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You: The child, the goat, and now

tree rings

(this was inspired by a post by Ben Wurdmuller that he shared as ‘a note on being alive’. I wrote if over a day and wasn’t sure if I would post it or not, but since he has comments off, and also keeps writing lovely encouraging posts about ‘get blogging!’ I thought I would… Although it is a response to his post, it is ‘to’ each of you reading this.)

You are so much more than what you once were. And you forever carry and are built with the rings of the past, but you are so much more. The tree with its rings, not just putting on new rings, but building new selves, not salamander-like shedding of skin, but using those layers as strength, as conduit, to soak up nutrients, to support, to become something else. They were once the outside and can be manifest to become useful, or left as burdens to carry.

It is a choice

and a decision to allow for healing and to allow life to make you strong. And healing is not ignoring whatever you carry with you. I never understood that probability problem where you choose one of three, and then you choose again between two, that statistically you are more likely to be right when you change your choice (this is the goat behind the door problem). But I sort of do now. You can’t unsee what life has given you. We each carry our past with us, and that impacts the choices we make. In the probability problem, choosing again is not a simple clean new 50/50, because you carry all that makes you with you.

Sometimes as we live, we find pieces of ourselves along the way. (There was a clever computer story-game like that – the hero wakes up with amnesia and seeks find the key to read his own tattoos one by one to figure out who he, the ‘Nameless One’ is. Ok, that’s not Plato and is a bit literal, but it is so apt.) To build your you, see all the parts, and breathe takes time.

Yes, breathe

and put on your own mask first, and then you can care for those around you. When we don’t care for ourselves, we are worn. Sometimes that is our reality and it seems a real luxury to do otherwise. Sometimes now is painful, or hard work, or just a bit dull. If you are there, hopefully others will lift you. Being lifted carries more than just what you hold, it eases the burden of those around you too. The tide lifts all boats.

Noticing the child is wonderful. Yes, notice the child, learn from the child – without wishing to go back or be something you are not – Doing that loses all the you and any possibility of finding the now.

The child?

A child can hold what seem like magic keys within empty pockets and smiles. The child knows a sense of enough. Just to be and to be content. The child breathes, without even knowing it.

When you find a reminder of that child’s breath – that fresh breeze that sometimes feels like you’ve never felt before (but of course you have) – let time stop when you notice it. Take it in and make it part of you now. You see, noticing that child and feeling that freshness can ignite a memory of when and what and how to breathe. Let that moment be an invitation not to go back, but to be you now.

And when you find it, your own breath, and you have it and it fills you, you will have the strength to breathe out, – to sing, and you become that fresh wind for the world. Your words your actions your thoughts your music your art your joy:

Your you.

 

Featured image CC BY-SA by Martin

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