AWAKENING TO THE REAL YOU

“Awakening is not changing who you are but discarding who you are not.” Deepak Chopra

Who are you really? Do you answer this question by looking at your appearance, defining what you have accomplished, or evaluating your spiritual life?

For many years, I primarily saw myself in terms of what I did for a living as a teacher or dancer. Growing up at the time when the women’s movement was very vocal, I was influenced by that and chose not to describe myself as a wife although I was one. I wasn’t a mother either so I felt that what I did in the world and how well I did it was most important.

Looking for the Real You

During those years, I was also exploring various spiritual disciplines, looking for a way to understand who I was at a deeper level. I cared about how I looked, but I didn’t rate my value based on appearance alone although I was still attached to the external value of how I earned my income.

When it came time to stop dancing and later to stop teaching it, I realized my identity was still strongly connected to being a dancer. As a skinny teen in the time of Marilyn Monroe, I had felt my body wasn’t womanly enough. But as a dancer, I was beautiful because all dancers were beautiful. Becoming a dancer fed my weak ego and empowered me, especially after skinny Twiggy became the icon of beauty.

Ballet East Dance Company

There was another part of the dancer image to which I related. When I first studied modern dance, I was physically weak from childhood illnesses. Modern dance built muscles that made me feel physically strong and it connected my body and mind. Experiencing that connection was empowering because it connected me with my inner strength.

Who You Are At the Heart Level

So, it was difficult to let go of this aspect of my life and look for the real source of who I was. Over time, I discovered I was truly a teacher at heart. I love to share what I know, discuss and question. I like to learn new things and search for answers in many ways and places, and it doesn’t matter anymore if I have an actual teaching position. My curiosity will lead me onto new paths, and I share what I learn with anyone who wants to listen.

If we ask the question, “Would I do this if I were retired?” it is likely that if “yes” is the answer, the core of that activity comes from the heart and soul. It is connected to a deeper part of us that sees how that activity has value for us and those with whom we interact.

After giving up dance, I turned to writing, a passion I had as a child, but my parents had not encouraged me so I never considered it a possibility for making a living. Much like teaching, it was a way for me to share what I had learned with others, but it led me to a greater realization. I had never given up my desire to be a healer despite having given up my desire to be a doctor when I was a child.

Healing Yourself Will Reveal the Real You

I first had to learn to heal myself. For years I had searched for a way to strengthen and heal the still-lingering aspects of earlier illnesses. I worked with the body and mind to eat a healthy diet and develop a happy balanced mind. By working with positive thinking and manifestation techniques, I felt more powerful. I finally had a new inner strength that was opening my spiritual self to many possibilities.

In 2002 I began to write Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages because I was having trouble writing and meditating but needed some way to go deeper. Each day as I wrote, a new awareness came to the surface and opened my mind. Old concepts and grievances fell away. In my memoir Awakening to the Dance: A Journey to Wholeness, the chapter that describes this experience is titled, “Breaking the Block.” But there was more than one block.

We Must Listen to the Heart

I often prayed and meditated, leaving space for Spirit to speak to me, but at one point I realized I wasn’t listening. I was listening with my head but not my heart. Then I discovered that I didn’t trust my own decisions because I didn’t trust the Creator (Spirit) so if I didn’t trust the Creator how could I expect my requests to be answered.

I learned that sometimes we can’t move forward because we haven’t let go of the past, and we continue to hold on to the fear that limited us in a previous situation. Nothing will change until the fear is released, but we have to acknowledge we have fear, rather than suppressing it, if we want to heal the wound caused by the fear.

Working through the Morning Pages, I sloughed off old thinking and resentments one by one. I shed many thoughts I did not need that stood in the way of my growth. Also working with transformational kinesiology helped energetically to release unhelpful thoughts and created a community with other women who had similar issues.

Awakening to the Real You

This process of going deeper is like the snake shedding its skin. By letting go of what we think we need, we find a great freedom and grow a new skin. Without all the old ideas and negative emotions that have kept us stuck, we awaken to who we are not and who we truly are.

One response to “AWAKENING TO THE REAL YOU”

Karin | May 21, 2015 at 4:32 pm | Reply

I like that topic. That is the core of the spiritual path. Like in the Chopra quote, the journey is a destruction process. Unlearning of untruth, as Jed McKenna put it. And life supports this in making us let go of our attachment to our former sense of self. Which is often hard to endure.