A Resting Place

 Ego’s a funny thing. It wants me to feel ‘different from’, ‘less than’, or ‘better than’. It seeks the loopholes in taking personal responsibility for my actions or failures to act. It tells me lies. It gives me justifications. Ego is also an integral part of being human, making us feel separate from our Creator. It challenges me to see how similar I am to my fellow humans, especially to those humans with whom I disagree. 

Today is Mother’s Day. This is the biggest Step 5 day for me, because I can’t avoid confronting the myriad ways in which I fell short of being the mother I wanted to be in actuality. It is a day of clarity. I have deep gratitude for my three sons, as well as sadness for not being everything to each of them - even though I know that that is an impossibility. Today is both a day of reckoning and a day of self-forgiveness for being human.

I am clear about the fact that each of them is on his own journey, and that they all have the wherewithal to meet their own individual challenges. I can be proud of them, without trying to take credit for their achievements or blame for their difficulties. How they view me is not my business - now there’s an exercise in ego deflating!

Knowing these things, naming them, and talking about them allows the Light to shine on them. In that Light, I can see what frame of mind, what beliefs, and what personal shortcomings were at play. I can look at how they show up today and recognize them as old coping mechanisms - ones which I no longer need. I can finally rest in my humanness, and know that with each day, I am free to start over.

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