Becoming

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.
Katherine Mansfield

We are all in the process of becoming. I look at the women in my life, and though our situations are different, there are so many similarities in what we experience. We are all on a journey back to who we really are. And let me tell you, it is tough. Don't let anyone convince you that being a woman is easy. It isn't. Making the transition from what the world wants us to be back to our whole selves is messy work.

Women have a tendency to look back at who they've been in this lifetime with disgust and embarassment. When I look back at my past self, I love her. I'm grateful for everything she chose, even those things I have a hard time admitting to others. Yes, I have been that girl. I've been in abusive relationships. I've given so much of myself to another that when he walked away, my world ended. I've been depressed, been to therapists, been medicated. I once believed that sex meant love, so I gave away the most intimate parts of myself to men who did nothing to deserve it. I have sought comfort in food, alcohol, and the arms of another. I allowed others to convince me I was fat, stupid, and unworthy.

One of the statements in my favorite book, Conversations with God, is that we must know who we are not before we can know who we are. I used to believe that meant being able to be feel something really negative, then saying, "That's not me." I think differently now. I believe that I have a light side (loving, compassionate, aware) and a shadow side (angry, depressed, hopeless). As a whole human being, there is nothing I am not. I am now able to love the parts of me that once brought me shame. At the same time, I am a powerful creator, and I have the ability to express any part of myself that I choose.

Here's a great example. For years, I have at best been a "survivor" of a tumultuous childhood and at worst a "victim." I went through life trying to keep the peace in my family, doing anything I could not to rock the boat. I learned very early on that dismissing my own feelings meant I was accepted by everyone in my family. I was very quick to "forgive," but you can't really forgive someone for hurting you if you've never allowed yourself to feel the hurt. I have spent twenty-five years on this earth without ever once realizing I was angry. I thought I understood "why" everyone did what they did, and so there was no reason for me to be angry, right? Two weeks ago, that ugly, angry side of myself surfaced. At first, I was horrified. "That's not me!" But it is. There is a young girl inside me that is saying, "I'm pissed! I didn't deserve any of this!" Finally, instead of fighting it, I embraced my shadow. I let myself get really angry for the first time in twenty-five years. At the end of that exhausting day, I lay in bed feeling lighter and more peaceful.

So yes, I am that girl, the one who is angry, ashamed, and feels unworthy. But I am also that woman, the one who is deeply aware of her purpose and power. Every day, through the messy and the beautiful, I am becoming the woman I really am. And oh, how I love her.