Welcome to My Reality

It has been well over a year since my last blog post here. I've still been scribbling in the margins of life whenever and wherever I can--in journals, letters, through poetry, on napkins... I even started another blog centered around a very particular part of my life's journey: http://lifeinloss.blogspot.com/. But lately I've been feeling pulled to return to this space and continue processing and sharing what I am learning about life and myself through my various life adventures.

Over the last several months I have been processing a lot about the experience of meeting new people. It has seemed to me the biggest obstacle in getting to know someone new is the very fact that I do not, yet, know the person! Allow me to explain. I've discovered that when we meet someone for the first time, EVERYTHING is literally taken out of context--because there is no shared context. Thus, when we first meet someone, what we experience of that person seems to have much less to do with who the person really is and more to do with our own personal projections onto that person. Because there is not yet any shared context, our brain kicks into gear trying to assimilate that person into the context of our own personal history of thoughts, feelings and experiences. Our brain is trying to, at least temporarily, fill in the blanks for what is not yet known. We work to make that person fit what we already know. If we are lucky, as we get to know the person over time, our false assumptions will fall away as we begin to genuinely experience who the other person really is--a shared context begins to develop and we learn how to more accurately receive them, so to speak. This will happen more easily when both people are fairly self-aware and possess effective communication skills.

All of this reminds me, again, of why I love this quote by Anais Nin: "We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." I think this means that in order to begin to authentically see things as they truly are, or at least come closer to this, we have to be open enough that we are willing to be changed, ourselves. Otherwise, the world is always going to look the same to us, and our experience of "reality" is going to be so much more limited.

I've also spent a lot of time over the last several months trying to define myself--it's been an engaging, dynamic, self-reflective process. Frustrating at times, as well. In meeting new people, I repeatedly keep running head-first into the question, "Tell me about yourself..." No matter how I answer this question, I'm always dissatisfied, as it feels like I'm being forced to sum up in just a few small words something that can't be condensed to that level without significant, meaningful pieces of myself being lost through the process. During my traveling for this Thanksgiving, the words to express this experience finally started coming together (solo road trips are great opportunities for life "processing"!). I share them in the poem below.

You ask me who I am
But I can't tell you
For I've realized the very moment I define myself
I suddenly cease being who I say that I am
For there is no box large enough to contain me
My soul is living and dynamic, open and fluid
I engage the world
And don't fear being changed by it
Yet in spite of this I remain constant
I love, I think
I observe, I reflect
I question, I admit
I admire, I believe
I strive, I pray
I fall, I rise
I laugh, I cry
I hope, I feel
I sweat, I breathe
I dance
I sing

I am
Present and future, more than the past
Possibilities more than regrets
Living into my potential
Becoming more myself every day

I see the problem now
We try to use adjectives and nouns to describe ourselves
But we are, in fact, verbs
Our actions speaking much louder than words

And this is why
I cannot tell you who I am
I can only show you
But it is going to take a lifetime