Tag Archives: transformation

Minding My Metaphors

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The older I am, the more I rely on metaphor. I don’t think I have met a metaphor I wouldn’t try. I am reminded of a line from a May Sarton character, Harriet Hatfield, who says that if you “run metaphor into the ground, it suddenly doesn’t quite work.”

I could not agree more but still, I pursue metaphor. It is a life lens for any occasion. Metaphors reveal us–they peel back our skin–in the shedding, we are transformed.

I have never known this experience to be easy. When the metaphor has run aground, everything changes. My skin no longer fits. Metaphor is hard on relationships.

Some will expand with new possibilities; others will simply grow increasingly distant. In transformation, no one and no thing continues just to maintain the status quo.

Avoiding conflict is like throwing a boomerang. It always returns. This metaphor grounds itself every time. Yet, I keep expecting that it won’t.

In shedding, I sit with my emotions as they explode. I handle my old skin gently, slowly moving through the drama of not being enough for others. I accept that and leave the skin behind.

I am revealed, scars and all. All the things I will never be give way to all the things that are yet possible. I find comfort in compassion, love, equanimity and even a bit of joy. These are the forces of transformation.

I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
— Edward Everett Hale

I have yet another metaphor to meet it seems.

Aim for Even posts offer equanimity a dose at a time. No day or dose is ever the same, even if the aim is. You may read about the origins of Aim for Even here or on this site’s About page.

Grace Revisited: Still a Mystery

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As Anne Lamott said, the mystery of grace “meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”

No one and no one thing is immune.

We need not understand the mystery to experience it.

Grace strips away the nonessential, revealing our core— who we are— in mind and in body.

We have one body in a lifetime, and we require much of it. It delivers, ever adapting and adjusting to offer up the best experience available.

It is the heart that must make the mind bold to life anew, and somehow, it always does.

Grace moves us to deeds we once thought impossible.

Aim for Even posts offer equanimity a dose at a time. No day or dose is ever the same, even if the aim is. You may read about the origins of Aim for Even here or on this site’s About page.

When on Mornings I Hesitate

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I may meditate every morning but it is not that I don’t hesitate. Especially on winter mornings when I would rather remain wrapped in my comforter. change-010417

It is then my thoughts turn to the warrior butterfly— bodhisattva— who forsakes the firm ground for walking on air. 

Such dramatic change does not come overnight but over a series of nights.

Each stage from ground to air is fraught with life ending possibilities. From the stillness of the larva, the caterpillar stirs to search for sustenance, consuming one leaf after another.

There is a reward for all this eating, and it is not rest but pupa spinning—a chrysalis—chamber of tissue, limbs, and organs that once crawled will one day fly.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly,

but rarely admit the changes it has gone

through to achieve that beauty.

 Maya Angelou

Patience, human.

No new life emerges until the old is transformed.

Aim for Even posts offer equanimity a dose at a time. No day or dose is ever the same, even if the aim is. You may read about the origins of Aim for Even here or on this site’s About page.

Curiosity Makes Sure No Door is Locked Long

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Curiosity is the key that opens the life experience for us. The path is the obstacle; the obstacle is the path. Either way, curiosity unlocks doors.

Every time we enter, we change. We face transformation, accepting who and what we are. Transformation is a lifetime practice, and it is never too late to be who you are.

I know. I’m 64. I did not begin until six years ago but I am in it for the duration.

Change is scary but strip away the fear I must in order to go through another door. After all, this is my life experience. Why resist? Curiosity’s spark, an urging to discover, will not let me rest.

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It is the stuff of transformation, this leap of faith, so basic to understanding the ever-evolving self. I look in every nook and cranny of my heart–especially the wounds–where I find yet another facet of the obstacle that is my path.

In practicing self-compassion, I open myself to the life experience with an evenness of mind. In transformation, no door is locked long. Curiosity sees to that. The practice is to accept impermanence, knowing mayhem will pass and come again.

I learn so much from my body’s physiology. It has one mission: live. In orchestrated acceptance, every cell adapts to an ever-changing environment. No cell is excepted. The body meets what comes next–rather fearlessly, I think.

I take a deep breath and sidestep my fear and begin

speaking from the place where beauty and bravery meet—

within the chambers of a quivering heart.  

Terry Tempest Williams

Aim for Even posts offer equanimity in daily doses. No day or dose is ever the same, even if the aim is. You may read about the origins of Aim for Even here or on this site’s About page. 

In Mayhem, There is Merit

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Impermanence visits our “sacred circle” even when we face heaven and hell with an evenness of mind. In mayhem, we meet transformation.

Transformation is not five minutes from now;

it’s a present activity. In this moment you can make a different choice,

and it’s these small choices and successes that build up

over time to help cultivate a healthy self-image and self-esteem

 (Jillian Michaels)

I’m fascinated with the idea of transformation as a present activity. In a single moment, we face a choice between same-old, same-old or going all in for transformation.

Transformation opens us to what has never been so there is no blueprint, and I would argue, no labels of failure or success.

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I’ve been glossing over the immediacy of transformation and moving straight into its life changing effects. Transformation involves process but each step requires an immediate choice.

In many ways, I was viewing transformation as an eventual mindset. Mindset is where we are when transformation comes to call and then upheaval ensues.

Mindsets are not without merit, not at all. They are our bank of experience yet they, too, are subject to change.

In transformation, we enrich our life experience. Even in mayhem, there is merit.

Aim for Even posts offer equanimity in daily doses. No day or dose is ever the same, even if the aim is. You may read about the origins of Aim for Even here or on this site’s About page.