The One You See In The Mirror

It all started a couple of years ago when my children, one after the other, experienced and witnessed bullying in school. I couldn’t fathom that at such a young age a child would voluntarily hurt another. Was it out of spite, out of anger, or out of jealousy? I knew it happened. We hear about it all the time. Emotionally, my heart couldn’t grasp it. So, I started this quest of trying to find ways to make a difference, as small as they might be. I knew I had to do something to fix this. Little did I know that I had to ” fix ” myself first…

It started as a quest to raise awareness around kindness and I could foresee myself working with children. This quest spiraled into questioning everything about myself and the world around me. I’ve been writing almost every day for the past two years, unraveling, discovering things about myself. The more I dig, the more I unbury parts of myself that I thought resolved. Many are memories and pain I had buried deep within. It’s been scary and liberating all in one. I have good days and bad days. I recognize the memory and the pain, I face it by processing it, and then, I release it. Little did I know all the pain I had buried. Little did I know, this transformation of my initial quest would be of simply starting with myself. That’s when Start with kindness was born. That was my answer to my question – starting within.

I believe there is much unhappiness in the world. Lots of confusion. Lots of expectations. And much control. The word freedom comes up. We all crave it. We all need it. When our freedom of self is limited by others, we erase parts of ourselves. Little by little, the erasing becomes a habit. We then become foreign to ourselves. We become a version of ourselves to suit other people’s expectations and become strangers to our own souls. We are then lost. I was lost without knowing it.

The essence of my soul has always been. The power and the ownership of my essence were lacking, if not absent. I was shaped by the outside world without regard to what fit. It’s like going to a store to purchase a jacket and there is only one size. The one size fits all method. One way. Take it or leave it. No choice to make.  We are born beautifully unique. Sadly, from day one we are told which belief system to adopt, what to eat, how to act, what to wear, which God to believe in, what is good, what is bad, which adults to trust, who to be afraid of, which gender to love and so forth, and without question we follow the lead. We look up to our elders. We trust them. No questions asked. We are molded into someone we were not meant to be. We are created by the outside world’s beliefs, control, and expectations instead of from within. Our core, the whispers of our heart, our soul, all are told to be ” other “. Our flame is weak. We become lost souls.

To satisfy expectations coming from outside of ourselves we deny our emotions, our dreams, our most authentic self. We do this to fit in the mold that was handed to us by our parents and by society. We aren’t even conscious of this. It just is. Everything we do is to fill in certain expectations. This way of being will offer us nothing but deception because we are not being our true selves. Some day, something will give. Unauthenticity will be reflected in our unauthentic self. The mirror effect never failed me. I’ve seen the person staring back at me. I recognized her but it was like watching a movie, it was distant. The one I was supposed to be in society was a stranger to me. The one everyone would love, accept, and keep in their circle with the condition that I behave. For as long as I fit in the mold.

I woke up one day and realized I was walking beside my life. I was looking in from the outside. Always feeling I didn’t belong. Little did I know. How could I belong in the outside world if I didn’t’ even belong to my true self? I woke up dissatisfied with life. It didn’t’ happen overnight. No one knew. Not even I. It crept up on me in very sinuous places, making me feel sad and out of place. I was not prepared. I did not plan this fall. I did not want this fall. I ran away from this fall for years. I felt it coming for years but I chose to ignore the signs. Eventually, it caught up with me. I still am stunned that I wasn’t faster than the beast, but so very grateful I wasn’t.

I realized that I spent most of my life with a mask on. I was someone else for so long I didn’t know how to be me.

My journey back is lonely. I say ” journey back “, but it’s not really that. It’s more unveiling who I am at the core. The one I needed to protect to survive. I’ve always been in there. I hid her, tucked away from everyone, including myself, for a long time. I am tempted to write ” for too long “, but I know everything happens in due time. I wasn’t ready before. It nudged at me only a couple of years ago. It came up when I was open to receive and strong enough to work through the puzzle. It was, and it is the right time.

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” ~ C.G. Jung

Some days are filled with joy and others are filled with much emptiness. It’s kind of an emptiness caused by my long search within. I feel that I’ve lost so much time that fear creeps up on me telling me that I will be incapable of finding the answers. I find myself in a happy place but yet, I know darkness is just around the corner. I’m working on the shadows and things are getting much better. I get scared at times. Terrified really. As much as I’ve always had the belief that I would make it through, as much as I know that I am not alone in this world and that there is this force watching over me, I still get terribly scared that my hope will dupe me someday. That my good fortune will run out. It passes in a flash and then I stand up again. I give myself permission de believe once more. Sometimes the flash that lasts a couple of seconds seems to linger in time causing my whole body to cry. I then feel the scar it leaves behind. In another life, I would tuck that scar away, for it not to be felt – ever. Not anymore. I tend to my scars now, one after the other. I want no clutter in my life. I feel peaceful this way. I feel free. As much as scars leave a trace, dark at times, they often leave a pretty one. I call it experience, a beautiful fleeting moment that enriches my soul. Despite the pain, it gives me lessons for what is to follow. Nothing is in vain. With each step, we learn. We learn from other people’s actions. We learn mostly from our own. We learn to protect our sacred circle. I’m learning to trust my intuition and letting in my circle the people that are worthy to possess the key.  I now permit myself to kick some people out (I smile at this one). I had this bad habit of letting people that hurt me stay in my circle. Giving chances. I was, and sometimes still am, so forgiving. I feel no grudge – ever. I’m wired as such. However, I don’t want to let anyone darken my circle. It’s so bright in there, so full of love and I am so grateful for the people in it that I need to protect it. It’s respecting me and, mostly, respecting the people that grace my circle with their presence.