Who Are You Underneath It All?
On thriving, essence, + finding awe in our uniqueness
Yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that “Sifting: Pearls From My Inner World” turned One! A full year later and I am still so proud of this collection of poetry + particles from my twenties. The pages that fill this book & the life lessons that led to its creation are priceless to me. Knowing it gets to exist in the world is a true joy.
In keeping with the introspective vibe, a few things I have been thinking on lately -
WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE TO THRIVE; TO CULTIVATE OUR GIFTS; TO LIVE PURPOSEFULLY?
What does it look like to truly thrive in the season of life we find ourselves in? To make the most of our time here? To discover + cultivate our unique gifts + talents? To develop into the fullest most luminous expressions of ourselves? To walk through life with an embodied feeling of “YES – this is how I am meant to feel in my skin; this is how I am meant to show up.”
As we clamor to create our lives by cultivating career paths, identities, relationships, and a sense of purpose and place in the world, outside pressures and expectations can get so noisy. At the bottom of the chaos; at the end of our to-do lists; when we find ourselves with a few seconds of stillness; there is a question that aches to be noticed:
Who were you before the world told you who to be? Before the world told you what to believe? Before the world said: you must become useful + succeed? (I didn’t mean for those three questions to rhyme but I’m so glad they did.)
How do we uncover our natural essence - treat it as the rich, essential soil of the garden of our lives - and grow from that place? Just knowing that we have this soft base layer of our being available to us; this place where we are invited to plant seeds of authentic intention; to rest and revel in —even for just a few brief moments each day — is powerful.
I resonate deeply with the idea that ‘we are human beings not human doings’. That the quality of our being-ness must come first before we think of diving into our life’s doings. Our being-ness, this sense of enough-as-we-are-ness, is our birthright and yet we forget we are allowed to befriend and luxuriate in it.
Our capitalistic culture wants us to race through life trying to achieve and prove and hustle our way to happiness and security and self-worth when it is nowhere to be found ‘out there’. It is hard to trust that we are safe as we are, to soften into the moment with no armor or offering or agenda - to meet and love ourselves there. Still, we can learn to make this a practice.
OUR UNIQUENESS = ONE TENTH OF A PERCENT
I’ve been reading a new book - “The Body” by Bill Bryson – (a treasure trove of a guide through the human body and its miraculous nature) – and was delighted to stumble upon this part:
“All humans share 99.9 percent of their DNA, and yet no two humans are alike. My DNA and your DNA will differ in there to four million places, which is a small proportion of the total but enough to make a lot of different between us. You also have within you about a hundred personal mutations – stretches of genetic instructions that don’t quite match any of the genes given to you by either of your parents but are yours alone.”
How enchanting that one tenth of a percent of what we’re made of is reserved for our individual uniqueness - those characteristics and traits and quirks that make us who we are. And to think that we each get 100 personal mutations - genes that are ours alone, untethered to our family tree? How spontaneous and magical.
Being curious about what our one tenth of a percent holds feels like a fun mystery - an invitation to uncover our miraculous selves. Even though DNA doesn’t dictate everything and holds the full spectrum of possibilities - (including adverse ones like predisposition to disease )- it is still incredible to think that we are made up of such vast and specific information and instructions. That we are so much the same (99.9%!) and yet just different enough to offer our own unique expressions of self to the world.