I always choose a window seat when I travel, looking out onto the vast expanse of sky makes me feel like anything is possible. As though I could put on the wings of the plane and soar through the clouds, dipping and diving to my heart’s content.
As I watched the clouds more intently, I noticed the many shapes they became. Some expanding, some contracting, doing what they needed to do to play their part in nature’s dance.
I thought about the rigidity I had experienced when I became consumed by my work identity. The intensity of feeling that I was work and work was me, living in one shape, set by expectations and external measures of success.
I have learned to understand how our association with an identity can impact our ability to explore, expand, and express. Identity is often assumed from the society around us, our work, or our upbringing. The influences we encounter along the way play a critical role in shaping who we are.
The shape of us is molded and set, often remaining set in the shape others have created for us. Our ‘identity’ is not our own, but rather an amalgamation of our interactions.
When we realize this has happened, it is often the moment our quiet inner voice whispers something does not feel right – we have lived for too long in a way that does not feel aligned with who we are at the core.
Within our core, lives our truth. Our unique truth. The thought of embracing our truth is frightening because we are rarely encouraged to do it.
Settling into one shape feels safe and familiar; we see others living in the same way, walking the same path, and we get used to it, we survive. But we can rarely thrive.
We thrive when we are connected and living in alignment with what feels uniquely right to us.
You know that feeling you get when you make a decision and your whole body tingles and your heart space is full of love and encouragement? You feel alive.
As we grow up, the focus is on belonging to what is around us, not what is within us.
It rarely happens with just one thing, expanding our experiences and trusting our authentic abilities, empowers us to explore and express ourselves in many ways.
We all have different dimensions of our authentic selves; we rarely allow ourselves to explore them for fear of failure or judgment, for fear of knowing our true selves.
We can be many things, we can enjoy a variety of careers in our lifetime. We can reinvent ourselves whenever we want, we can shapeshift just like the clouds in the sky.
Giving ourselves the space to connect, root, and get to know our true selves, gives us the courage to expand into shapes we could never have imagined.
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