12_14_2019

We’re all Becoming!

                 I am indebted to Michelle Obama for introducing me to the concept of “becoming.”  I learned from reading her book by the same name how she came to choose that title.  Her explanation was simple but powerful:  We are always in the process of becoming!  Sometimes our becoming is intentional and we’re well aware of the direction we’re heading.  Other times, our protectory is more muted, and while we may see some subtle clues about how our pursuits are aligning to forge new pathways in our lives,  we may have to be patient and wait for a clearer pattern to emerge. 

                I know I have experienced both types of patterns – ones in which I am conscious that I’m making a choice and putting effort into a pursuit that matters to me.  Earning a doctorate, becoming a vegetarian are examples of intentional efforts.  Other pursuits at first seemed like they might be outliers or a stand-alone but over time, I came to see such efforts as part of a larger pattern.  With a time-enhanced perspective, even some of my clearer endeavors reveal themselves as part of a larger pattern that I didn’t see at the time.

                Pursuing a yoga practice serves as an excellent example of an initial pursuit that has led to new dimensions in my life.  Excellent yoga instructors helped me discover the practice of meditation.  Devoting time to meditating on most days has helped me become more self-aware and it provides a pathway for staying centered and balanced.  Most importantly, meditation has helped me become more aware of how ego severely limits or traps us into patterns that are not so healthy.

                I like the idea of thinking about what I might be becoming.  I have learned to be comfortable without having words to label my path; eventually the insights will present themselves.  Aging helps one learn an important lesson about our experiences.  An isolated experience at the time it is occurring can be all consuming by the feelings and thoughts that we associate with it, but as our lives unfold, we often see these very same experiences in a different light as we gain more life experience.

                I remember feeling like the bottom fell out of my world when I was going through the initial phases of my divorce.  With time, I began to see some potential benefits that leaving that marriage held for me.  And now looking back, I am certain that I would not be the person that I am today had I remained in that marriage.   Quite the opposite – I believe I would be suffering from depression as my inner life, my emotional life, and my development as a woman would all have been stifled.  I would have lost most of myself by giving into the limiting expectations of my then husband.

                I discovered the following poem when I was part of a yearlong meditation practice that used poetry as the stimulus for meditating.  Each month of the year had its own theme, and the month that focused on Discernment yielded this poem which I still find speaks to me in enriching ways:

The Wise Heart – Discernment

Rainer Maria Rilke

My eyes already touch the sunny hill,

Going far ahead of the road I have begun.

So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;

It has its inner light, even from a distance —

And changes us, even if we do not reach it,

Into something else, which hardly sensing it, we already are;

A gesture waves us on, answering our own wave…

But what we feel is the wind in our faces.

                Currently I am on a creative journey and I am not sure where it is taking me.  I am not trying to understand or explain it; instead, I’m listening to my creative spirits and inner voice for guidance on possible next steps.  I am learning to be comfortable with following my inner guidance system without knowing where each step might lead.

                In a recent Blog I shared the profound outcomes of a course that I designed and facilitated this Fall.  The course focused on a series of exercises and activities that help us begin to Compose Our Own Narratives, enabling us to identify and shed beliefs that others cast upon us and that we accepted without question.  Engaging in the work involved in writing our own narratives is a form of spiritual practice.  Peeling away the forces in our lives that we may be blind to yields a whole new way of  understanding ourselves, and I believe it is a great foundation to consciously build on as are lives evolve.

                Learning how to tell my own story led to my wanting to return to a manuscript I had worked on several years ago.  Claiming my own narrative has given me more confidence about using and sharing my Voice.  Once again, Synchronicity inserted herself into my life and I discovered a Transformative Writing class designed to help writers hoping to publish.  I’m in the midst of taking the class now, and while it has turned out to be much more work than I anticipated, the work and feedback have started me on a path that I believe I will be able to follow as I rewrite and insert more of myself into my writing.

                The markers that we have available to us to measure how we’re changing don’t usually come with flashing lights;  instead, we have to look more closely to find them.  One of my newly discovered markers on this journey is that I’m finding I’m not afraid to share with others that I am undertaking the task of writing about a topic that has its roots in my life’s work. 

                I have worked in education my entire career, and with an insider’s view and experience, I can see how much trouble our educational institutions are in.  We have lost our way on staying true our Missions and our Vocation of educating others.  There is a perceived risk of sharing with others that I have decided to devote time and energy to writing about the work that educators must undertake if we want to reclaim the power that learning offers us in our lives.  The risk as I perceive it is that by sharing my intention I am opening the door to be publicly held accountable for the outcome. 

                Suppose I find that once I get further into writing the book that I don’t think I have anything useful to say.  What if I find that the amount of work  involved is too overwhelming?  What if I never get published?  These are all of the inner demons that arise within the ego, and if we listen to strongly to concerns about how we will be judged, we can give up before we ever begin.

I am claiming my commitment to pursue writing on a topic that has its origins in my core beliefs.  Education is a process that offers all of us the opportunity to enhance the quality of our lives. As educators, we need to embrace our work as a calling and to see our mission as sacred.  We are in essence charged with the responsibility to assist individuals develop their potential to grow into the best version of themselves that they are capable of becoming.

I like to think that my willingness to claim a pursuit without knowing the outcome can serve as a marker for me that while the ego has value in my life, I don’t have to be controlled by it. So often in our lives we let others’ comments discourage us from undertaking pursuits that are part of our becoming. 

Consider John O’Donohue’s quote in his book Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom in a Modern World:

 To be born is to be chosen.  None of us is accidentally in the world.  We are sent

here because there is something special for each of us to do here that could not

be done by someone else.  One of the wisdoms of living a full life  is to try and

sense what it is you were sent here for and to try and let the hindrances that

block you from that fall away so that you can claim completely the life that was

so generously offered to you.  We are all reared in a world that concentrated on

sin and sinfulness, but I believe that when we come into the eternal world we

won’t be so much checked for our failures, but we will be asked whether we

honored the possibilities that were placed inside us when we were so carefully

fashioned out of the clay.  There are limitless possibilities within each one of us and,

if we give ourselves any chance at all, it is unknown what we are capable of.

So, on this Easter morning, let us look again at the lives we have been so generously

given and let us let fall away the useless baggage that we carry – old pains, old habits,

old ways of seeing and feeling – and let us have the courage to begin again.

Life is very short, and we are no sooner here than it is time to depart again, and we

should use to the full the time that we still have.

                May you fill the wind at your back and the deep joy that provides you with the energy you need to pursue your Journey of Becoming!