Who Are You Becoming?
“She was becoming herself, casting aside that fictitious self we assume like a garment. ”
What are you casting aside like a fictitious garment you’ve been wearing to cover up what’s beneath it?
I have been thinking a lot about how we grow as individuals, in relationships and collectively—as a whole—lately. With everything going on in the world and in the skies, I imagine many of us have growth on our minds.
At the most superficial level, I shared a few months ago that I got a new rolling desk chair for my home office that looks much more feminine than the old one, but I now also have a new faux leather and butternut wood futon to more comfortably hold Write, Embody, Heal groups from and hold space for my Soul-based Coaching client practice sessions. My dad also carefully put tinted window coverings on my office windows to keep the California summer heat out during the late afternoons, so I can still do Reiki healings with my summer altars and work from the desk or futon!
It seems small, and yet, it’s the small things that can bring such joy sometimes!
I’ve been missing a couch to sit and relax on, a couch to furrow deep inside its folds and hide myself under all the decorative pillows, a couch to cuddle my cat, Kierkegaard “Kiki” Mao, on, and a couch to show up (or even show off) on!!! Another great thing about this couch is that it serves as a source of support for me to receive my own healing sessions on, which makes me incredibly happy.
And, like my clients, I am shedding my false selves in a dialogical process of unraveling the old fabrics that no longer fit.
My new print from Obvious State is placed quite appropriately above my new futon to draw the most attention within a Zoom frame! 😉 I have fallen in love with this Kate Chopin quote and had it framed specifically to hang in my shelter-in-place redecorated home office above the futon, so I can take these words into me and carry them throughout the day, as can clients or friends who see them hanging there above me in all their power and beauty.
Power and beauty are two words I use a lot to describe myself and what I appreciate or admire. And, in the work I do, I can’t help but encounter my own garments used to cover my vulnerability.
My bowler hats hang everywhere at this moment as I practice (and resist practicing) for my final Tamalpa Institute Level 1 Weekend Training Final Self-Portrait performance, entitled “Confronting Love: Freeing the Dancer Within.”
And, in the process of doing my own shedding of layers, my personal work this month and for the next year will be on confronting, changing and transforming my relationship to being vulnerable and casting aside those garments to truly be unleashed and seen.
Little changes like this feed my soul! I was once told by a friend that no one redecorates as much as me . . . Maybe it’s because I’m constantly changing myself, and I like to reshape my creative space to grow alongside me and reflect those changes back to me.
