"I have delivered it an hour since:
There is something in’t that stings his nature,
For on the reading it he changed almost
Into another man"
All’s Well that Ends Well (Act IV, Scene III)
Feeling special is not just about exchanging gifts, receiving compliments or going out on a date. It is also about giving ourselves the gift of truth. Feeling special about who and what we are, for ourselves.
To feel special we have to change what we do and how we feel about who we are. When we say "change our mind" we are typically referring to altering a decision, but what does it mean to change our actual mind? What does it take to renew how we think, feel and act?
We are surrounded by so much noise and nonsense about "learning" and "change", but what does this process of self renewal entail?
I am blessed. I am blessed to be surrounded with true friends in my family and social circles, who keep me honest. I am blessed with truth tellers, who give me daily, sometimes hourly opportunities to feel "real special" about who and what I am. Unsolicited feedback is my daily bread.
Most of my waking days, I fill the void with pointless chatter and hollow laughter. To discover a new me, strip off the old labels and the skin that holds them in place, I have to tear through the walls of my desolate pride. This is not an easy process.
Personal growith and transformation occurs in moments of truth, special occasions, when I bear the unbearable and deal straight up with what really counts. It entails a tough conversation with me on the receiving end of the learning curve.
When the feedback loops right back to me, I need to fix my courage and listen fearlessly till the iron in old truth melts into a hot liquid of awakening, hardening into the mold of a new experience, a new - me.
How do I do this? How does it feel? The text book answers are simple enough. Take a deep breath, step back, let go of attachment to the ego, step through the wall of pride, live in the moment, appreciate endings and beginnings, embrace the great awakening, bla. bla. bloody bla. Words. Turds.
It is all well in the tell, but when the act has to come out of the fact, it hurts like hell. The minute I step out of my voice, something dies. Far from feeling special, I dread shifting out of the warm familiar blanket of my ordinary life. If I let go of my false strength what will become of the only me I know? This is the first rattle of retreat at the door of renewal.
This sound does not hang for long, it is quickly broken by the silent rage of old sanity scurring to protect its borders, in a final fling of self presevation. My rationality slowly lures me back into the cozy rut of tried and tested verbal cues. I retreat from the sheerness of my naked shame, clutching onto cloths woven of guilt and pride to patch up my shiveling ego until I am sucked back into the womb of dreary lifelessness. To sleep once more in the pre-birth pity pit of glorious self denial.
There is the precious gem hidden inside each and every moment of truth. This is the tipping point, beyond which an everyday event can crack open its brittle shell to spill the dawn of special occassion. This is a crude and shameful awakening.
Once I persist through the tipping point, if i ignore the urge to regress, hang onto the thread of truth long enough, the angst extends beyond its breaking point, the readiness rises beyond the threshold of no return, it overflows until the tarnish of my eyes is washed away.
I rise into a tender new reality, fumble around in a velvet venerable skin. Gradually, I begin to relish the scent of the new hide (out), and I have arrived.
The roller coaster ride comes to a gentle stop. I climb out of the pressure cabin of my mind and celebrate the newness in me. The moment of truth is realized. Life is renewed. There is something special in everything I see and do. I have discovered what it means to be special, for my self.
"Not a whit, we defy augury;
there’s a special providence
in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, ’tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come:
The readiness is all.
Since no man has aught of what he leaves,
what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be"
Hamlet (Act V, Scene II)
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