What does it mean to ‘become’?
‘Becoming’ can be a joyful process it can also be an arduous journey where we can become discouraged and disillusioned.
Often at the point when we break down we are actually breaking through and ‘becoming’ who and all we can be.
“This one is going to break me.”
Her voice was heavy and flat.
She’d fallen into a dark hole.
She didn’t have the energy to climb out.
She was a truly remarkable woman. Endlessly positive and hopeful, able to extract humour from any situation, a survivor who had come through experiences that would have flattened the toughest of us. Her ability to rebound and embrace each as an opportunity to grow and evolve was truly inspirational. But this time seemed different, she was tired and exhausted her reserves depleted.
I thought back to a conversation we’d had years ago. I’d taken her words to heart, “every experience is a gift bringing us closer to our fully evolved selves. All our planned and unplanned experiences, conscious and unconscious thoughts bringing us closer to ‘becoming’ who we are created to be”.
Her words got me through so many tough times. I saw gifts I hadn’t seen before. I learned to be grateful for the good and the not so good, to consciously choose my thoughts and replace negative with positive, to be at peace with the fact that my highest good was not something I could control and was often in the hands of a power greater than myself.
I came to see ‘becoming’ as the highly individualized process it is and to not be afraid of the times when I felt like I was broken beyond repair.
Becoming is different for each of us.
In her case ‘becoming’ involved working through extremely challenging life experiences, in my case learning to manage disabling anxiety. These are all small challenges she would say.
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” she’d say, “it’s not a smooth straight line this path to ‘becoming’ it’s fraught with bumps, cervices, tsunamis, roadblocks, detours…… BUT with a bit of perspective we can always look back and see how they were necessary to move closer to ourselves”. This was the ‘gift’ that she often referred to.
This time she needed to be reminded of what she so deeply understood.
I found it in the writing of John Roedel, an America writer who frequently publishes his conversations with God. He has some pretty profound chats, all characterized by his amazing wit.
His exchange on ‘becoming’ was exactly the message my friend needed. The one we all need when we lose hope, feel worthless or broken. The perspective shift that puts everything in place and allows us to move forward revitalized, grateful and full of hope.
To get back on the path to ‘becoming’ we need the right message at the right time. This one did it for my friend. It did it for me. I hope it does the same for you.
BECOME! BECOME! BECOME! by John Roedel
Me: Hey God.
God: Hello, my love.
Me: I’m falling apart.
Can you put me back together?
God: I would rather not.
Me: Why?
God: Because you aren’t a puzzle.
Me: What about all of the pieces of my life that are falling down onto the ground?
God: Let them stay there for a while. They fell off for a reason.
Take some time and decide if you need any of those pieces back.
Me: You don’t understand! I’m breaking down!
God: No – you don’t understand.
You are breaking through.
What you are feeling are just growing pains.
You are shedding the things and the people in your life that are holding you back.
You aren’t falling apart.
You are falling into place.
Relax.
Take some deep breaths and allow those things you don’t need any more to fall off of you.
Quit holding onto the pieces that don’t fit you anymore.
Let them fall off.
Let them go.
Me: Once I start doing that, what will be left of me?
God: Only the very best pieces of you.
Me: I’m scared of changing.
God: I keep telling you – YOU AREN’T CHANGING!! YOU ARE BECOMING!
Me: Becoming who?
God: Becoming who I created you to be!
A person of light and love and charity and hope and courage and joy and mercy and grace and compassion.
I made you for more than the shallow pieces you have decided to adorn yourself with that you cling to with such greed and fear.
Let those things fall off of you.
I love you! Don’t change! Become! Become! Become!
Become who I made you to be.
I’m going to keep telling you this until you remember it.
Me: There goes another piece.
God: Yep. Let it be.
Me: So… I’m not broken?
God: No – but you are breaking like the dawn. It’s a new day. Become!! Become!!
Fall in love with the process of becoming the best version of You
May you take these words to heart and go forth on this day and every day thereafter embracing the process of becoming all you were created to be my beautiful friend.
Make Oh My Word your partner in Becoming
Use your Oh My Word journal to ‘become’. Every day choose a one-word intention that represents who you want to be, how you want to feel or a quality you want to being into your life. Follow the Daily Ritual. Your subconscious will look for ways to make it concrete. On your way.
Wrapping you in love,
Cheryl x
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You can get it here.
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