Who You Were Born to Be
My birthday is in August and anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I adore birthdays – my own, yes but also others’. To me, there’s something special about celebrating a person for no other reason than being born. (I also tend to send happy “birth” day messages to mothers on their children’s birthdays to give credit where credit is due!) Birthdays feel like they honor the essence of the person — not their jobs or their accomplishments, only the gifts they share simply by being in our lives as who they are.
As I’ve gotten older, birthdays are cause for self-reflection. If I had been given a magic book depicting where I am now when I was 10, 25, or even 35, would I have said, “What happened?!” Certainly, but isn’t that the wonder of life? After all, the lives we imagine for ourselves can hit big roadblocks of loss and wonderful synchronistic opportunities — all converging in the phrase, “Life happens.”
When we live in our humanness, those twists and turns can be challenging, yet when we connect to our souls, our spirits, our inner light – something bigger than ourselves — and trust that knowingness, our lives begin to expand. Psychologist Donald Kalsched, Ph.D describes the soul in this way, “… a vital animating core of our embodied selves – a certain essential something that links us (through love) to the divine, to each other, and to the exquisite beauties of the natural and cultural world. We know the soul when we experience it.” This grounds us in our ability to connect with who we were born to be.
Rumi put it this way, “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”
The idea of connecting with our souls as a way to express who we were born to be echoes in the mission of Soul Seeds – “expanding individual consciousness and honoring each person’s innate wisdom.” We are currently in discussions with two organizations that work with youth and families on stable housing and social emotional services. We are excited about the potential to not only share our meditation techniques to help them cope but also to help them discover that expansive part of themselves. It feels like beautiful gifts we will both give and receive.
Each chapter of our lives has moved us to who are born to be. We cannot get lost in regret or nostalgia or anxiety about what will be. Each step, each turn is a way forward, as in the lyrics of Who I was Born to Be sung so poignantly by Susan Boyle. “Though I may not know the answers/ I can finally say I’m free/ And if the questions led me here, then I am who I was born to be.” And that is cause for celebration!
Melanie Davis-Jones (she/her/hers)
Executive Director
In Case You Missed It:
August Frequency Forecast | blog or video by founder, Nancy Rebecca. “This month of August is all about adapting to the rapid changes in your new environment quickly, no matter what is happening.”
Resources:
August is National Wellness Month, “a time to focus on your self-care and healthy routines to better manage your stress.”
The Spiritual Heart: A Scientific Inquiry | HeartMath Institute
For people experiencing homelessness: Housing Resources list and Landlord Liaison Program (Pierce County, WA)
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