"Maybe you're a woman in search of a word." - Sofi... Eat, Pray, Love
I was inspired today. I watched "Eat, Pray, Love" and was truly inspired. Not so much by the idea of taking a year off to live in Italy, India, and Bali, but more by Liz Gilbert's purpose behind her travels. It's about personal growth; finding peace, forgiveness, and the ability to love and respect herself. It's about a woman searching for a word that defines her more deeply than daughter, wife or girlfriend.
I was inspired today. I watched "Eat, Pray, Love" and was truly inspired. Not so much by the idea of taking a year off to live in Italy, India, and Bali, but more by Liz Gilbert's purpose behind her travels. It's about personal growth; finding peace, forgiveness, and the ability to love and respect herself. It's about a woman searching for a word that defines her more deeply than daughter, wife or girlfriend.
I've read before that our personalities are set by age seven and that only traumatic events can cause permanent, meaningful change. Many would argue that we continue to develop as we age because we continue to experience. It must come down to this: Which events in our lives do we consider to be traumatic enough to make us change? Is "devastated" a synonym for "traumatized"? The devastation of my breakup is about a lot more than the end of a relationship. I almost ended up losing everything that I worked for, and somewhere along the line, I also lost a part of myself.
Now, what steps do I take to support my physical, emotional and spiritual growth? A change of diet and exercise seems easy enough, but is a lot harder in practice than in theory. People who are spiritual may go on some sort of vision quest or become more involved in their church/temple/ashram. Some may start a project. More adventurous types might search for new experiences. I say "All of the above!" I mean, try enough things and something has got to work, right?
With my presently limited income, what do I do, where do I go, how do I begin? Where will my journey to self discovery take me? It has started with this blog, my project, and while it has certainly been helping me in my healing process, sitting in front of my computer is not doing enough for my soul, much less my butt.
Not being a traditional church going kind of girl, my first inclination is to turn to meditation. Not the envisioning my future kind of meditation, but the sitting still and quieting my brain kind. (Hear that?.... That is the sound of the people who know me laughing hysterically.) It will be a challenge, but first steps often are. So, I'll start there. I'll start with my search for a word by looking deep inside myself.
http://www.personalgrowthplanet.com/
I think you should go to burning man! That event is all about self discovery, growth, meditation, community involvement and love. DO IT :D
ReplyDeletePersonal growth, finding yourself is always important. Always changing. Always finding different meaning. I don't believe we need a traumatic event to make a change or find ourselves. BUT obviously it does push the idea to the front.
ReplyDeleteSometimes finding ourselves can be in the middle of our routine lives... even though on the outside, all is good, on the inside we have those titles you mentioned and nothing more.
How does one start on the path without a life changing event to push forward?
and Burning Man sounds interesting. Was just watching Malcolm in the Middle a day ago LOL and they all went to the event. Hilarious episode. Maybe a little performance art might be the answer? ; )
"How does one start on the path without a life changing event to push forward?"
ReplyDeleteWe have to be motivated to make changes, and the pain of a traumatic event is pretty darn motivating.
Maybe, if we recognize that we need to change a path, we can be proactive and keep the traumatic event from even happening. Maybe the IDEA of losing everything we have, that is truly important to us, is motivation enough.
The challenge then is being honest enough with ourselves to recognize it, and strong enough to do something about it, before the point of wanting to just give up.