Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Journey of Discovery

Becoming You

A life truly lived constantly burns away veils of illusion, burns away what is no longer relevant, gradually reveals our essence, until, at last, we are strong enough to stand in our naked truth.”
Marion Woodman

I wonder about you—what are your veils of illusion? What stage of life are you passing through? Are you striving for something? Are you driven to accomplish something grand? Does it seem that your life is heading in the right direction; and how do you determine what is right? It seems to me that we spend a great deal of our precious life leaning toward some illusion of what is supposed to be, and in the process, we lose days, and months, and years of what is.

In our culture, which is America for me, one of the veils of illusion is that we should be successful and established in a meaningful career by the time we are thirty. We should have a mate, our own home, two intelligent children, and unbounded energy every single day. We should be attractive, never lose our looks, and have a quick and witty response in every conversation. We should be actively engaged in our communities and have thousands of friends on Face Book. And, God forbid, that we should ever be a Debbie Downer—if we don't feel happy, we should just stay home and not contaminate others with our gloom. We're afraid of making mistakes that would put us out of the mainstream; that would cause other “normals” to reject us. In other words, we fear being real. We live up to the expectations dictated by the dominant culture, so that we will “fit in.”

Thankfully, if we do our personal work, we peel away those layers of “supposed to be” to reveal “what is.” Even more delightful, we discover that what is is all right—what is is even pretty good. At some point, if we open our eyes and confront our truth, we move away from the exceedingly unreal demands of the cultural norms, and move in a direction that feels right to us. We discover, and then climb into our own skin, and find that it fits us perfectly. We can be who we are, and meet other people who are who they are. We discover that being who we are feels substantial; it feels strong, and unafraid. We can stand in our naked truth like the whole human being we truly are. Such an amazing journey!

                                                         In the Spirit,
                                                             Jane



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