Do you ever have those moments when you suddenly feel completely in alignment with your SELF? It’s that inner knowing…
THIS is what I am here for. This is who I AM.
This photo is a record of one of those moments for me. I was at an herbal workshop – actually I went to two workshops back to back! – and it just felt so… familiar. I recognized myself in that space. And I started to make some connections to other moments in time when I really felt like ME.
Maybe you’ve experienced that kind of moment too?
As an adult, I have found myself in a number of aligning moments that have immediately linked me back to my childhood. I think many people are most fully themselves as a young child. For most of us, that is when we are most pure and un-influenced by the world’s promotions & pressures. (I say most people, because there are some who had such early struggles that they never had the opportunity to just BE as a child. First self-awareness may occur much later in those cases.) Also for most of us, circumstances or people in life continually pushed conforming expectations on us as we grew up, until we had to dig through many layers as adults in order to figure out – “WHO AM I?”
I AM A CREATIVE.
When I think back to myself as a child… I was super imaginative, always living in a story in my head – or in a book! I was constantly inspired by those stories, and I would – – make stuff. I made a dollhouse out of an old china hutch, and I made doll clothes & costumes out of anything I had. I made an under-the-sea museum. I constantly made little gifts. I used Christmas cookie cutters to trace fabric shapes and hand-sewed stuffed ornaments. I created bookmarks with yarn & fabric scraps – I was making from my early childhood years and into my teens.
As I grew older, I began to define creativity by artistic (drawing/painting) or musical talent – which I don’t have! So I didn’t consider myself “creative,” and honestly – I had begun to stop making things… But then one day, my sister made a comment about how creative I was – using the example of all those gifts I used to make, even though they were simple little things. And in that statement there was this moment of sudden validation and belonging! I thought – you know what, I AM creative! I felt like a piece of me clicked into place – and I suddenly recognized myself more clearly. That moment of recognition from another person brought me home to my SELF. And I started creating.
I AM A HEALER.
It was when I was using a mortar & pestle to prepare herbs for a concoction – at that same workshop I mentioned earlier! As I took my turn and began crushing the aromatic plants, a sense of deja vu came over me.
I felt myself as a child, sitting in the grass with a bowl in my lap and using a rock to crush aromatic plants. And I remembered a little journal from when I was about eight (8) years old, saying something like – “Pound, pound, pound! I am crushing my plants to make medicine.” I know I was serious about that activity! Even at that young age, I had big dreams of saving lives or finding a cure for disease – – of healing. I would pour through my mother’s home remedy books and her big health reference book. I borrowed books from the library and wrote my own reports and research papers. I had my medical college class schedule planned from the age of twelve (12). I wanted to heal.
But then I started to hear messages that other choices would be better – or more “right” for me. So I stopped dreaming of healing, and I tried to learn to become something else.
Years later, in that moment during the workshop – with that mortar & pestle – I KNEW MYSELF again. And I thought, I am a healer! And I started healing.
This is part of life.
We all experience this journey of knowing, un-knowing, and then re-knowing who we are.
I’ve always thought a lot about life purpose. The big question of “why am I here?” that we are all looking to answer… There have been times in my life (almost 40 years – that’s so weird…) when I thought I knew my answer – and even your answer as well! Haha… But if life has taught me anything – it’s that we never completely know the answers at all.
My current perspective of the big “WHY” is that I am here as a completely unique individual – designed exactly for this time and place. Life is a gift to me, and I am also a gift to life!
My purpose is to live life as fully as I can, and as fully ME as I can.
So I am embracing those moments when I fully recognize myself – and making them a daily reality. And I know that when I am living as ME, I am living my purpose.
Have you experienced a moment of self-realization? Or do you think about these whyʻs the way I do? Iʻd love to hear your thoughts.
xo.
Danielle