unbecoming

Sometimes a blog post writes itself because someone else hits the nail on the head so hard you can’t ignore it or say it any better!  This David Bowie quote and the additional thoughts shared by Glennon Doyle on Instagram today is one such post.
It also adds meaning to a post titled ”Unbecoming” that’s been in my draft folder for many months that begins

”Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.
Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place”
(author unknown)

Some days I marvel at how far I’ve come, dealing with anxiety, work related stress, infertility, baby loss and the unexpected bone wearying exhaustion of  being a parent.  Some days I wonder why I’m still triggered by things from my childhood, teens and life pre-children.  I take comfort at least that I am discovering, painfully and slowly, that there’s always something to be learnt from our mistakes.   Growth only comes from walking the difficult path to challenge the person formed in the shadows of the opinions of other and encourage the person you really are to wriggle free and into the light.  Perhaps thats what the phrase ”Life begins at 40” really means?

My boys are asleep upstairs and I shall soon crawl into bed between them and end my day counting my blessings. I’m always too tired to read and if I try to by day L just bats the book out of my hand but the one book I’m getting glimpses of at the moment is Brene Brown’s ”Braving the Wilderness – The quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone”.   I’d forgotten what the book was actually called and when I re-read the quote about unbecoming was reminded instantly of it. It seems to me that the journey to unbecoming is on the same road as true belonging.  A journey that enables you to be so comfortable in your own skin that it doesn’t matter to you what anyone else thinks.  So much so you don’t need to belong anywhere or be anyone other than your beautiful, unique self.