Good Morning, Fellow Travellers,
If you aren’t on your own side, tell me who’s going to be? It’s not simply okay to be on your own side; it’s your JOB to be on your own side.
It’s a responsibility to shape our Lives, each of us, into Lives that are meaningful to us. That’s not one-size-fits-all. It may be trial and error. It’s probably going to change from one phase of Life to another. And, it’s going to be messy! That’s all natural. It’s how we know more about ourselves.
When we do the job of living our own Lives, others may not understand, but it seems to be human nature to want the important ones in our world to understand — to GET us, please. For years, I wore myself out trying to explain where I was in my journey, why I was there, where I wanted to be, until I finally realized “they” were still looking at me with puzzled faces and nothing had changed. Absolutely nothing. All of my well-thought-out chatter was futile and took energy I could use actually Living, thank you very much. Finally I stopped. Insert big sigh of relief here!
When we begin living our Lives, others may not like it. They may call us wasteful, frivolous, and oooooh, worst of all, SELFISH! The dirtiest word of all! That one word has the power to shut many of us down and keep us in line. There was no thought that what they called selfish was more about self-knowing, self-actualizing, self-moving beyond the visible to what could be.
We get this Life and then, because of these shaming messages, we deny ourselves the very living of it.
Some (many, actually) of us were given jobs as children to be sure everybody else was okay. When we pay attention to our own lives and let them be in their own lives, they no longer know what to expect of us.
The powers around us taught us to always to attend to others, and that would make us happy and keep us safe. They never asked us what made us happy, so how could we learn to ask ourselves? If we did ask, we were shamed for it.
Result: many of us have no clue what makes us not only okay, but we have no clue that we are truly wonderful and can risk failure and success and thrive emotionally in the midst of questions.
And that is not shameful. It’s called going after one’s own Life!
What wonderful, wasteful, frivolous, “self-moving beyond” gift will you give yourself today?
Travel lightly,
Jaylene
jaylenewhitehurst.wordpress.com 