Picture: I don’t know where this sculpture is or the artist but I saw it on another post and loved it. I experience it as a loving representation of what I believe humanity wants. Holding and supporting each other as we navigate our differences
I guess the ending of the year offers each of us an opportunity to reflect on what has transpired over the past days, weeks and months? I am no longer sure about many things in my life. That is my realization as I live into this last day of this year.
I used to think I knew things. Things about the life I was living. About my beliefs and values around the choices I made. However, what these 33 months or almost 3 years of confusion and constant fear mongering have taught me is that all I thought I knew is no longer known. I guess what I am really discovering is that nothing is ever really known the way we think we “know” something. That’s my interpretation of these last years, and I guess in some ways that awareness is quite profound!
To explore this a bit further…I’ve lived a long time and thought I was pretty much set in knowing who I was and how I lived especially around my principles, ethics, moral standards. WOW! was I in for a shock since 2020 and it ultimately rocked my world on all levels. What happened for me is a total breakdown and a continuous rewiring of all my systems. Now that might sound dramatic and believe me .. at times it sucks. However, through all of the discomfort and eye opening moments that have occurred I am in total awe and joy around what has happened in my world. Have you felt anything similar since March 2020?
At times I am still in some confusion and disbelief around the chaos lived but in the bigger picture there is so much abundance and clarity that goes beyond anything that I could have ever dreamed of.
I have pretty much always considered myself a willful, headstrong person and somewhat of a deliberate thinker. And these years have stretched me to my limit of thinking and acting from a place that required me to continually advocate for my deep moral compass which has been forged from many years of internal emotional work.
I truly don’t think that I could have come out of this time in my life completely intact if it wasn’t for the years of introspection that I have lived and explored. I am not sure how anyone has made it through this time in our history if they haven’t explored their own internal landscape, which brings me to another part of this post.
Free Will… I have always lived from a place of knowing who I was even if I was being headstrong and obstinate in my decisions. Why is that? Because I followed my instincts, my gut, my internal KNOWING of what was right or wrong for me. At times that behavior has ostracized me from family, friends, employers and social experiences but I always chose MYSELF. I know that behavior was created from a childhood that lacked emotional connection and led me to become quite self reliant which like everything in life can lead to good and bad outcomes.
So when all of what we are living went down and I chose me, meaning my Free Will over being coerced or violated I was ostracized and in some ways still am by those that decided something other than what I chose. I am once again being a bit cryptic and I watch myself do this because I notice that I don’t want to come right out and say certain things about my observations on the current world situation. I may at some point share my deeper thoughts but for now being a bit abstruse is what I am choosing to do.
A bigger part of me really doesn’t care what others have chosen but I think because of the exclusion I have experienced I am rethinking so many areas of my life. Free Will continues to be the path I will follow. And I truly believe we can only choose being free from outside “persuasions” by staying strong and committed to our own internal processing. You see the individuality of each of us has to take priority and remain in tact at all times. No one knows what’s best for another. NO ONE!
If you want to disparage me or someone like myself then maybe I can invite you to rethink who I am to you or what rises inside of you when you want to lash out and ridicule me or others like me and make us wrong for the choices we have made for our individual lives. I know that this is where the healing lies! It is in each individual taking full responsibility for themselves without making others wrong for their choices. Can you do that? Can you look within and see what is bothering you about me or anyone that has chosen a different path than you? Can you go beyond limited thinking and poke around inside of yourself to uncover your own biases, prejudices and judgements around what might not be your choice? For me this is what I have been excavating and processing since this all began. I too, at times, have limited access to compassion, understanding and acceptance for those that have made different life decisions in these years. And I allow myself to continue going into that judgement that I carry inside of me. I want to understand myself. I want to make room for all those who are living in a way that is different from me. I want to remember how I felt about humanity before 2020 and at times I can’t find that in my heart. I want to but it seems to be fleeting and illusive. My work is to continue exploring and allowing for these deep feelings to percolate within. I am confident that I will eventually find some resolve.
I don’t consider myself a religious woman but there is a bible quote that has always interested me and as in everything there are many interpretations of this…
“My cup runneth over….” for me this means I am filled to the brim and therefore I now have more than I need so I am free to share it as I wish.
So maybe in this New Year we can all share our love by loving and accepting ourselves first (filling our own cups) and then looking out from the contracted place of right and wrong and understand that we are all in this together! No matter what you chose to do we are all human beings.
I see this as the profundity of living a life of introspection and allowing for my judgments, hurts, bias and all other human emotions to rise and allow for the exploration of them with an open mind and heart so I can move through them and not let them mar how I choose to move collectively in these coming years.
It’s not about putting all of this behind us. It is about dealing with what’s in front of us as it rises. It is there to be revealed so we can take on the responsibility of healing ourselves first. Then we can figure out a way to live in this world where each one of us claims our Free Will and not make anyone a scapegoat for the insecurities and intolerances that live inside each of us.
