Who You Truly Are

As I continue to walk this path of life, I have been keeping close to me one of my all-time favorite quotes, especially in the past couple of challenging years, dealing with the ‘joys’ of an aging body.

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ~Cynthia Occelli

For most of us, the essence of who we really are is encapsulated in the shell of our conditioned mind. But each one of us is that seed germinating inside our shells, until life comes along and cracks us open, and the seed of our essence can grow into the fullness of its potential.   If you are not being cracked open right now, it will happen. For in this land of impermanence, everybody we love will die before us or we will die before them. What can we do with this startling truth that will actually heal us rather than shatter us? We can either relate to the major challenges of life by feeling we are being crushed, abandoned, and punished by life, or we can show up and let our hearts be cracked wide open.

Has this time been easy for me? Absolutely not. Have I had moments where it feels like it is all too much to bear? Absolutely. But is my heart more open to myself and all of life after this intense time? Yes! And am I more present for even the little things, with an awareness of the preciousness of it all? Intensely so.  The seed of my separate, conditioned self is being cracked open and life can now flourish inside of me in wonder, awe, and trust.

Do we have to like these cracking open times? No. They are not usually likable, but they are trustable. Life knows what it is doing. As Stephen Levine says, “Letting go is freedom. Letting go is the opening into the flow of life that allows you to see that each moment is just right, giving birth to the next. There is nothing askew, nothing amiss in the flow of life. It is perfection.”

Whether you recognize it or not, in all your longing for things, people, and experiences, what you truly long for is to be cracked open enough so that you can come back to the joy of being fully alive. So may you trust whatever life is offering you, most especially the difficult, because it is a doorway into who you truly are.