I love this article. I read it twice and I typed it out to email to a friend. Anne Lamott writes about becoming something better, and it sounds like something my friends and I could have written, we discuss things like this so much.
I'm going to share portions of the article here and hope that I'm not stepping on any toes by so doing.
She writes,
"We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously, who we were born to be. The only problem is that there is also so much other stuff, typically fixations with how people perceive us, how to get more of the things that we think will make us happy, and with keeping our weight down. So the real issue is how do we gently stop being who we aren't? How do we relieve ourselves of the false fronts of people-pleasing and affectation, the obsessive need for power and security, the backpack of old pain, and the psychic Spanx that keeps us smaller and contained? Here's how I became myself: mess, failure, mistakes, disappointments, and extensive reading; limbo, indecision, setbacks, addiction, public embarrassment, and endless conversations with my best women friends; the loss of people without whom I could not live, the loss of pets that left me reeling, dizzying betrayals but much greater loyalty, and overall, choosing as my motto William Blake's line that we came here to learn to endure the beams of love.
Oh yea, and whenever I could, for as long as I could, I threw away the scales and the sugar.
....You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don't think your way into becoming yourself.
I can't tell you what your next action will be, but mine involved a full stop. I had to stop living unconsciously, as if I had all the time in the world. The love and good and the wild and the peace and creation that are you WILL reveal themselves, but it is harder when they have to catch up to you in road-runner mode. So, one day I did stop. I began consciously to break the rules I learned in childhood: I wasted more time, as a radical act. I stared off into space more, into the middle distance, like a cat. This is when I have my best ideas, my deepest insights....Every single day I try to figure out something I no longer agree to do. You get to change your mind-- your parents may have accidentally forgotten to mention this to you. I cross ONE thing off the list of projects I mean to get done that day....
...You are probably going to have to deal with whatever fugitive anger still needs to be examined-- it may not look like anger; it may look like compulsive dieting, or bingeing or exercising or shopping. But you must find a path and a person to help you deal with that anger. It will not be a Hallmark card. It is not the yellow brick road, with lovely trees on both sides, constant sunshine, birdsong, friends. It is going to be unbelievably hard some days-- like the rawness of birth, all that blood and those fluids and shouting horrible terrible things-- but then there will be a wonderful child right in the middle. And that wonderful child is you, with your exact mind and butt and thighs and goofy greatness.
Dealing with your rage and grief will give you life. That is both the good news and the bad news: The solution is at hand. Wherever the great dilemma exists is where the great growth is, too.
It would be very nice for nervous types like me if things were black-and-white, and you could tell where one thing ended and the next thing began, but as Einstein taught us, everything in the future and the past is right here now. There's always something ending and something beginning. Yet in the very centre is the truth of your spiritual identity: it's YOU. Fabulous, hilarious, darling, screwed-up you. Beloved of God and your truest deepest self, the self that is revealed when tears wash of the makeup and grime. That self is revealed when dealing with your anger blows through all the calcification in your soul's pipes. The self that is reflected in the love of your very best friends' eyes. The self that is revealed in divine feminine energy, your own.... You are divine. I absolutely promise. I hope you have gotten sufficiently tired of hitting the snooze button; I know that what you need or need to activate in yourself will appear; I pray that your awakening comes with ease and grace, and stamina when the going gets hard. To love yourself as you are is a miracle, and to seek yourself is to have found yourself, for now. And now is all we have and love is who we are."
I'd like to ask what you think William Blake meant when he said that we came here to learn to endure the beams of love? This instantly resonated with me and I have my own interpretation but first I'd like to know yours.
I can add my testimony that so much of what Lamott writes is true. Dealing with anger does blow through all the calcification in your soul's pipes. It's not a Hallmark card. It does feel like birth.
Becoming something better unfortunately requires "mess, failure, mistakes, disappointments, and extensive reading" and often comes with moments of "limbo, indecision, setbacks, addiction, public embarrassment" and thank the Lord for "endless conversations with [your] best women friends", those beautiful people who save us from ourselves. I can attest to this and I firmly believe that the more determination we put into trying to avoid failure, mistakes, embarrassment, the less we will grow.
Just one big Daily Gratitude for today:
The self that I see reflected in the love of my very best friends' eyes. In that reflection I don't see stomach rolls. I see someone I love too.
