“With my personal manifesto as my guide, I have the meaning and purpose of my life against which I can calibrate each change as it arises.”
I wrote these words in Blog #173. How they still ring true at the time of writing this blog #225! Life does change in ways that cannot be foreseen. We are called upon to recalibrate, each time we experience that change, and ask the question, what does it mean for me now?
Family matters have concentrated my focus in recent times. I have been required to dig deep into my reserves of love and care and to give of them to loved ones. In so doing, I have had to let go, or allow to sit, some of my own personal concerns. This focus is not so much new to me, but it could be described as in the dance of life, family matters have taken the lead.
With this focus, part of me may at times screech as I make my choices, “What about me?” Or part of me may ask, “Is it not your time?” I allow myself to hear those voices and I resist scolding myself for having them at all. My younger family members have taught me to allow my feelings, to feel them, and then to let them go if they are not ones I choose to harbour.
I also know that there is the part of me who created my personal manifesto, the one who ‘wishes to create a community of care throughout my immediate family, my community, and society’. This part of self knows that at my core, where my values lie, caring for others, those close and those in all my spheres of life, is paramount. The paradox of ‘in giving we receive’ resonates. The joy of being able to walk alongside others as they navigate their lives, in all that implies, is being able to take my place on the upward slope of The Second Mountain of which David Brooks writes (reviewed in Blog #180). It is living my personal manifesto.
Having calibrated this time against my personal manifesto, I experience the peace of being in my goodness, making choices that realise my best life, my best self.
Warm wishes,
Sue