Transformation

 

I recently read through journals I wrote almost 40 years ago when I was in my early 20’s.  What struck me was how much I am still am me.  There is a “me-ness” about me which is woven into the fabric of my being and that hasn’t changed in all these years.  The 57 year old was inside of the 20 year old just as the 20 year old is inside the 57 year old.  I am like the acorn that held the dream of an oak tree deep inside her hard shell and the grand rising oak holding the memory of the seed. While the day-to-day worries are different, they still have a feeling about them that is the same.  Joy still fills up my heart, dread weighs in the stomach, shame darkens the solar plexus.  But while I am the same, I like the acorn, have also been transformed.  What has changed is my capacity to hold feelings in the container of my being, to abide with my innermost parts.  And this is the source of my growth.

 

When I was younger, I believed that once I got things right with my work, with relationships, with my body, I wouldn’t have to feel so much fear, anxiety, or loneliness. But things never did turn out “right” enough to take these feelings away.  And even when things did turn out as planned, the hard feelings would still pull me down.  What has taken many years to understand and embody is that the darkness cannot be banished from a life.  Darkness and the lightness each hold a part of our aliveness.   What is transformative is when we can learn to love the dark parts that are afraid, ashamed, and unworthy.  We come into friendship and hospitality with the discarded parts of ourselves and in this process tap into the wellspring for a creative and purposeful life.  We are not so afraid of being afraid, of failing, of getting our hearts broken, of not getting things right.  Little by little, by integrating and loving my shadow parts by acknowledging they are mine and  mine alone to care for I am able to live with more freedom and into the truth of what I have come here for.