building inner sense

There are a million and one different "me's" inside this persona I present to the world.

All of them are like little pieces of a jigsaw that when put together make up the whole of who I am.

When that jigsaw called "Self" is in disparate parts... putting those pieces in can be a trying time of frustration and concentration.

As you know with jigsaws - pieces only "fit" in one place in one direction. The pattern must "match" or.... (yep! ;))... COHERE to make the outcome - the final picture - become real and observable as a beautiful thing.

Making sense of who I am, what I want, where I want to be, and just how I view the world around me is a daily journey of discovery.

Some days I find pieces that show me doubt and fear. Other days I find pieces of me that show me my joys and desires. There are scary pieces that refect anger, pride, ego-centric needs and there are lovely pieces that reflect my abundant sense of fun and wonder. They all make up the totality of the person I am.

In ALL these pieces of me there is a deep PASSION... to BE as I am - whole, integrated, my SELF.

That SELF I hope to see when all these pieces finally slot into their respective positions? Confident, joyful, peaceful, not given to emotional blackmail or pathetic neediness, strong minded but not strong-willed, independant, gracious and kind, giving but not manipulative, honourable and ethical, fun-loving and child-like but also wise.

Is that too much to ask of ones SELF? No! I don't think so! But it is a process. A daily journey of seeking forgiveness and starting afresh without rancour or petulance about yesterdays gone awry. It IS about approaching life from the reality of the NOW instead of living in the past and/or the future. It is about BEING as one is and admitting when the pieces are not fitting properly and taking responsibility for that.

The best thing about this process? We don't do it alone!

God is there forgiving us every moment of every hour of every day for our mistakes and errancy.

Family are there to keep us grounded in the now and help us to not get too esoteric or ridiculous in our search for coherence of the SELF.

And in this temporal world we live in... one of the most precious gifts we have been given - to help us on this daily journey of discovery - are friends. Not acquaintances or simple passers-by who just acknowledge the mis-shapen picture of ourselves - not yet whole - and make their assumptions based on the holes therein... but real friends who love us, know us and keep helping us to seek the right fit for that piece right there that has our current attention. Be that piece the "lonely gloomy" part of me, or the "fun-loving, generous" part of me - they don't discard any of them but help me to integrate all these pieces into the construct of the final picture - loving and enjoying each part because it makes ME who I am in the end.

The people who BELIEVE in the potential of that final picture are the ones who make all the difference to our sense of SELF. These are the people God gives us to be his hands and feet to us - his living arms and his open loving heart. These are the the people who bring sense to our lives and make things more coherent. These are the people that make being Whole important and worthwhile.

For what good is it to be whole in ones SELF if one cannot make it better for ones friends. :)

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It is with some awe that I add this link to Alexys Fairfield's blog over at Unraveling the Spiritual Mystique - she wrote, just a few short hours after I posted the above, on the same theme of Jigsaw Puzzles :) It says what I'd like to have said if I could write like her. Thanks A. You rock! :)