I've come upon a depressing realization recently. The me I am today is not conducive to creating the me I want to be tomorrow. If I want to grow and thrive, I have to change who I am.
It's actually a bit of a "duh" realization. I mean, you can't break out of a cycle without changing. If the current you just keeps doing and being the same things every day, you will remain the current you. I think I've known this for a while, but have been willfully blind to it.
I'm not going to miraculously wake up a different person one second before I need my different-person skills. It is actually that different person that is going to make my dreams real.
By "different", I'm not talking about changing who I am at the core. In many ways, what I'm talking about is reclaiming parts of myself, such as the drive, energy and discipline I had in my 30s. Those are all things I admired about myself, but lost to age, illness, laziness and a lack of vigilance.
I KNOW I have what it takes inside me. In fact, I believe I have what it takes to surprise myself and everyone I know with all I'm capable of accomplishing. Twenty years have passed since my 30s. I'm way more mature and balanced and considered these days. So I know I have the tools to accomplish so much more than I did in my 30s. I'm just having a hard time accessing it right now.
This past week I had some sort of stomach bug. I was nauseous and poopy for the greater part of four days. During that time, I couldn't keep any nutrition in my body and nearly passed out on a dog walk. When I got home, I checked my blood sugar and it was about 100 points higher than normal...nearly double what is healthy. Blood sugar will spike on an empty stomach, but I had never seen mine so high.
In that moment I really realized how dismissive I'd become about my health. I mean, I know I'm overweight and have asthma, which is dismissive enough. But I had never had an adverse reaction to anything because of my diabetes. It really drove it home for me that this body...this person in this body acting the way this person currently does...cannot achieve the things I want to achieve. This person who tolerates clutter in her home and in her brain cannot achieve these things. This person who sees everything as a justification to nap cannot achieve these things.
I feel the woman who can accomplish these things inside me, though. She's really just beneath the skin waiting to come out. I resist her for reasons ranging from fear and self sabotage to exasperation and doubt. Part of me is readying for one last push. Another part of me feels defeated by all the attempts I've made in the past five years that kept failing because I was too sick to follow through. But I'm not sick anymore. And while I use that as an excuse, I really can't credibly do so anymore.
I often ask myself, if I learned I was dying tomorrow, would I have any regrets? And, frankly, I believe the answer would be no. I'm not one to have regrets. I did what I was capable of doing at the time. But would I be disappointed that I didn't write my book and spent the last few years hastening my demise? Probably. For a moment. Again, I did what I was capable of at the time. It would have been nice to be capable of more, but I wasn't.
More than anything, however, I would be disillusioned. I truly believe we come here for a reason and while I have spent quite a bit of time putting the word of personal growth and spiritual alignment out in the past five years, I believe I am called do even more. So I would be disillusioned that I wasn't given adequate time to move past the personal obstacles that keep me stuck in that regard. Not that it's anyone's fault but my own. On the other hand, maybe I'm being too hard on myself. I mean, I HAVE published 1200 essays on the topic.
So anyway, that's where I am this week. In some ways I'm at a turning point. In some ways I'm afraid I won't take up the opportunities I have available to me. To quote the movie Taken, "I have a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career." Using those skills comes very easily for me. It just really comes down to what part of my personality will win? The part that lives to create things that move others? Or the part that lets depression and self-defeat get the better of her?