Life really is the perfect teacher.
Lessons are presented to us and we can either learn or not.
Opportunities arise and we are able to take them or not.
Often times I find that when I understand a new concept when I have a bit of an “ah ha!” moment I believe that the lesson is learned. What is becoming very apparent to me is that understanding a concept is one thing, integrating it into your life and being is quite another.
Imagine you are taking dance lessons. You are learning steps you have never done before. You stand and watch the teacher demonstrate the moves. You understand the moves. You know what your feet need to do and when. Your brain has comprehended the moves.
Now, when the music begins and you start to make the moves you find yourself struggling. Your feet aren’t cooperating and your moves look nothing like they should.
It is because while you understand the movements, they aren’t yet a part of you. Your feet have never moved like this before and they keep wanting to go back to movements that are practiced and comfortable.
Spiritual growth is the same.
For me, this became apparent after I wrote welcome page. I was revamping the site completely and wanted to set a new tone. The writing came to me and it felt amazing and empowering. I was expressing how important it is for us to listen to our intuition, to find our how path regardless of what the masses are doing, saying or being. That we need to stop believing anyone is an expert on our own lives.
We need to reconnect with our own inner compass.
Later that day I had something happen that scared me. My intuition was trying so hard to speak. She was trying to calm me down, to allow me to see the lesson, to see the truth but my fear was so much louder and had a lot more facts.
Fear told me about the statistics and reasons I had to be freaked out. My fear was so loud that it was already preparing me for the worst case scenario. I found that as I tried to hear my intuition, her guidance was getting muddled and I was more scared and ended up spinning in this fear loop. I started doing exactly what I knew I shouldn’t. I was seeking answers, facts, experts to reassure me that I didn’t need to be fearful.
My feet went back to moves that were comfortable and practiced.
Sometimes we spiral. Sometimes, no matter how much inner-work or spiritual growth we experience we spiral backward and it can feel that we just un-did all our hard work. What we find if we are persistent though is that we are able to pull ourselves up and walk right back out onto the dance floor only this time the steps come much easier and we are less likely to fall in the same way again.
I have been called lately to stop looking for answers outside of myself. I am being called to stand and really appreciate every aspect of who I am especially the ones that I always believed were my “negative” attributes. I am starting to realize the things I can do that no one else around me would even think of and how much of a gift those things are.
I think about how much time I have spent trying to improve parts of myself when I should have been enjoying and celebrating myself.
Here’s to celebrating who we are. Here’s to shining a light on how we are different from others and celebrating that-finding the gifts and hidden gems.
Here’s to you.
Until next time…
-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante