Today is Memorial Day here in America. It’s a day we’ve come to set aside as a day to honor the men and women who lost their lives as a service to their country.
Today more than anything, I felt even more in tune with the message from the shadow work I’ve been researching and experimenting with. You see, many of the men in my family have served in the military; my younger brother is actually currently on his 3rd deployment.
When I think about the courage and bravery it takes to voluntarily sign over your life to a country of folks who don’t know you, some don’t care about you outside of your uniform, and most won’t ever get the honor of knowing just how beautiful you really are, I feel there is no excuse for not taking a chance on ourselves.
Taking a chance on ourselves looks different for each person, but I believe all of us take a chance on ourselves when we set aside time to get acquainted with our whole selves, including the parts that make us very uncomfortable. When we do that we position ourselves to make mindset shifts. One of my own mindset shifts, was a move from “I am a no good person, unable to love and not worthy of love” to “I am enough and that “enoughness” means that I am both loving and loveable”. And you know what happens when your mindset shifts? You develop new habits, because you want to cultivate this new belief system, and when new habits form, your life literally changes.
Being the heroine of your own story does take courage, and bravery. Though unlike our heroic soldiers in the military, it’s take a lot of “ordinary courage” as Brene Brown, PH.D. puts it, to make for pretty extraordinary living. Ordinary courage is pretty scary because it means letting down our defense systems just enough to walk outside of our self-imposed cages of limitations and embrace our gifts of imperfection- those hidden gifts inside the very qualities we loath so much about ourselves and therefore each other.
If you feel like something is missing, if you are trying decide whether or not the path you’re on isn’t really your own, if you feel unfulfilled and not sure why…don’t worry it’s just your inner superheroine inside ready to burst out onto the scene and take you for a ride of your life…and because you won’t be the only one riding it, your 1st quest should you choose to accept, is to be open to receive guidance and help when you need it.
Until next time…
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