My thought for the day: We have to be something on the inside long before it means something on the outside

This just seems relevant in so many ways.

So many of us try to find meaning the other way around. We work so hard on things on the outside to try to make us feel good on the inside, gain identity by living from the outside in. But…. it doesn’t work that way. We have to be something on the inside, grapple with it, let it be in us — wrestle with all the barriers and old wounds to be faced to truly breathe (acceptance and) change into our inner selves. Then.. we can make it real on the outside.

For me, this is about doing family.   For me, this is about knowing my own inner self and my own needs, where they come from, how I seek them (effectively and ineffectively) in the world.  For me this is about seeing my work and its process differently.   And doing this in my own way – in my own time, body, circumstances, and relationships isn’t fast.

One can quickly get an identity, or do the work of getting an identity externally.  Schools, certificates, titles.  Yes, they are all important, but you have to commit to something inside first.   You have to embark on a pathway — *and* make friends with it — before we can be something more meaningful in ourselves. This takes a lot of living to even know what this feels like.  But this is  how we get into a pathway of ‘flow’ — at least greater flow.  I don’t think that all our life goals are up to us, nor is the process always fun.  But wearing something inside helps us live truthfully.

The secret is: Once we decide that this is more important than the discomfort of change, then we don’t have to care as much (i.e. control as much), whether or not we achieve something on the outside & it frees us to be in the process, to see more of what comes, which is a lot more fun (& manageable)!   We must wear it inside first.