Consider the concept of ‘change’. Change can be evolutionary – a slow process which happens over time – something which happens from outside of me and which I must learn to accommodate. Yet that doesn’t feel like what happens for me now. I’m not waiting for change to happen anymore. Change is, for me now, my own internally referenced process.
It’s like the difference between ‘want’ and ‘choose’. One is wishful and waiting for some outside entity to sprinkle fairy dust on me and then, poof, I’ll be changed, I’ll get what I want, I’ll accomplish something meaningful to me. The other is my conscious and aware and awake action to decide my direction and then make the choices I need to make it happen. While there have been times when I’ve wished that I could slow down the process and just rest on my laurels for a bit, I know that I cannot and would not stop this feeling which started for me only 4 years ago. What wasted energy to even try. And I know that I’m enjoying the more that is revealed to me each day and with each choice I make for me which is true to the I AM that I know I AM. I know that I am continually going through metamorphoses. I have absolutely no doubt that everything will unfold elegantly and as it is meant to.
Einstein wrote that we cannot change unless we change the rules we choose to live by. That encapsulates what I feel about my transformation succinctly. I know that how I’m choosing to live each day has moved from waiting for permission to giving mySelf permission, from trying to play according to everyone else’s rules to playing according to my own.
The only game that I’m willing to feed is the one I create. In that, I AM the master of my fate, the captain of my ship, the creator of my reality. I know that I AM the creator of my life and as I own all that I AM, I take hold of mindful and meaningful creation. Now I name it, claim it, own it and create it. And if that doesn’t map to anyone else’s reality, so be it. Not my game, not my concern.
What Louise LeBrun wrote sums up everything I’m feeling in this moment: “I simply am awake, aware and ready to own the truth of my experience, wherever that may lead me. For me, that will determine the path I carve out for myself.”
And as I’ve finished writing this, I know that I’m missing my mother. There was a time when my mother and I were so at odds that everything in me finally came out. The trigger? She had given something of mine to one of my sisters without first asking me if that was okay. And I blew and pinned her to the couch with my words. I let her know, finally, what growing up in my family had been like for me. And over 30 years of pent up rage came out all at once. I still remember her words to me once I was through – “My god, did we do that to you?” And, in that moment, we were both changed – we were both free to say what we needed to say and to laugh and enjoy each other without the expected constraints of the mother/daughter relationship. She stayed and listened and I had the courage to finally speak my truth. And I’m glad that that happened for us. For me, she became Jean first and then my mother and I became Jean first and then her daughter.
And I miss her and know that she would be so happy for me and would enjoy my evolution. I know that she’d get such a kick out of it all.
I love that. I never thought there was much difference between how girls and boys are treated nowadays, especially as adults, until I was one. And, then, oh! how I learned that everything preached in grade school is not quite so. I think every strong woman makes small reotiuolvns every day, but we all wish for the opportunity to stand up and let our opinions known in big ways, too. I’m glad sometimes we earn that chance.