In the No!: Awareness and Acknowledgement
There is absolutely no turning back from awareness. You can’t hide it. When you learn something new, you even walk differently. Now, the task is how you acknowledge what you’ve learned. That is the art.
Some choose not to acknowledge new truths at all. How do you fit it in, how do you pivot an entire life built on yesterdays knowledge. However when you are old and gray, or possibly even tomorrow, you will hold yourself accountable for what you know…not for what you acknowledged. Somewhere in your bones, you will hold the burden of truth you failed to integrate. This shame concept, we’re obsessed with studying, is evidence of that chasm. Am I asking you to rebuild the entire house based on a new foundation. Of course, not! That is both hard to do, and impossiblye to maintain based on how quickly you retain new knowledge. The build outs though, are worth it.
When I was in my 20s, I actually tried to keep up with implementing everything I’d learned immediately. With that came the need to have others acknowledge it. And generally with it came an impulsivity to my movements. In fact, I came up in an age when people were meeting strangers on the World Wide Web and leaving their entire families and children to pursue new lives. It was the age of sharp turns and immediate changes. This person see’s me differently, therefore, THIS must be the truth of who I am. Now, much later, I see turns as gradual and perpetual. Life movements more as a ship turning in the ocean vs. a basketball court pivot. The more you have built, the further you have come, the more changes become appendages vs. transplants. And what is real, persists. Welcome to your duality.
It’s interesting that good acting is recognized not by “acting” like you don’t know something you know, but reacting to knowledge immediately. So you’ve read the entire script, you know that this is the scene where you get shot, and when you see the gun, you must reach for honesty, and react from that space. That seems to be the approach from which we can turn slowly into truth, that is even to say acknowledgement and acceptance of someone else's truth, without losing your cargo.
When I learn something new about myself, for example, I’m IMMEDIATELY embarrassed! That’s the emotion I feel. And then slowly, with time, something else occurs. I feel freed up. You see, I might be just coming into this awareness but it’s something anyone who has met me has observed, accepted and expects. And when people meet you, they accept you for who you are right then and there. It’s a more individual trait for people to look past what you are presenting and detect other layers to you, or what your potential is. And there’s a whole discourse we could have later about which demographic does that more or less.
This creates an interesting dynamic where you are pushing less against what you hope people take away from a conversation with you, and establishes a more accurate vantage point from which you stand. Integrating that into your life, is the fun part. You find yourself trying less to get people to listen and more, to put yourself in rooms where your unique path and personality is appreciated. Less being like what someone recognizes, and more like extending the conversation, the empathy and the build out to account for your ever expanding, ever evolving intellect. Beware, this means great shifting for those in your life, and yet, if they can get comfortable with constant change, it is around you and what you have created that will create the most accepting space and stage for them. It will be the only place they can feel at home.
Photo Credit: Cottonbro (Pexels)