Is your life playing out how you want it to be? Is this where you wanted to be in your life right now? Are you the same person when you greet one person as you are with another? Is there a hidden part of yourself that you are afraid to expose to some people?
These are important questions, as we come to examine the story of our lives. In my own life, I feel like I am making progress toward answering all these questions with a resounding “YES!” But I am not there yet. I feel as if I am moving in the right direction of my life. I am a successful business woman. My business involves bringing wellness into other women’s lives. I feel like I am doing that. And the result, for me, is that I am acquainted with some of the coolest women ever – women who are on a journey toward better health and wellness. Talk about good vibes in the work place! And yet, I know there is more than can be done. I can be reaching more people and encouraging their wellness. That is why I have dedicated myself to these blogs. I know that this venue opens up more wellness opportunities for people, as they reflect on their own life journey and are encouraged to take that next step.
I never expected to be at this point in my life, but I always dreamed it. Many years ago, I told my husband that I saw myself offering classes in our home for women. I freaked him out, big time! Since I didn’t have a clear vision, but just a “knowing,” I couldn’t define what this might be. Today, as we open our home to classes 6-7 times a week, he is comfortable with my business because it has perimeters and definition.
The one aspect that I continue to reflect on, in my life, is the question of whether I am the same person to one person as I am to another. In other words, am I my TRUE self ALWAYS. To be honest, I am still in this process of discovering my true self. For me, my discovery needs to journey back into my past, when I stepped off the path of who I AM. I know that was in my early teens. Going back to that time, I am confronted with some old hurts and pains. Not the kind inflicted on us from others, but the kind of pains from when we made choices that take us off our path. And once we greet those old pains, we have to figure out the new path or choice and offer forgiveness to ourselves for journeying away from our true self. there are no regrets, as each experience we have is a part of our journey on Earth. But it can be painful, just the same.
So if I am confusing you, let me offer an example of confronting old pains and changing their course to be true to oneself. In my early life, I had some wonderful experiences that made me feel connected with the Divine. I felt “special,” because of these experiences. But I was not encouraged by others to use these gifts. In fact, I was discouraged. I was told I had an active imagination, and that I needed to grow out of it. So by the time I was in my mid teens, I had pretty much abandoned that aspect of my true self. and I felt not so comfortable in my own skin. Then in my late teens, I discovered pot, and I LOVED pot, because it helped my lose those inhibitions placed on me, and I was connecting to my true self once again. Anyone who has smoked pot understands what I am saying here. Let’s simply say, I entered that place of deep thoughts and was open to all the energies of the Universe. I felt like my true self, but of course, it was drug-induced and artificial. So as I veered away from pot in my early twenties, I went further away from my true self, being involved in my career and my marriage. It was only with the birth of my children, that I awakened that self in me that I had buried so long before that. My kids are now 22 and 21, so this has been a long awakening!
But along this journey toward rediscovering my true self, I had to confront the times in my life that I veered away from my path. I had to confront the people who, with love for me, I know, maybe encouraged me to be something else, someone that appealed to THEIR self. And in that discovery, there is pain. But I have since learned that we cannot place blame anywhere or on anyone. I cannot say, “YOU changed me.” I changed myself. And so I have had to learn to change myself back without upsetting the people I love. And that is an interesting dance in itself, taking two steps forward and one step back. But always moving forward. By exposing little bits of my hidden self to my loved ones, I let them get used to these changed aspects of myself. I also discovered that, like a dance, as I moved in one direction, they followed my lead, changing a little bit too. These little adjustments makes the dance much easier.
And so the dance continues, as we all continue discovering our true self. We make progress toward this end. Two steps forward, one step back, but always going forward.