Show up for yourself – these are the words written in an article by my favorite blog writer, Glennon Melton of www.momastery.com (so worth checking out!) It’s rather ironic timing as I have been trying to find my muse for writing a new article. Glennon was on vacation and I was not feeling passionate about any particular subject, and low and behold, her first full article after her vacation inspires me. So, she is the Scarlett Johansen to my Woody Allen; except I don’t really believe I am Woody Allen.
Show up for yourself; how do you do that?? I mean, how does a mother of two little ones living in a foreign country on maternity leave do that? How does someone in today’s society really do that? With all the quotes I see posted by my friends on Facebook lately, I noticed the predominant theme is about change – to change us for the better. But if we aren’t showing up for ourselves, how do we know that we do need to change; what do we need to change; why do we need to change?
I think we all have our own triangle representing three versions, of ourselves; three persons, if you will. The first is the person we think we should be – configured by our tastes and desires which are influenced by friends, family, media, etc. The second is the person that lies beneath like a pearl in an oyster: beautiful, rare, and filled with glorious gifts that either we are in denial of their existence or we are too scared of exposure for criticism. Then the third is the person who does the breathing in and out every day; the conductor of our daily lives and perhaps of the lives of other people around us. So, when we show up for ourselves, which self are we showing up for truly?
We seem to be a world caught up in the constant improvement of who we are. If we are not the look, weight, status or profession that mainstream finds desirable then we are given all kinds of information and ways to change that. My friend, an English teacher, and I were discussing the word unique lately and how it cannot be improved upon with a superlative, because it is a superlative. There cannot be something more unique, because unique is already at its prime. Just like something cannot be more perfect. Yet, there are those who would have us believe that there is something as more perfect. We are told there is a more perfect version of ourselves, but truly there is not! We are the perfect version and we are in our prime. We do not need to improve ourselves! Maybe showing up for the self that is only acceptable to other people is not really showing up for us. How can doing superficial changes to please anyone other than us be best?
The person who is doing the daily run of our lives must be far too busy to show up for one more appointment. As a woman and mother, I find that I am very low in my line of thinking when I am running around during the day taking care of my house, husband and children. I think it becomes instinctive to bump your place in line when you become a parent. While I can once or twice a week work actively to give myself priority for five minutes for a cup of quiet coffee and reading, or go for a long bike ride with my little one in her bike seat, it does become a challenge to actively show up for myself completely. I mean, hey, I do well to remember if I brushed my teeth or washed the conditioner out of my hair, when I have time to shower.
So this leaves us with the person we hold within. The part of us that holds all the gifts we have to offer. The gifts we have been talked out of revealing to the world out of fear that they won’t measure up, will be rejected, laughed at, jeered or, even worse, fail miserably. Perhaps we have gifts we aren’t even aware of – like a buried treasure. I think there was a singer a few years back on Britain’s Got Talent that just one day tried to sing and turned out he had a voice rivaling Pavarotti. While I would LOVE to sing opera, I doubt that is my hidden gift. But I do believe that I, maybe like you, must have something that is unique and special that will make the world a better place. Hell, at least it will make us better people.
Show up for yourself - we have to do this now! There will be a time when we are no longer on the earth and we cannot wait until then to show up for what mattered most to our souls and spirits. We owe it to ourselves – our innermost, unique, one-of-a-kind selves. How do we show up for ourselves? We try, as hard as we possibly can, to take time to think about US – nobody else – but only US. We think long and hard about what our heart and child-version of us within really wants for US. I will not think that if I looked like Catherine Zeta-Jones, had Oprah’s fortunes, and had every label of expensive merchandise to wear, drive and live in I would be the best version of myself. I will work to be the truest version of me that I can be so that I am the best version of a person for myself and, by extension, my family and friends.
The world can beat us down into submission, where the materialistic self is born. As children we had dreams and aspirations that were limitless. Let’s revisit these because they lie within our beauty hidden within. Let’s show up for ourselves – and make the tapestry of the world a far less monotone masterpiece.
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