Take a Selfie!

I’m one of those people that really believes that the Universe, or God, or whatever higher source of energy you may believe in guides us, moves people and places around purposely so that the lessons we hoped to gain will be presented to us and the people that can lead us through are standing by, out of the blue, ready and willing to share that experience. Does that mean I don’t feel like I have choices in life? No, not at all. I believe that I can choose any path I want. The path I take may or may not take me exactly where I start off believing it will lead me.

How many people have started off to college knowing with every cell in their body they were born to be a teacher only to walk across the stage 4 years later as a pre-med student? How many people believed they would marry and have 2.5 children and live in a little yellow house with a picket fence to the man they met in high school only to be horrified that they ever wanted to spend their entire life with that man? And the kids? Well, maybe they couldn’t have children or maybe they did but I am sure they could never have imagined their life as it is now…EXACTLY.

Have you ever looked back at a time in your life and wished you only knew then what you knew now? Can you see how far down a path you traveled, right or wrong, but see it through a different lens? I recall a time when an unmarried 20 year old was pregnant with twins and at that moment in life decided that the partying and the drugs were a have been for her. She realized at that moment in time that this person she was, was not the mother she wanted to be. Her life changed. Her lens cracked and she could see clearly what she hadn’t before. There had been those that told her, she hadn’t heard. Was she a perfect mother because her life changed like that? No, that pregnancy ended but her path changed forevermore. It was a moment in time. A moment that brought forth a desire to be a mother, something she never felt safe enough or sure enough of before that day. That path led her to see herself differently. She took a selfie.

Many times we are so caught up in the moment that we cannot see around it. You can’t see the picture if you are in it. Sometimes you have to take a selfie. Those selfie’s come to us from a lens change. A moment, a friend, a dream, a chance, a change. Sometimes they come while you are in the midst of the picture, sometimes later, sometimes not until you see someone else creating or being in a similar portrait. It is then that our lens allows us to see it differently. They call it wisdom or intuition, they call it coaching or mentoring, they call it many things but basically it is being called. Called to share your story. Called to hold the camera for someone until they can click the button and see themselves through your experience.

Sometimes it is not about a path change but a change in the path. A friend just did a talk on the things we believe because we are told to believe. Trying to locate those things our parents or teachers or whomever gave us to believe about ourselves. “You are fat,” “You are dumb,” “You are ugly,” “You are worthless,” “You are gay,” “You are clumsy,” “You will never amount to anything,” “You are poor,” “You are (fill in your blanks here).” At some point it isn’t our mother or our grandmother or our teacher or our father we hear, it is our own voice screaming those things to us. We become our own bullies and then we become those words or we use those words to limit our becoming.

One day I complemented a friend of mine. She has so many traits that I wish I had. She told me that all that I saw in her was only a mirror of myself, a glimpse of what I already was or could be if I chose. I thought maybe it was only words. Today I heard her say it again, about another friend of hers. She said her friend cried when she told her that and had to go and think about it. I realized, knowing how incredible the friend is she was speaking of, that her friend was all that. Those were not just words rehearsed to make someone feel good. It was a selfie. Today, my friend’s words touched my soul. Today her words became a gift. Today I loved myself enough to hear them through a new lens.

So today I beg, be kind to yourself. Look around at those called into your world by a great big Universe and realize that you are there for a purpose. To share, to love, to give and to receive and we are all surrounded by the greatest expressions of the One, we are all created in that likeness. Love yourself a little more today, take a selfie and remember that you are on the right path, you know that because you are there.