What if there is no need to change?
No need to transform yourself
Into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving, or wise?
How would this affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better, or different?
What if the task is simply to unfold
To become who you already are in your essential nature –
Gentle, compassionate,
and capable of living fully and passionately present?
What if the question is not,
Why am I so infrequently the person i really want to be?
But ‘why do i so infrequently want to be the person i really am?’
How would this change what you think you have to learn?
What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying
But by recognising and receiving the people and places and practices
That are for us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?
How would this shape the choices you make about how to spend today?
What if you know that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in the world
Will arise from deep within
And guide you every time you simply pay attention
And wait.
How would this shape your stillness, your movement,
Your willingness to follow this impulse
To just let go
And dance?
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It’s interesting how something can be ‘just’ a nice text/poem/picture/song and then something happens and suddenly it speaks to you in a way it didn’t before, it suddenly holds meaning in a way that feels important and personal… That’s what happened for me with these words by Oriah Mountain Dreamer (who many will know from her words The Invitation). They come from the prelude to her book ‘The Dance’, and following some links I came to this exerpt which again really hit the spot for me today. (It makes me wonder what other delightful words I may have glanced at already that will suddenly come to life one day in the future? A bit like a treasure hunt through life!)
So, that question… why do i so infrequently want to be the person i really am? Yes why? Why does it so often feel safer or wiser to edit myself into what I hope will be acceptable to others, when I know how delightful it is to ‘just let go and dance?’ No real answers today, but a willingness to live the questions and see what will unfold…
Photo by Bailey Kovac on Unsplash