This winter season, I’ve been trying to rest more. After so many years of trying to push through the December through February lethargy, I finally realized that this is the time my body is supposed to want to rest and repair. So I’ve been trying to nap more, slow down, and try to find some peace in the moments between the chaos.
I guess after all my years on this planet, I’m finally realizing that if you have to keep pushing, you might be trying to open the door the wrong way.
I’ve been meditating recently on the span of our lives, and how we grow and evolve. In my coaching work, I often spend time with clients helping them to question some of their very bedrock concepts of life, their place in the world, and the direction they are going in. Too many times we find that the path they are on was chosen for them, and not necessarily the one that they would choose.
But they were conditioned by their environment, their circumstances, and even the very nature of the language they were taught to speak.
Often, we discover that even the most well intentioned attempts at helping children grow can create long lasting patterns of choices and behaviors that lead to a life that doesn’t feel authentic. When you are allowing your precious existence to be modeled according to the dictates of somebody else’s opinion and beliefs, there is a growing sense of frustration, and very often a sense of failure.
Living a life that does not feel organic is a recipe for an ever growing sense of discomfort.
A few years ago, I came across an article that suggested a link between the increasing prevalence of suicidal ideation in teenagers with a lack of what is termed ‘self directed play’. In childhood that is full of social media, planned activities and increasing demands on their time (and energy) children are losing the time to find out what they like, how they feel, what they believe.
And when you are disconnected to those very basic emotional foundations, it’s easy to be blown off balance and fall into a life that feels too painful to bear.
I truly believe that the only true way to build a world of peace and possibility is to focus on trying to allow people to live as organically and authentically as possible. It has been my observation that people who are at peace with themselves rarely start trouble, and are willing to help others. For them, kindness is not ordained by scripture, or enforced by decree, but flows out of a desire to help other find the peace that they enjoy.
But to find a truly organic peace, it is sometimes necessary to let go of everything you currently know.
Having never conversed with a butterfly, I do not know how it feels about the process of losing its identity as a caterpillar, only to undergo a complete metamorphosis into a butterfly. If it understood the change, would it be scared or excited, worried or full of wonder? Not knowing its thoughts, I choose to believe that the caterpillar trusts in the process, and allows the process to be fully organic.
And therefore completely authentic.
Changing from who we are into a more authentic version of ourselves is never easy. It requires much introspection, a strong desire, and a deepening respect for not only your own authenticity, but of those around us. After all, if we are trying to live a life that brings us joy, meaning and peace, we have to then extend that same space to those around us.
But interestingly, the more we look inward, and find peace within, the easier it becomes to expand that peace outwards, giving others not only the space to be themselves, but the encouragement and assistance they may require. Healing and growing is never an easy process, and like the caterpillar, often requires us to let go of things we desperately cling to.
But letting go is often the prerequisite to finding something greater.
It can just hurt sometimes.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings