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The Illusion of Becoming
Those moments, however brief, where the stillness of a quiet happiness pervades your inner sanctum, is like a sweet fragrance completely engulfs you and permeates your aura. These are the moments you cease longing of any kind and are in complete presence of contentment, just as you are, here and now. Most of the time, most everyone seems to be in the process of “becoming” – a process that is never-ending in its pursuit. To become successful, to become accomplished, to become well-known, to become complete, to become a healer, to become a doctor, to become certified or degreed, to become a published author, to become a business owner, to become an athlete, to become a musician, to become an artist, to become a mother, to become a father, to become a friend or lover, to become excited over hurdles conquered, to become sad over losing someone or feeling defeated….to become.
In all of this, “now” has been forgotten and does not exist. So many what if’s, but, striving, excuses, and denial of what actually is….who you are. Life exists in the shadows of becoming.
There are no what if’s…there’s only right now.
Self acceptance is a stranger, as nothing seems to mean anything until and unless you get all of the above. Then, and only then, you think you’ll love and accept who you are.
But this is an illusion. It’s all devised to keep you away from your true power….to love yourself.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with growth and continuing to embrace new parts of your evolution.
There’s nothing wrong with saying you’re following divine timing and aligning with the flow of energy.
But these can all be very ingenious self sabotaging ways to make up excuses to be and do you in this moment.
I’m all for listening to signs and not acting rash or being late on making moves, but I think this “it’s not the right timing thing” has been over-used and over-abused by us all, especially “light workers” as is a term often used by some.
I simply don’t accept it as the truth anymore. As, truly there isn’t a wrong choice to be you right now. Where ever that leads is exactly where you need to be.
Could it avoid something or get us there faster? Sure, but it might also just be perfect right now.
If I had done things different in the past then I wouldn’t be me now, but if I had done things differently in those moments I’d also be exactly where I’m supposed to be and perhaps be in an equally beautiful and amazing, but different, experience of the now.
I don’t feel any of it is wrong or right, or better or worse.
Timing might just be another “becoming”.
Nothing is ever going to be enough if you’re not enough and embraced as complete in this moment, no matter what choices you make or what you do now.
Longing will be your best friend, if life is focused on becoming, and all of life will be a longing for something and you’ll leave this life still longing and find out in the end that your best friend really made you feel quite lonely.
The idea of becoming can be a life-line and mask for some…an excuse even. Some people thrive on having something always to strive to become and feel empty if there’s nothing, so they look for the next fix for becoming.
All the while this becoming is a detour away from self. Although you think it is supporting you, it is actually distracting you from the power you have at the center of your being right now.
You fear that center because it is empty of your love.
You work at becoming to feed that love, but you find out that all of this becoming is like a grand feast in celebration of the dead, not the living. And when you discover yourself alone gorging on this feast, it will be a greater terror than admitting right now that you are afraid to just be you.
You are afraid that you’re not enough and yet you’ve always been and always will be better than enough….Create more moments of that quiet contentment within yourself and know that all that you desire to be, is already right there within you, as desires are simply projections for us to recognize the brilliance we embody.
Then embrace each choice and action from that stillness of peace and everything you do will always be in divine alignment.
~ Inspired by an excerpt from a recent book I read, Star Woman, that felt important to share and so this is a paraphrasing and personal inspiration of these words.
Authentic Self-Acceptance: Recognizing the Great Deception of Spiritual Enlightenment
Often, when we become more spiritually enlightened, we can easily convince ourselves that we know it all already.
We become very adept at using all of the spiritual terms and concepts we’ve learned, to talk our way through things on the surface and yet haven’t a clue how to actually integrate and embody that, let alone understand that we aren’t really seeing the depth of the picture – we’re merely spewing out the “right” words we think we should use.
Ironically, we can actually become closed off to widening our perspectives even more because we think we have all the answers, or we feel the need to pretend we do so that others will see us in a certain light.
It becomes much easier to deceive ourselves or play subconscious, self-sabotaging games than to accept that we may actually have more available to us to learn, which can help us to continue to heal and evolve.
This is a great reminder from Shakti Gawain (below) about authentically embracing who you are right now with vulnerable integrity.
I share it, as I see it as one of the themes in the collective pool to be conscious of so that we can widen and deepen our potentials, while also continuing to raise the bar on our vibrational frequency we are embodying.
From Shakti Gawain:
What I am right now
If we pretend to be more enlightened than we really are, we will miss an opportunity to heal ourselves. Admitting our limitations can make us feel vulnerable, yet it is very freeing.
We just have to be ourselves as we are now, accepting the mixture of enlightened awareness and human limitation that is in each of us. Through this self-acceptance, we find a deep peace and self-love.
* Today I accept myself as I am. *
Becoming Real
Once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always. ~Margery Williams
Being a lover of bunnies, make-believe, dreaming, hoping, loving, nurturing the child within, and authenticity I was inspired to share one of Sarah Ban Breathnach’s inspirational stories from her book: Simple Abundance – A Daybook of Comfort and Joy.
When I was a child I had more stuffed animals than I could count and I easily entertained myself for hours singing, playing, talking with, and simply loving them in my made up fantasy reality I went to daily. I was often off in another world completely consumed by the reality I created each day. I didn’t need any outside stimulation, although I often experienced much, and many friends, from the other worlds, but to me this was the authentic experience mirroring what was within- I knew nothing else.
I continued throughout my childhood, pre-teen and teenage years marching to the beat of my own drum and remaining in a reality of my own creation. Life was simply different for me, than what I saw around me, but this was something that as a child was so natural. But as time moved on and I was exposed to different things and conditionings than what I knew of as my experience, the inner dialogue started to ask questions and try to understand the differences I experienced from others.
This can be challenging to work through and process, but in the end I always came back to the fact that my natural experience of “different” was “normal” and most comfortable and authentic to who I was in my heart and soul and I didn’t like, nor operated successfully or healthily, any other way. When love came to be my experience, on a conscious level of creative choice, for and about who I was despite what I saw, felt, heard, or what anyone else would tell me, my life became “real.”
And this continues to expand exponentially and what may have at one time looked like make-believe, is belief in the making – my reality manifested.
This one in particular story by Sarah Ban Breathnach warms my heart because of the elements dear to me it holds. I hope it does the same for you. It builds on a precious story many of us know from our childhood: The Velveteen Rabbit. Here is Sarah’s sharing:
On Christmas morning the bunny sitting in the top of the Boy’s stocking with a sprig of holly between his paws looked quite splendid. He was fat and bunchy in all the right places, with a soft, spotted white-and-brown coat, thread whiskers, and ears lined in pink sateen. The Boy was enchanted and played with the rabbit for two whole hours until family directed his attention to all the other wonderful parcels lying under the tree “and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.”
For a long time, the bunny remained just another plaything in the nursery. But he didn’t mind because he was able to carry on long, philosophical discussions with the old Skin Horse who was very old, wise, and experienced in the strange ways of nursery magic. One of the rabbit’s favorite topics of conversation was on becoming “Real.” Here is the heart of Margery Williams’s mystical tale of the transformative power of love, The Velveteen Rabbit, written in 1927.
The Skin Horse patiently explained to the bunny that “Real isn’t how you are made. It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
Becoming Real doesn’t happen overnight to toys or people. “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
In order for toys to become Real, they must be loved by a child. In order for us to become Real, we must become lovers of real life in all its complexity and uncertainty. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, we long to become Real, to know what authenticity feels like. Sometimes this hurts. The thought of losing our whiskers and having our tail come unsewn is frightening. In a world that judges by appearances, it’s embarrassing having all the pink rubbed off your nose. The Velveteen Rabbit isn’t alone in wishing to become Real without any uncomfortable or unpleasant things happening.
One of the ways that we become Real without too much discomfort is by growing gradually into our authenticity. As you learn to acknowledge, accept, and appreciate what it is that makes you different from all the other toys in the cupboard, the process begins. As you learn to trust the wisdom of your heart and make creative choices based on what you know is right for you, process becomes progress. As you learn to endow even the smallest moment of each day with Love, progress becomes reality perfected. Your black-button eyes might have lost their polish, but now these windows to the soul see only beauty. You become not only Real to those who know and love you, but Real to everyone. You become authentic.
I finished typing this blog at 11:11 🙂
Tania Marie 