A New Thought For Me
I read this a while ago for the first time and since it wasn't ready for, I just simply passed over it with nothing more than a "oh I see, that makes sense" but it never soaked in.This week, life is so calm and easy that when I read it again, it was an "AHHH HAAAA" moment. A "Light Bulb Moment" as Oprah calls them.
I have for the past 5 years or so, been working hard on defining who I am. Once the nest is empty, you kind of feel the need to find a new label for yourself, since my "stay at home mother" title no longer applied in the purest sense. Yes, yes, I know I will always be a mother and I stay at home, but lets face it, my daily duties are not the same as they were 10 years ago when I was in the thick of it.
And no longer dressing plain has left me feeling a bit undefined too.This is what I read and it has given me the most profound sense of freedom...
"Just be yourself" is good advice, but it can also be misleading. The mind will come in and say, "Let's see. How can I be myself ?" Then, the mind will develop some kind of help strategy: " How to be myself." Another role. "How can I be myself?" is, in fact the wrong question. It implies you have to do something to be yourself. But how doesn't apply here because you are yourself already. Just stop adding unnecessary baggage to who you already are. "But, I don't know who I am. I don't know what it means to be myself." If you can be absolutely comfortable with not knowing who you are, then what's left is who you are - the being behind the human, a field of pure potentiality rather than something that is already defined. "
and further on I read....
"Give up defining yourself--to you or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so its their problem. "
~Tolle, A New Earth ~
Comments
~Salina
In pondering your remarks, I've come up with some analogies to share. A gift for making music has been apparent in my family for as far back as my cousins and I have been able to research. It is a particular, though not rare gift, that of being able to sing harmony, play by ear in most any key, transpose music by ear--all without working at it--a number of us in any given generation can do it, in addition to whatever formal music training we've had. We did nothing of ourselves to "be" musical--it came with the package and is a huge part of "who we are."
So often we are defined, at least in the view of others, by what we DO [although that particular occupation may not take up whole stretches of our lives or even be what we are most suited to do.] My husband farmed for a number of years, he drove trucks for more years, and he did both with skill and interest in what he was doing. What he always wanted to do was build houses and that is what he does now. It was a surprise to learn that many of the men in his father's line listed themselves in the census of the 1800's as "house carpenters."
For years most people raisied gardens of necessity--it was how a large part of a family's food was provided. To raise that produce one has to become a bit knowledgable about planting seasons, plant varieties, the mechanics of transplanting, weeding and harvesting. But the true "gardener" is the one who developes a passion for what he or she is doing. This is the person who hovers over a seeded flat waiting for that first frail stem of green to emerge. This is the person who endures cold, dirt-caked hands and aching knees to weed the perennial border in earliest spring or treks to the garden soon after summer daylight to see what has emerged or bloomed since the day before.
All of the roles which we take on, voluntarily, of necessity, temporarily or long term, have something to do with the multi-layered person that we become. Some of these roles surely have a stronger effect than others.
And we dress, deliberately I think, for some of those roles. I have remembered with some amusement the day that an older gentleman realized that the woman who was handing him a bill for the replacement of his car's windshield [and my hands were stained black with gobs of urethane sealer] was indeed the classically well-dressed and groomed "lady" who played the piano for services in his church on alternate Sundays.
Both roles were part of what I was doing in my life 20 years ago, but the one of church musician was the one that was a deep part of who I am.
I wish that we could be free from this anguish of needing to define ourselves. So often it is about the perceived need to define and defend ourselves to those around us. Caring about the personna that we project is one thing; a feeling that we "belong" somewhere is a part of most human natures. Allowing ourselves to be crippled by the attempts to "fit in" leaves us unsure and exhausted.
We are all comlex, contradictory, endearing and exasperating by turns. I wish we could encourage a climate that supports us [and others] when we are at our best and also offers gentle sustenance when we are faltering and going through the times of self-doubt.
Margaretha
kindest, Rachael