Modern Day Alchemist

I wonder if I will ever stop the belief that all people are inherently good because what I am finding is that people are inherently self-serving. That is likely not true either. I am just grumpy and frustrated and sad. I see the good in people most days and when I don’t, I question myself and where the feeling is coming from. People are inherently good, it is their life’s experiences that can make them rough around the edges, make choices they may not have made otherwise. I haven’t said this in a while and perhaps it was the odd dream last night and just the fact that it’s been so long, I miss the alchemist. There are so many moments in this life lately that the guidance and support is needed. The undeniable ability for her to process a situation and have me see the lesson. I need to see the lesson here and I think eventually it will reveal itself, today is just not that day.

Some people just get human behavior, she’s one of those people. She has an extraordinary ability to understand people in a way that I have never experienced from another human being and while I am no longer a novice in my studies, I feel like I still have a long way to go. Human behavior is the foundation of why we do the things we do and in the study of it, we learn what is nature and what is nurture. Each component plays a part in who we become as people, as we grow and develop and move through this life from infancy on. No one is born bad. We are all born with a significant level of innocence. Over time, our innocence is stripped away even before we have the ability to make our own decision and commit to our own choices.

I am committed to truly being mindful of me and my actions towards others. I have had my own share of experiences where I have been the one not living up to what I am preaching where I have been self-serving and inconsiderate about how I show up in relation to others. I vow to never live like that again. I lost the Alchemist because I was unwilling to see myself. She catapulted me into a place of learning that I didn’t know was even possible. I found my passion again for reading, for writing, for solitude. She taught me inadvertently how to be alone with myself. I never knew that I could be comfortable by myself, I had never been alone before. Always jumping from one relationship to the next. Never alone long enough to know what it was like to be me. I didn’t even really know who I was until just recently. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin even though I had myself and everyone else convinced that I was ok being me. I didn’t like myself much.

The love of another was what began the process of me truly understanding what it took to love myself and what I needed to do to be loved well by someone else. I wasn’t ready then. I was not even remotely ready for the kind of love that I was presented with. I had a tremendous amount of work to engage in to be able to accept what was being presented at that time. In recent months, I have been able to truly recognize that I had created an image of myself that looked good on the exterior but if you really took the time to get to know me, you saw a dark and stormy woman, unaware of who she was in the world, and who trusted no one, not even herself. I had to learn who I was and who I had become and realized that what I wanted was to be someone who lives in integrity always, who is vulnerable with their lover and friends without hesitation. I had to learn that my wounding didn’t need to define me. That people weren’t abandoning me, that I was abandoning myself. That to foster healthy relationships, I had to open myself to the possibility of love and trusting another human being.

I played the victim for so long; I wasn’t sure who I would be without that narrative. I was angry and aggressive with the people I love, all of them. Especially my children. And it has taken me a long time to make the repairs and even with that the wounding is there and I will continue to work on developing healthier and more solid relationships with my kids. I am working hard to not be in my triggers all the time. To be patient, tolerant, and understanding. As I have reflected lately on my relationship, I am grateful for all I have learned. The one thing that remains missing and I am not sure will ever lessen is the presence that I had. The warmth, the tenderness, the passion. I became passionate about so much by mere association. I don’t think I could have gotten any luckier, unless of course, I wasn’t talking past tense.