What if 'Finding Yourself' is part of the problem?

I've been blog writing for awhile. Not consistently in any one place ~ and the name of my blog site tends to change when I feel the motivation behind my writing changes.

Almost two years ago, I launched a blog called Finding My Self Along the Way. (Right now, it's called Where Sissies Fear to Tread - it's not getting much use at the moment, but it's about to. You can find it here if you'd like to connect with me there too. But I digress.) 

That's been a big deal to me - finding my Self, with a capital S, the essence of Who I Am, What I Have to Gift and How Best I Can Serve. There's a lot of online encouragement to engage in this practice too - quotations flow in abundance, Spiritual and Self-Help Experts open FB pages and Twitter accounts for easier access, workshops, e-books, communities and kindred seekers are all but a mouse click or two away. And while I have found aspects of m Self that had lain dormant for awhile ~ in this quest toward Honesty and this passage to Truth and Purpose, I must also admit that at some point - the practice stopped helping and served instead to hinder.

Gone Gone Gone She's Been Gone So Long I Wonder If I'm Ever Gonna See That Girl .. 

We are fluid beings. We grow, we change, we improve, we regress, we learn, we forget ~ and we keep moving forward into our next best selves, day in and day out. 

There are most definitely time periods in my life when I liked myself better. There are times when I impressed myself more. There are times when I'm disappointed in who I was and there are times when I don't even recognize myself as me, so different am I now from then.

If you embrace the theory that all there is, is NOW, this present moment ~ shaped by the past and preparing for the future, Finding Your Self can be helpful - and also, detrimental. 

I know that deep disconnect from Self is possible. I know that one's own dreams and goals can be veiled behind the dreams and goals of others ~ and that it's possible not to even know this until you've realized or achieved the dream or goal, only to feel much emptier than you'd anticipated. 

I know that if putting your Self into your own Life has never been a daily practice for you, that if you lived to please others, impress others, be recognized by others only to somehow never feel fulfilled by all of that - I know that in cases like this, connecting with Who You Are may be a valuable first step.

I also know that the process of Finding One's Self can become a life-long endeavour in keeping one's self stuck and to be forever lost in the finding, the seeking, the excavating - resulting in a disconnection of potentially greater proportion than the one that initially  started your searching: you become lost in what was, what might be and how to possibly get there from here.

Who do you desire to create your Self to be?

Believe me, I am not judging anyone engaged with inner healing, inner connection and self-identification. Goodness, I've been doing it for quite some time myself. And as someone who often struggled to comfortably answer, "Who am I?" - I feel compelled to share that it became much easier to do when I stopped looking at the word NOWHERE and started seeing instead, NOW HERE.

I am Now Here. In any given moment of any given day - I am Now Here. 

I know more than I did up to this moment, I'm capable of choosing thoughts, words and actions differently than I did up to this moment, and I'm capable of creating a Self that lives up to my potential whenever I choose.

I am Now Here - and I can choose to emulate beautiful qualities I admire in others, qualities that I always discover were within me all along ~ I'd just needed them reflected to me by someone who allowed me to see that it was possible.

I am Now Here - and I can choose to apply focus and attention to priorities that matter to me, or priorities that matter to others, or to activities that can be stretched out to fill an entire day - but really constitute busy work that allows me to procrastinate on what I know, in my heart, really deserves and requires my attention.

I am Now Here - and I can see People Pleasing as a disease that's rendering me ineffective - or I can put it into a healthier context and implement it in a more responsible way in the recognition that serving others IS a meaningful expression of who we all are at heart; Self-ish vs Self-less.

My point is this ...

It is critical to have personal boundaries - and sometimes, Life calls for those boundaries to be elastic. Self-healing is important - if the inner well depletes, you truly do have nothing of value to give. Self-absorption is non-productive. We learn most about our Selves in relationship with others. Through others, we learn what we determine to be acceptable and not acceptable. We learn what feels comfortable and what feels uncomfortable. With exploration and willingness to try new things ~ we hone in on what makes our hearts sing and what shuts us down completely. Through others, we more easily determine Who We Are Not, Who We Are Now and Who We Desire To Create Ourselves To Be.

And know this, the information you are gathering and collecting is time sensitive and best used sooner than later. Because tomorrow, or next week, or 6 months from now ~ Who You Are Now may be firmly allocated to Who You Were Back Then. 

The common denominator in all this, is YOU. 

Whatever you're thinking, whatever you're saying, whatever you're doing, whatever you're dreaming - THAT is Who You Are, Here Now. And if any of that displeases you - then you have the responsibility to your Self to identify what you will now do to create your Self as you better desire to be. 

A perspective shift that may help all of us who are in the process of moving through, under, over or past something on the way from one place to another is this: we are not Seekers or Finders so much as we are Beautiful Creators. 

What inspires us? What do we hold as important in our hearts? Who have we seen thinking or speaking or behaving in a way that caused Admiration to rise within us? And how do we go about bringing the 'all of that' into our every day realities in a way that allows US to serve as breathing inspirations to others?

At the very least, it's worth a try.

Finding my way back to Humility ...

I find myself withdrawing from Life a lot. I have the capacity to engage, to focus with intent, to honour with purpose and to connect in community; but lately, I have lacked a desire to do so.

I spoke about this with an online friend of mine last week. (Her name is Annie - she shares her thoughts, opinions and feelings about life in general here ~ and her honesty and word mastery is enviable.) Part of the conversation focused on the grumpiness we were feeling about trends we're seeing in Social Media. Most of the 'grump' was mine ~ but Annie could certainly relate to what I was saying and has, at times, felt the same.

At root, for me, is a stream of Self Absorption that runs through just about everything. Apathy, too, gloops about in abundance - an inability or unwillingness to critically think, to focus, to engage and to contribute with significance in meaningful ways.

I did acknowledge that this could all be the hormones speaking. One of the Gifts of Menopause, I think, is the increasing inability to tolerate stupidity, insignificance, egocentric drivel and lazy effort. At least, that's been my gift -- though not knowing exactly what to DO with this gift, it still feels much like a curse. Life was easier when Accepting came so easily to me.

At the end of the day though ~ I am judging what I see taking place all around me and not really doing too much to change things. Where would I even begin? 

I did joke about launching a Wake Up Revolution ~ but from my experience with many in my off-line life - there's a happiness with the way things are and the way things appear to be going and the consensus seems to be that 'I think too much' and 'need to lighten up' because 'I take things way too seriously.'

It's lonely though. The sense of isolation, the desire to see things differently, the need to respond to Life in new ways, the yearning to infuse purpose into most everything I do and to respect my Self for the personal responsibility I bring to each interaction, circumstance and event in my life ~ all of that, and the feeling that I'm doing that alone, is hard.

So, here's what I think I'll do, for now ...

I'm going to find my way back to places that honour me, feelings I'd like to experience, values and qualities I hold as sacred. I will open my heart to the possibility that maybe everything I believe to be true about things that really matter to me - maybe there's the possibility that my thinking is flawed, my beliefs are founded on something other than truth - and I'm willingly and actively exploring this possibility with an open mind and a desire to re-assess, recalibrate and make informed choices as a result of what I learn.

I'm embracing What If? What if I'm not alone in feeling lost and adrift at times where transition is desirable.? What if I'm not the only one who wishes that there was less lip service to working towards what really matters and more action to get us there? What if others would like to see a shift in the way we currently live our lives - and perhaps share a desire to actively engage in that shift, and maybe we'll even connect and synergize and be the change we'd each like to see and experience? 

What if?

This week, I'm beginning with Humility.

"Humility ... gives us a connection with everything older than we are and so, provides us with a calming perspective outside of our daily worries, and often beyond our understanding.

... How we all climb through the trials of our outer life to the precipice of humility and indwell there on the edge of mystery. How we climb through our suffering to a place where we can carve out a tiny home from which to dizzy ourselves with the knowledge that we are small and the Universe is big.  

... There, on the inner cliffs where humbled creatures meet to see what can't be seen and know what can't be known, we spread our arms like hawks to taste the ancient air. We spread our minds like trees rooted on the edge to accept the end of knowledge arriving like sun, not to instruct us but to warm us and help us grow." (p. 266, The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo) 

It is important for me to be Humble. Gratitude flows more easily. Miracles begin reappearing all around me. Wonder and reverence is experienced in the most ordinary of moments. This is a good starting place for me. Somewhere I feel a real interest in showing up. 

If this is a passage you're undertaking right now - at any stage or in any way, shape or form ~ let me know. It would be nice to have friends to check in with from time to time.