I used to understand the essence of self and life as singular – that there is one path we’re meant to walk and one self we’re meant to actualize in this lifetime. Of course, we wander around trying to find it, but the ultimate goal is to arrive at the one true thing.
But thanks to recent happenings and some amazing conversations with coach-astrologer extraordinaire KJ Sassypants, I see it another way. Becoming ourselves is not a process of narrowing or stripping away to get to a tidy, unified something; it is a process of living into the paradoxical plurality of the varied – and sometimes conflicting – forces, energies, motivations, traits, and desires that make us “us.”
There’s definitely a certain kind of narrowing that comes with clearing out the gunk we’ve absorbed from the culture, unwinding the unhelpful stories we inherited through our lineages, and dispelling the lies we’ve internalized from the voices around us, but the more I’ve done the work of unpacking and releasing what I no longer want to carry, the more I’m finding complexity, not simplicity, at my core.
What I’m seeing now deep down in myself and in the beautiful humans I work with is not a simple self, straightforward destiny, or clear answer; what I’m seeing is beautiful chaos, irresolvable multiplicity, and unruly paradox.
In a world that often wants to shrink and flatten us (into compliant citizens and eager consumers), reclaiming our multidimensionality, complexity, weirdness, and apparent contradiction is a life-affirming and radical act that’s profoundly important.
Living from this space of all-and (KJ’s phrase) with integrity and alignment requires an expansion into ourselves and into the world. It means embracing the unwieldly internal chaos and paradoxical mystery that is always pulling us past the edges of who we thought we were. It means reaching toward new horizons of meaning. It means living a big life.
For me, this perspective has been super liberating. Instead of jumping into the fray of endless internal conflict or fighting with the aspects of me that don’t always get along, I’m forging unlikely truces, building imaginative bridges, and just showing up as me. I’m embracing the convoluted weirdness in my own self and in others and appreciating all the ways this makes life more interesting, expansive, and magnificent. So shine brightly and weirdly and paradoxically, friends. The world needs our real selves.