact with the world and become the backdrop you unconsciously and consciously pull from when making sense of the present situation across a lifetime. In fact, it is highly likely that you will grow up to believe the way you were treated is how one is to be treated. Until one day your awareness shifts in your cognitive maturation, when you witness opposition in the way others respond to you and world. Holding yourself in contempt for the choices made before and after your cognitive faculties fully develop prevents you from embracing your whole self in its truest form in each present moment. You cannot separate yourself from who you have come to be. You can only move forward.

When we move into adulthood, we become the agent of our lives. Your choices are now only yours to make. These choices are grounded in the understandings of what you have come to know up until this point. It is up to you to utilize the resources within the world to discover what is known beyond you.

Whenever you are making a choice, pay attention to what is present within you. That internal voice is your authentic internal dialogue. Let yourself engage with the back-and-forth movement of thought. When you make choices that align with your moral compass and you choose choices that are authentically sound, you will never regret the life you have chosen to live. If you could stand behind the choices you make completely for where you are in this moment of time when the choices were made, then how could you regret the choices you have made if you honor your present and past self with compassion?

To love yourself completely you must love everything you have been through. Even the things that cause you to feel embarrassed or shameful. You will forever depart from yourself. If you depart from a place of love and compassion you will paint your external landscape in similar hues of wonder.

Author: Victoria Venturella, Existential Phenomenological Psychotherapist

© Victoria Venturella, Existential Dialogues, The Existentialist