What do I feel like I am trying to prove? This is the question of the day in the course I am doing so I thought I’d address it here, where the space is unlimited.

I want to prove to my self that I can change, that I can do this, that I can live up to my potential. Do I tie my self-worth to what I accomplish? Absolutely. How can I not? This is what we are programmed to do from such a young age – that life is about accomplishments, success, awards, recognition. How quickly my thoughts go back to my mother. She knew what mattered, from so early on. Through her actions I learned that a quiet afternoon walking through nature, looking at birds and flowers in the air and sunshine, was the best thing. Just enjoying life, that is the point. It was outside of this bubble that I was shocked. I was supposed to care what people think? Fit in? Race to be the best? Ironically, when I was young I was the best at school without even trying. The work came easy to me, I enjoyed it. I didn’t have to work for it. This, I think, was a key factor in me later not being able to work for what I wanted. When I was young, I didn’t have to. My mother languished in her simple life, without being able, I can guess now, to get her head above water in motherhood. So she just existed. She came to life when she worked, finally, when I was in high school, when she was the happiest I’d ever seen her.

But this isn’t about her. What do I have to prove? I always thought that I’d move out of the small town and small mindedness of where I grew up and prove them all wrong, that I’d make something of my self, by my self, and create a huge, rich, fabulous life as an artist. As an artist, that was the key. I never really even tried, I was too scared to fail – and then who would I be? So I tried a little and got some momentum and then it was too hard. I just needed rest, a soft place to land, and to be loved, and warm. I knew no self-love, I didn’t even know it was a thing. I was in so much pain that I sought love in others, putting the cart before the horse, as my grandmother warned me not to do. She loved me, but her’s was an unspoken, quiet love. No one ever spoke to me and taught me how to love myself. She had probably never been taught either, she just knew how, perhaps because of her nativeness, stripped away just a few generations before, which was what she knew deep down in her soul.

I tried to prove that I was loveable by finding love, never in a healthy way. But here I am now, with a marriage and family of my own, just now learning to love myself. I am still searching for accomplishment to prove that I have a place in this world. I should be proud of what I have accomplished. From the outside, it all looks great. I need to embrace what I have accomplished, and rejoice in it. My career can really begin now, with my passions at the core, but first I must accept my own greatness, not for what I’ve done or who I’ve been on the outside, but just for being human. The greatness in me is the same as in you and as in every human, the same as god and the universe and everything. Simple, calm, true, and as easy as a spring day in the forest, and like the miracle of the woods filled with sweet williams, a sea of blue flowers as far as the eye can see. It is this greatness that I must embrace, the nature in me that has always been there is still there, just waiting for the sun, and the rain, and the right time, to bloom.

As I pull myself out of the ‘prove’ mode, I can see that it can be easy. I have nothing left to prove, all I need to do is believe that anything is possible, that I have a purpose, that I have a gift, or even gifts, to share with the world. I have passions, for love, beauty, sharing, helping, and change that I must share with the world. I just need to let go of that younger me that is so angry and afraid, and alone. I am not alone and have never been so, I have only been scared of being with others, wounded from the past, a past of being trapped in cycles that were not made by me. Now, I am free of these parental traps, this is the gift of them both being gone. They are now both free, able to be rid of the trappings of this world and their recent tours of this earth, and now, I can be too.

I am an artist. I am a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, even a niece. I am still a daughter, and I can recall what this feels like while raising my own children, to try to to better now that the roles are reversed and it is my turn to be a parent. I am passionate about change and helping others to have a voice, to be heard, and to not have to feel like I did because no one ever helped me to know otherwise. It is ok to just exist, to enjoy the life and the time that we have here on this earth, on this tour. Why not? I don’t have to prove anything anymore, I can just be me. That is enough.