How
many of you identify yourself through a role you play? (whether as someone’s
parent or through your job/career). There is a small but important
distinction between quantifying what you do for a living and what you feel your
identity is. For example, as a mother, I see many of my peers who find
themselves without their moorings once their children graduate high school.
Their entire life and center has been defined as being adjacent and supportive
of someone else. I love my daughters more than I can say, but you can be a
supportive parent without subsuming/conflating your worth into the whole of
another’s existence.
There
are others who may be graduating from college soon with a degree for a
discipline of study that they hate. Perhaps the family pinned their hopes on
having someone in the family with a law degree and you may have yearned to
pursue botany? Yet here you will sit with a freshly minted piece of parchment
(and the debt that goes with it), ready to start your life, living for someone
else.
“Until
you learn to name your ghosts and to baptize your hopes, you have not yet been
born, you are still the creation of others.” ~ Marie Cardinal
Starting
off your life’s journey saddled with thousands of dollars of debt, staring down
endless years of professional torture, seen in black and white terms, is not
something most people would choose willingly, and yet when we live our lives,
it’s more difficult to recognize in practice. Our roles are established early,
whether through birth order, our resemblance to a relative, our parents’
marriage or lack of a spouse… The list is literally endless and there are
also limitless variations of models into which an individual may find him or
herself.
That
being said, we must do the heavy lifting to divest ourselves of others’
expectations and assumptions of us if we are to become an authentic person.
This is really difficult to do and usually painful at first. Honestly, I can’t
tell you how or where it starts. I was asked that question directly in a
meeting earlier this week and I had to admit ignorance of myself.
In
terms of self-awareness, I can’t tell you what comes first (using the
chicken/egg analogy), awareness of self or the knowledge that there’s a “better
way.” The best advice I can give to you is that if you are feeling anything
other than excitement and joy about your life or future, pause and ask
yourself, “What do I want?” and “Why am I unhappy?”
Ask
yourself while driving down the road; while mowing the lawn; doing the dishes;
riding on the subway. Then listen for the answer(s). Once you have an inkling
that you want something different, now you are ready to throw your life into a
season of chaos.
The
good news? It’s worth it.
“The
creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play
instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects
it loves.” ~ Carl Jung
Jung’s
quote, for me, means that we don’t think our way out of pain, we play our
way out of pain. Secondly, and most important, WE are
the object we love. In order to change our lives for the better, we must
believe that we deserve it. We must understand that living a complete and
vibrant life is a necessity. So many of us postpone fulfillment of our
potential or dreams because we think that it’s a luxury, or it’s something that
we can concentrate on after
1.
The kids graduate
2.
We get a better job
3.
A spouse. …. blah, blah, blah.
It’s
not.
By
‘play,’ I understand that to mean that we make of our challenges a game. What
ifs and experiments are how we learn. It’s how we learned as children. How many
of us looked at a bicycle and drew out the angles of declination, the formula
for velocity, mass and inertia before hopping on the banana seat and tearing
off around the corner? Maybe one. Possibly two of you. More than likely,
none. You got hopped up on sugar, slung your leg over the bar and started
pedaling, crashing along the way and ripping the knees out of a few pair of
jeans. Same difference here.
“To
destroy is always the first step in any creation.” ~ e.e. cummings
This
is the chaos part. Take a big, deep breath and pick a figurative cement piling
in the foundation of your life. Then pick up a sledgehammer and start swinging.
What goes first? Is it a habit? Is it a job? Is it the people you choose to
surround yourself with? Trust your gut and go with the one you know you can
commit to and complete. This act will begin the metamorphosis that will result
in the evolution of you as an authentic, vibrant being. By the way, you’re
never done. You are now, in the words of filmmaker Melissa Pierce, in a state of perpetual
beta.
Acceptance
of this fact will paradoxically allow you to relax and really enjoy your life –
even the scary parts.
“Imagination
is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you
imagine and at last you create what you will.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
While
you’re hip deep in life rubble, take time to mentally draft the blueprint of
what you desire for yourself. Through your imagination, you are the architect
of your life. Within this framework, you can plug yourself in to various
scenarios: Self as pilot; Self as chef; Self as physicist. We’ve talked in previous
blogposts about the usefulness of journals to distill what you love. Other
posts have talked about the way our hobbies or natural skills can offer clues
as to where our heart lies.
For
me, the litmus test was always the concept of time. If I could immerse myself
in a task and lose track of time (or the need to eat), that was a big neon sign
to myself saying, “This is Who you are.”
It’s
very simple, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy.“Life
isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~ George
Bernard Shaw
For
what it’s worth, although I truly believe that once you clue in to the fact
that you are an evolving being, you will never be “done,” I can also say that
(based on my own experiences) “segue portions” of my life occur in two year
increments. There’s only so much “stretching” our souls can process within the
carbon based restrictions we’re working with on this plane. The soul is
infinite; however, the construct into which it is placed has a lot of variables
(ie. other people, your own ability to process, the price of tea in China).
That’s why we get a lifetime to practice.
When
was a time that you felt your life change? Why? How did it turn out?
Share this
EmoticonEmoticon