28 September 2006

Friends and Strangers

Have you ever had that moment when you suddenly realized that a person you THOUGHT you knew quite well was, in reality, little more than a stranger? Funnily enough, the exact same thing can happen in reverse, as well. Sometimes you meet someone, and while your conscious mind knows that you don't know this person at all, your heart tells you that you're close friends. Even stranger than that, BOTH of those scenarios can happen internally in the relationship you have with yourself. You may be flying along through life and, suddenly, one day awaken to realize that despite the fact that you live with yourself and know all of your stories, you don't know yourself at all. That's not an uncommon thing. The reverse is something I recently experienced.

I have been studying a lot about the way the brain works, and I've been applying the things I'm learning to my own thought processes. My goal is to change the way I think so that I can exhibit my better characteristics more readily and completely eliminate my less desirable traits. Essentially, this means that you change the person you are to a stranger with different viewpoints about life. It suddenly occured to me, today at lunch, that this stranger I'm becoming is someone that I know very well. I realized that I'm happier, calmer, and better with the new thought processes. They fit me in a way that's familiar, despite the fact that they're entirely new and different from who I once was. I came to the realization that the reason that this stranger is a friend is that she is the person I was meant to be all along. She is a soulmate that I never knew I had. I didn't want to be friends with me before, and now I'm this wonderful, beautiful person that I never saw!

It's funny, because I tell my friends that I wish they could see themselves the way that I see them-- as beautiful, valuable women who deserve so much better than they think they do. And now, I'm experiencing what I wanted them to have. I'm seeing me as being the woman that others must have seen, in spite of me. (They had to be seeing the me I'm seeing now, because nobody would want to be friends with the me I saw in the mirror before!) So, here's the thing: studying, bettering yourself, growing as a person, and refusing to stagnate are activities that all of us must do. Just because you're not a part of an organized educational program, or DESPITE the fact that you are a part of one, is not an excuse to cease learning. School has its place, but education is something that cannot and should not be confined to institutions or curricula or some such nonsense.

If you're sick and tired of yourself, but you just can't figure a way to go anywhere without you, then change who you perceive yourself to be, and in turn, the person you become will astound you by being a complete stranger who is the closest friend you've never had.

Much Love.
L~
Check out this video. This is nuts!!