Cocooned or free!

I enjoy talking about my life particularly my life's experiences whether in work related stuff or my own limited but profound travels. One of the areas that remain a sacred cow dear to my heart has been the art of hiding my inner feelings about the people I really care about and often find myself either in self denial or in an utmost lie about it all.

We all do; our needs are borne out of the myriad of hidden desires and cravings that create a special us that is so often not in the purview of those around us. There are those among us who see right through our facade, at times when our own resistance is low or we let our guarded self down, we are revealed.

Walking along the sea shore at my village beach provides a rear glimpse of the life that persists; the sight of those multicolored sea shells and the occasional conch shell find, reminds you of your own life's vulnerabilities. As those brave yet soft-coat creatures seek growth and new opportunities for survival, there must be willing to get out of their current comfort zones and venture out of those shells. The moment of exit creates intense apprehension even fear; beyond such unknown always lies the fore knowledge that it is all unknown.

Yet to remain is certain death. Designed to grow the space will become too small and living within such confinement can be suffocating, demeaning, perhaps humiliating for living to the full becomes limiting. Our lives as Homo Sapiens are no different; we experience these intense need for growth and movement ever so often and we observe sometimes in painful reality those things: places, people, and positions that hold us back, that create the fears to venture out to move forward, to even embrace new realities as they unfold.

Life is such mystery. God in His clever design had orchestrated this dance long before we existed and it is a rational expectation that each one of us will, whether we like the experience or not, be exposed to or must encounter it. To delay the process is human but it is inevitable; it is our human destiny.

I see in my own life those moments when I had to face such; I remember my own high school days when as a boy I had earned the reputation for being the most troublesome the "baddest egg" amongst a crowd of 300 even if I was the tiniest one. The art of defiling rules, being the clown, demanding what I wanted, outmaneuvering fights, taunting girls, engaging teachers, cursing, even while being in the top five students. By the third year I felt the urge, that inner call, to become more than a guy with a reputation defined by others. I learn hard and fast to be open to a new life changing my inner environment while being in the same place! Yes I learned to grow.

The mistake today is to believe that the need for such growth is a thing of the past; looking back for a moment I see those times when that prompt vibrated drawing on that treasured path. As long as we are alive we will be called on to grow out of our own selves and to become new beings undefined but real, hidden to the onlookers but apparent to those who care to watch more carefully and to watch with love. It is when we are most vulnerable our true character is revealed and when challenged to grow we must remember that despite our best efforts to hide our selves, we will never be able to do so from the Universal One who fashioned and now is recreating us!

I pray that we are ever open less we remain dead while alive. As one individual summed it all up, "you are going to be dead for a longer time than you are living, so make the most out of life.....just enjoy life....live!"