Sam had a buddy over yesterday and I found them at one point with all her Halloween candy on the floor.
They were sorting it: The "deplorable" had already been bagged up like a dog's mess left on a walk. The remaining was divided into a "good" pile and a "bad" pile. The "good" pile was all fruity candy (skittles, dots, nerds, etc..) classified "good"[for you] because they had "fruit" in them. The "bad" candy was all chocolate-based, "bad for you", but oh so sinfully delicious!
Of course, it's ALL teeth and brain rotting sugar. Their PERCEPTION of healthy was the only thing that separated the piles.
Do you ever find yourself in situations where you select an option for your life that you feel is more "acceptable" than "rebellious" but is
really just a different flavor of crazy? I find that we kid ourselves
into
believing that we "ought" to do something because mom/dad/friend/partner/community would approve. But in the process of bending ourselves in half to do what we think is "good for us", we are still in the toxic flow of unauthentic showmanship. (Not that what we did before was much better, even if sinfully delicious.)
There are layers to our decisions, looped back through our childhood, our relationships, and mythic dimensions. Many of these are so subtle they are barely perceptible without a microscope, yet we build our lives on top of those foundations and assume that we are making free will choices. Being able to see the two bags as the same thing takes time, vulnerability and guts.
What would I decide if no one was watching?
What would I decide if I had the permission to be free of my past choices?
What do I really want?
This is a call to action. For each of us. To be boldly authentic. To feel the discomfort of setting new norms, to create a bag in which to collect little paper-wrapped nuggets of our true desires. Every time we listen to what feels right, and step forward into them, we shed the weight of our shadow--the ego.
What does this mean for you?
