Listening to Elizabeth Gilbert speaking about the heroe's journey, she mentioned that most, if not all, are about Men.
My generation of women are becoming the first who are daring to break the chains and to do differently than the generations who came before us.
Yet, we have no model to go by.
Today on Facebook, there was a quote
"Change is gesturing for me to follow
Waving coming through the open door
As I stand at the threshold
The past tugs at my soul
My heart is torn, which way to go
A step forward is a new beginning
A step back grief has control
Change is beckoning come forward
What do I do
I chose to step over the threshold."
There truly is a threshold we pass over.
A place where inside our hearts break in two.
An old life left behind.
A new one beckons.
I think, I have been trying to totally leave my old heart behind.
And, failed.
I need to allow it to ride beside me.
Like part one of the same book.
Yet the silent part. The part without control.
It's life has been lived.
It ended when I crossed the threshold.
And, a new life began.
Unfamiliar, but very freeing, and different.
Very different.
I get to create this one.
The other one was me following the pattern set in place, doing what was expected and what was approved of.
The difference between the two of us is dramatic and life changing.
The old me, tries to come alive during family holidays. It often weeps for the old acceptance and wants to once again be part of my family of origin. It forgets to remember the reasons we left.
And, even more importantly, IF I were to cross back over the threshold, I would have to leave the new me behind.
The freedom, and aliveness of my spirit would not be accepted back there. Back there in my old pattern, self is often set aside for the good of all. Okay, Self, Self-Love, Self-empowerment, any type of self is cast off to keep the whole alive.
I am not sure I can articulate the difference between my old self and new in the ways we move through life.
Especially the difference when you come from dysfunction.
What goes to keep the pattern in place, goes against the nature of self-love and empowerment.
And, unless you have left and broken the chain, I am not sure you can know the two separate ways of being.
I am not so mystified by those who never break the chains; but I am very curious about those who do, and then seemingly go back.
Yet, I understand the pull of old heart memories and the often unfamiliar place of unknown new experiences.
There is comfort in the familiar.
However, if I were to go back, a huge part of me would die.
The vital part.
My truest living self.
It is good to know and see the two sides of my broken heart.
And, it is good to know, that I am not the only woman who is on this new heroe's journey.
Women all over the planet are waking up and feeling drawn to follow their inner callings.
Hearing the desires of their hearts and souls, to do it differently than the women who came before them.
I would LOVE to have a woman hero in my family. A rebel who I could point to and say "She, she did it differently." "She walked to the beat of her own heart; was caring less about what others said, did and thought of her." "She lived for her own soul and loved herself enough to walk away."
Sometimes, we have to be our own heroes.
I sometimes trip and fall into a crevice of uncertainty and loneliness. Where guilt and unreason try and pull me back. It is the ultimate struggle on this journey, the old heart ache and the new desire of change.
Blending both into a woman who the generations below me can see as someone who broke the chain and flourished in a life well lived.
When I flounder in the puddles of uncertainty, I get lost and lose focus and the path is obscured by doubts. Family holidays often trip me up. For my journey often can be seen as the opposite of family.
And, yet I know, to the depth of my being.
My journey has been to save family.
To bring back authenticity, love, honor and respect back to the meaning of family on our family tree. And, the only way a family can have that, is if the units within the family are strong of self.
Love of self.
Empowered.
Free to be who they were born to be.
Unhooked from any pattern that was set in place before their birth.
I would have to say, that 99.9% of the time, I am so grateful that I stepped over the threshold to a new me! The .1% of the time is the heartache that I travel mostly alone; my family of origin isn't with me.
In order to be a changeling, I had to travel alone.
A heroe's journey to be Me.
