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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