Happy New Year everyone! I pray this will be your best year ever! These shots are of the lovely New Year’s fireworks at Wyong, NSW. Together with my husband and his parents, we were like children again – getting a thrill from the sights and sounds of them. It was a magical evening on many levels. Here’s what I’ve been thinking as the year unfolds…
“Don’t define yourself by where you find yourself”. I don’t know who said it first – it may be a quote directly from the couple who’s creativity mentoring site I follow – but I like it. Jeff Crabtree is an Australian musician, creative, visionary, and challenging speaker. His wife, Julie Crabtree, is an unaccomplished and experienced psychologist. Together, apart from learning to understand and appreciate one another better I’m sure, they have written a book entitled “Living With The Creative Mind”. Every now and again, one of their daily quotes on my email feed is five times more significant to me than the others have been. This one in particular, from three days ago, has resounded in my ear since it bounced off the screen at me.
Don’t define yourself by where you find yourself. Woah.
It is so easy to define oneself by where one finds oneself. We can have arrived there by way of many varied pathways and happenstances, but whether we find ourselves doing super well, or in the “failure” category, we more often than not place the responsibility fair and square on our own shoulders. Oh we may go into blaming others, blaming circumstances, blaming economic downturns, blaming our upbringing etc. etc. but when we are in that quiet place with our own souls, we allow our status to define us.
We don’t seem to be able to help it. Those who have been abused find it difficult to keep clear about where blame lies, and hide in a vague fog of self-blame. Those who have succeeded, though they may speak of the opportunities and people that helped them along, will still carry a certain sense of pride and pleasure in themselves for “making it happen”. It’s human nature. It is true that we tend to blame others when we have “messed up”… but I still think that deep down, we are prone to falling into a secret pit of self-accusation, which in turn leads to lives lived in deepening guilt, shame, self-disgust, and lack of self esteem, and sometimes, sadly, suicide.
By the way, this blog is going to get to a positive point!
If someone didn’t love us properly, then it must be our fault. If we didn’t get a job yet, after 12 interviews, it must be us. We are unlovable, hopeless, and doomed to yet more failure. And as much as we are encouraged by friends, we find it hard to escape self-blame.
And most times we hide it beautifully and often faultlessly.
Even when we have an illness that won’t get better, we can blame ourselves for not taking better care of ourselves, or not having enough faith! (ooh, I hate that one!)
Sometimes – absolutely – we need to pull ourselves together and change some bad habits and ways of thinking. But generally we really do need to know that, regardless of our circumstances, we ALWAYS have the potential to be the best person we were born to be. We’re all here for a purpose, and I truly believe that we can power through the worst challenges and hardships and become that person. It may not turn out to be the way we visualized it, but…. I always like that other saying…
“If you shoot for the moon, at least you’ll get a handful of stars”.
I’d be happy with a handful of bright, twinkling stars – especially if I thought for a long time that I would be flat out getting my feet out of the “mirey clay”.
Where you find yourself today can be a lull time, a transitional time, a fly-by-night time, a time that will pass as soon as you get a revelation or a job, or an opportunity. It may be an exhausting time that never seems to end.
Have you got a dream that won’t go away? I do. I don’t even know what all of it looks like in cold hard reality, but I’ve seen it’s glow on the horizon, or it’s huge, exciting image on a wall behind someone I may be talking to. I know what it does to my heart every time I think about it. I know what the seeds are, and I’m waiting for the right seasons to plant those seeds – even planting when it seems out of season. Ahh but that’s another blog for another day…
Where you are now MAY have nothing to do with where you may be headed – it’s just a season. BUT always remember, that where you are today – good or not-so-good, can be preparing a section of your character and understanding that you would never have got any other way. Something you need for that “best of the best” you!
The real you, who can often be seen by another wise person who looks at you with kindness and encouragement, is the person who continues to walk in integrity and optimism for the future – a person who is willing to take challenges and work through them with honesty and love. A person who knows where to go and who to hang with in order to build yourself up when the going is tough.
That’s what will define the great person you were destined to be. Live in the present, but keep your eyes up, focusing on the thrilling sight and sound of your future.
Where that came from tonight, I do not know. But I thank Jeff and Julie for that inspiring quote. Made me think. I hope it makes you think, too. Bless you all.
