I had a
transformational experience recently..
I began to look around
and realize the label I had given myself, being tough. Every breath I live is
by being tough, in everything I am, everything I do and every decision I place
in front of me.. I choose the challenging road only in order to fulfill this
label, to be tough. But, is the payback really worth it?
I was defining myself
by what I did, how I did it, not who I really was.
The label helps to the
extent that it gives an identity that informs my choices and invites my surroundings.
Yet, I couldn’t help but notice that it also gave me limits and sets me firmly
in the center of a vortex, where I was in and others were out.
Being a fighter, an
achiever, is an integral part of my identity. Yet, after a while, it started to
become confining. Your strong suits are not only what create your success, but
they’re also your prison cell, too.
With these
realizations, I began to unravel and dissolve this need to choose being tough
and allow for vulnerability at times. I began to realize that I was being held
hostage. By myself.
I have started to peel
away the hardened layers that I have built and began to allow the light that
lived beneath to come out, intuiting my way back to the sacredness and
simpleness of who I am.
I traded choosing the
road less traveled, when unnecessary, for the path right in front of me. I
traded being tough on myself for giving myself grace. I traded the required
instinct to be tough for the choice to be vulnerable. I traded only seeing
success when I overcame a tough situation to accepting success in everyday
opportunities.
I quit judging myself
for falling short when I wasn’t being tough, and started understanding that vulnerability
fills you with something special, that the confinement of your prison cell can steal
from you. The joy of life, living, freedom, choice.
I thought that in
order to be strong and powerful I had to be tough and put up a good fight,
putting up protective layers of resistance. Ironically, in an effort to be
strong, I was giving up my power.
Because, you see, when
you decide to no longer be a person defined by all the conscious and mindful
choices you make, you gain something remarkable.
You gain access back
to your intuition that can only get lost when you are always trying to lead the
way.
You gain access to the
ability to stand with the shadow parts of yourself, instead of running away from them.
You gain access back
to presence and the ability to be in the moment, in the joy of experiencing the
moments in front of you, without worrying if you are somehow failing yourself.
You gain an
understanding that these things that you are labeled by are choices, not
definitions.
