“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”
For the most part, I've been a rather successful human being. I was brought up in a family whose strength was integrity. My grandmother was one of the most amazing people I have ever known, always filling me with a sense that magic was a living thing. I've managed to have a career filled with so many rich rewards, they could never be captured in just a few lines. My two dearest treasures, my children, have had a profound influence upon the direction of my life. They bring with them, their loving and wise partners, each so full of grace and humor, I am often left speechless. Of course, my friends over a lifetime, have opened my heart to the sublime frequently enough that I expect nothing less in my encounters with others. Yes, my beauty and my weakness is that I am naive.
We each have a very well developed platform for approaching life. Ours' is a mixture of Certainty, Uncertainty, Significance, Connection, Growth, and Contribution. Saddled up along side this platform are a series of recipe cards that help us achieve our goals. My recipe card, titled My Will Be Damned, has been in place for about two years. It stops me dead in my tracks, while opening my heart to new friends, new love, and new perspectives.
The first five months of living in the Yucatan, my platform reconfigured the percentages of the cocktail. Stressed in an unfamiliar setting, without adequate knowledge of Spanish, and no Connections, I was mostly out of balance. I felt it physically, as my shoulders would either be hunched or pushed up around my ears. Nothing was Certain, and everything was Uncertain. I can't tell you how many times I considered packing up my car and heading back to Texas. Without a job, a garden, and a studio, I questioned my own Significance and my ability to Contribute. Uncertain of how my new community functioned, I didn't know who I could trust, nor what I might do to create a stronger presence in my new country. Tethered to Texas and to Mexico, I was in survival mode. No Growth was truly possible.
When some seriously bizarre and disturbing incidents took place, I turned the question, "Why the hell did I move here," into "What can I learn here?" The first thing I realized is that I had brought the disturbance to myself. I already knew everything I needed to know about a particular person, and I just opened the door anyway. I allowed myself to sit with gossips, to not take a stand against the bullying, and it brought the backdoor within inches of my own behind. Me, remember? I'm the person who has been teaching others how to disarm bullying!
While I was doing many things out of character, I was also doing many more that saved me from myself. I had to make my business public, that is, I had to gossip about myself to get my situation corrected. I had to take responsibility, suck it up, and ask for help. Where I would have designated time to cry at the end of a hard day back in Texas, never taking full advantage of solitude, I now just cry. Anything can prompt a tear - a new friend wearing my cousins' face, or when I realized that I loved my rescue dog after she had been lost for nine hours.
Slowly, I have regrouped and struck a new balance. Trusting new friends to care for me, trusting myself to know when I need to rest, and trusting that the Universe knows what I need, has freed me to just be!
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4 comments:
Good for you Benne'. The first step was, as you say, to realize that you did it to yourself knowingly. So then you could take responsibility, and then you could take action. Good blog. The stuff about being uncentered in a new situation may be helpful to many of us.
The gift of time, to think and process is a wonderful thing. It is only in stepping away from the frantic pace of raising kids,a head full of tragic cases at work, and just the overwhelming amount of others who need you, that makes one realizes that even with the best of intentions, you also need to put equal energy into your own growth. While you are in the crazy pace, it is hard to even take a breath, let alone think,process, and plan your intentions for yourself.
Charles, you have experienced high levels of transition this past year with your move to Texas, and now teaching position in Germany. What have you learned about yourself?
Merilee, it does seem that the encore life for many women is focused on redefining how they will care for themselves. As a lifelong caretaker, do you find it a struggle at times to fight the urge to help others?
This piece is absolutely brilliant. Transition, choices, outcome, the face of vulnerability...all summed up in a few paragraphs--climaxing then ending on a love note. Vulnerability: friend or foe?
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