Showing the Work

I read something by someone I admire yesterday about “showing our work.” (His name is Cole Shafer and he’s a writer and “ad-man”, as he calls himself.) What he said was that we might not be able to tout experience and credentials, but it can be just as important to “show our work.”--to show our steps and what we’re learning along the way. So, here goes...from my journaling this morning:

Friday 9 July 2021

Breathing in...I am honing my voice.

Breathing out...I am loving my world.

So...what is present this morning? Perhaps an even better question is--what would I like to create this morning?

I find my mind a little scattered with possibilities...it feels as if I am juggling things: ideas...desires...hopes...visions for the future...strategies.

Where do I actually want to go in my life?

I’ve been coaching a young woman lately to find her message--what she would say to the world if she “had the microphone”.

For me--I think I’ve found it: It’s that we...all of us...and for me, women in particular (only because I can understand and relate to them more easily right now)...that we can step out of the loneliness and isolation of shame. That we can come out of hiding and tell our truth. That we’re not alone in having been physically, emotionally and sexually abused. We’re not alone in having given up our power and our dreams...in having hidden ourselves away by making ourselves small.

I have been so envious of others’ creativity...their purpose...their drive...their dedication to something important to them--unwavering dedication.

There is a part of me that has been full of rage and resentment because of all this envy...angry that I still seem to be fumbling and flopping around with finding a direction. At sixty-three. So late. (“I’m late. I’m late. I’m late.”)

What I realize when I stop to look is this:

My life has unfolded as it has, and it has been (for lack of a better word)--perfect. There has been no “wrongness” in it. There can’t be any wrongness in it.

The question is: What now?

So I breathe into the joy of curiosity and possibility. I breathe into my open heart. I breathe into self-compassion and the sensations of being in this body...and gratitude.

After all, I have broken into some freedom over these last years--well, I have always been free, but now I’m more aware of it--and sometimes freedom looks like this crazy edge.