"Nobody ever says I wanna be a junkie when I grow up." Partly I wanted an epic main sentence. Though seriously, not to sound too Carrie Bradshaw-ish here by asking a humanly universal rhetorical question, but...
In a world full of ups and downs, how and when do we know who we are as grown UPs? :) Are the downs possibly even more important than the ups? What's down there anyway? It's a long way back up...
Now that I've attained 31 years of living, I feel I should somehow be able to stand unapologetically in who I am, embracing and harnessing all that shaped me in my childhood, adolescence and thus far in adulthood and just be me. But, it's not so easy, is it? (Just a few more years, and I will be a middle aged woman who probably doesn't give a hot damn about anything, and I rather welcome such an attitude.)
I'm well into the Improv Program at iO Theater, which has taught me so much about myself, my ability, and inability to trust in myself and others. Feeling unconditionally accepted and trusted begets more trust. We can't always rely on external sources for this trust however.
We all possess an intrinsic sacredness that can't be provided nor taken away by others. It is timeless.
I realized today after class, that the challenge is to make a conscious choice to love ourselves, and to stand confidently in who we are, and who we seek to become, therefore not guarding ourselves, thus being open. I need to trust God, who gives life and places us here in this time and space for a unique purpose. Somehow I need to carry a childlike trust into the far reaches of adulthood. Hmm... Fingers crossed.
Sometimes I still feel like a little 8 year old girl at home with my mom, in our apartment on East Grandview BLVD. in Erie, holding my fat gray cat Simon under his little armpits and twirling around in a tu-tu (I was in the tu-tu not Simon.) Prancing around in my mom's red high heels with red feathers on them, while singing "Please don't go girrrl" by NKOTB, and eating a DQ twist cone. Yes pretty much all at the same time. And somehow, now I am a woman out in the world, and have to stand confidently in my own damn heels. It is a farther fall to the ground now.
It's a journey of understanding how beautiful we each are.
Welp, in Improv class recently, we created a form that eluded to the idea of erosion, where scene edits involved extracting an element from the previous scene and taking it into the next.
The idea of erosion can seem negative at first, as it involves the slow stripping away of a component of something. When something is taken away from us, or this something slowly begins to lose it's familiar components, we often become uncomfortable and the change can be painful. However, over time, we might look back and see how this erosion was necessary to create a change, and to reveal more beauty than we could ever imagine possible. I was reminded of breathtaking canyons, such as my favorites, Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon in Utah, which were formed by rivers eroding away at the surrounding sandstone, and the result are these amazingly beautiful places, that were carved out!
Maybe developing into our whole and beautiful selves, involves not only learning and adding knowledge to our minds and honing our talents, but committing to entering into the negative places, within ourselves, and one another. Committing to the process of loving and unconditional erosion. A force that is gentle, and yet challenging, and takes thousands of years to accomplish.
In a world full of ups and downs, how and when do we know who we are as grown UPs? :) Are the downs possibly even more important than the ups? What's down there anyway? It's a long way back up...
Now that I've attained 31 years of living, I feel I should somehow be able to stand unapologetically in who I am, embracing and harnessing all that shaped me in my childhood, adolescence and thus far in adulthood and just be me. But, it's not so easy, is it? (Just a few more years, and I will be a middle aged woman who probably doesn't give a hot damn about anything, and I rather welcome such an attitude.)
I'm well into the Improv Program at iO Theater, which has taught me so much about myself, my ability, and inability to trust in myself and others. Feeling unconditionally accepted and trusted begets more trust. We can't always rely on external sources for this trust however.
We all possess an intrinsic sacredness that can't be provided nor taken away by others. It is timeless.
I realized today after class, that the challenge is to make a conscious choice to love ourselves, and to stand confidently in who we are, and who we seek to become, therefore not guarding ourselves, thus being open. I need to trust God, who gives life and places us here in this time and space for a unique purpose. Somehow I need to carry a childlike trust into the far reaches of adulthood. Hmm... Fingers crossed.
Sometimes I still feel like a little 8 year old girl at home with my mom, in our apartment on East Grandview BLVD. in Erie, holding my fat gray cat Simon under his little armpits and twirling around in a tu-tu (I was in the tu-tu not Simon.) Prancing around in my mom's red high heels with red feathers on them, while singing "Please don't go girrrl" by NKOTB, and eating a DQ twist cone. Yes pretty much all at the same time. And somehow, now I am a woman out in the world, and have to stand confidently in my own damn heels. It is a farther fall to the ground now.
It's a journey of understanding how beautiful we each are.
Welp, in Improv class recently, we created a form that eluded to the idea of erosion, where scene edits involved extracting an element from the previous scene and taking it into the next.
The idea of erosion can seem negative at first, as it involves the slow stripping away of a component of something. When something is taken away from us, or this something slowly begins to lose it's familiar components, we often become uncomfortable and the change can be painful. However, over time, we might look back and see how this erosion was necessary to create a change, and to reveal more beauty than we could ever imagine possible. I was reminded of breathtaking canyons, such as my favorites, Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon in Utah, which were formed by rivers eroding away at the surrounding sandstone, and the result are these amazingly beautiful places, that were carved out!
Maybe developing into our whole and beautiful selves, involves not only learning and adding knowledge to our minds and honing our talents, but committing to entering into the negative places, within ourselves, and one another. Committing to the process of loving and unconditional erosion. A force that is gentle, and yet challenging, and takes thousands of years to accomplish.