Inward

I’ve quit many many things growing up.

I quit a lot of sports.  My memory probably isn’t 100% on these images, but I remember a few sports I quit.  I tumbled and did gymnastics until I rolled on my head, so I quit (four or five years old).  I got kicked in the stomach playing soccer, so I quit (six or seven).  I didn’t like baking cookies with my scout master lady, so I quit (six or seven).  I moved cities and never played hockey again (ten years old).  I broke my neck playing football, so I quit (16 years old).  And there comes a time when you have to stop quitting.  It is no longer the option.

Part of becoming an adult is realizing you can no longer simply quit.  You can’t quit your bills.  You can’t quit your family.  You can’t quit your best friends.  You can’t quit much of anything anymore, and in some ways its habitual.

As much as I want to believe I can change, or become different, I am finding out that I am fairly hardwired.  Old habits come back, old thought patterns I thought I was done with resume.  I say things I wish I hadn’t, and I continue to do the things I wish I didn’t.  There are things I am because of my past.  I was listening to a podcast where this guy said we are always putting on a face.  We are always presenting our self somehow.  We are trying to portray certain things about ourselves we want others to see.  Even if you want to portray someone who doesn’t care…. That is still an image you are trying to portray.

The reality I have fallen into is how those images we try to present to others will never be the final truth of who we really are.  In other words, you are more than who you try to portray.  You are more than the masks you wear.  You are more than the clothes on your body, and the shoes on your feet.  And who I am matters.  Who you are matters.  We need people in our lives to call us more into our true selves.  The self we don’t let many people see, even ourselves… (That’s confusing).  What if we get so caught up in our own images, we don’t truly know or like our deep inner true self?   What if we have grown accustom to our personas, our masks, our outward selves that we never truly know who our inner true self is?  Or want to?  What if we like this person we made up?  And what if we are afraid to see who we truly are?  Or also let someone else see who we really are?

I’ve been finding truth in stillness.  I have been trying to take ten minutes a day to focus on my breath, to sit, to listen, and to simply be.  Sometimes I can do this without any problems, but most days this is truly a crazy battle.  I may not be able to change much of my hardwired personality issues, but I can sit still.  I can listen to my breath and know that inside I am different.  That I am not the wrongs I do.  I may not be able to quit being me, but I can stop and listen more.  I can be still and concentrate.  Maybe I will find how I am not the mistakes I make, and I am the inner true self deep in my core.  And so are you.

Maybe other people may not be able to see past your personas and masks you wear, but if you know who you are, and listen to the stillness, you will understand more and more.  You will get more in touch with who you are, and others might stop being an addiction you care about.  Other people might stop being the focus of your personalities you try to portray, and maybe you can start to portray this inner person?

I hope that as I continue to not focus on my outward self, my actions, or mistakes, that I can find my true inner being.  The one self I can possibly start to love.  Maybe when I find my true self inside I can learn who that is, and who God says I am.  Maybe if I take ten minutes to quit this busy noisy world we watch, maybe if I stop being someone I try to portray, and maybe if I listen to my inner self I will be able to see a beautiful self I have always known was there.

Bless