Whose Life is Mine?

It was after 8-months of foot pain and 3-months on a cane, an MRI report showed that my foot condition was severe and chronic. Something the doctor said we’ll manage. But, it is not repairable.

A few days of tears were followed by various problem solving ideas to possibly keep me in ballet classes, and more dire, keep me in my livelihood as a personal trainer. I began to regain hope. Then my mom called!

Bringing mom up to date on my prognosis was met with, “Well I have back pain everyday!”
“Yes mom, I know. Thankfully you don’t have to make a living on your feet any longer.” This sentiment was met with more layers of self-proclaimed hardships and her thick skin until I hung up and burst into tears.

There’s a big black hole that children raised by narcissists or addicts can easily trip back into. The belief that they’re UNIMPORTANT and IRRELEVANT.

Thankfully I have another, more helpful, belief: the greater the pain, the greater the potential for growth. And, I’ve learned that, the only way to the other side of a hardship is through. There is no getting around it!

So, I allowed myself to feel unimportant deliberately. And a funny thing happened. It felt easier than wishing or insisting on being important.

I am UNIMPORTANT. It’s root sentence being, I am me, helped me discern the difference between the “I” and the “me.” In that moment, the grander “I” encompassed who I am inspired to become; while the “me” represented who I’d been.

But it can be challenging to surrender the importance of who you’ve been. It can be interpreted as giving-up on yourself. But it isn’t that at all. It’s stepping-up within yourself. It’s understanding the power struggle between “I” and “me” within your own consciousness.

• When speaking with mom: “I” share my circumstances so mom can align with my life, but her self-absorption makes “me” invisible to her.
  • “I” was aligned and visible to her. Her self-absorption made “me” invisible. Visible versus invisible.
• When dressing for a date: “I” consider who I’m meeting and align my outfit to unite us, then others indulge “me” with an above the rest attention on my style.
  • “I” aligned and united with my date. Their compliments made “me” superior to another. United versus superior.
• When sharing my course details with potential clients: “I” want to impress upon them the merits of mind body alignment, while closing the sale validates “me” as an authority.
  • “I” align with the merits of mind body alignment. Selling them on its merit validates “me” as being needed. Mind body alignment versus me.

“I” and “me” often experience conflicting truths. Letting “me” be unimportant meant that I could focus on the greater RELEVANCE of “I.” The “I” that is in alignment with her own life and relieves others of any responsibility to that end.

My big black hole lit up!

Others may or may not validate “me” as IMPORTANT, but “I” am always RELEVANT. Relevant because, it can elevate my “me” into alignment with my “I.”

IMPORTANCE and RELEVANCE were synonymous before this insight. The purposeful, inspired, expansion of “I” is now able to deliberately oversee the goals, impressions and judgments of “me.”

To keep myself RELEVANT, “I” commit to the RELEVANCE of all “me’s.” Whether they inflate or deflate “me” with their own inner conflicts.

To turn up the light in my big black hole is to:

• Recognize the importance of making my mother visible… for my own visibility.
• Give attention to having been inspired by my date… for our union.
• Validate the merits of my clients, before me or my course step in… to demonstrate the value of mind body alignment.

It is not selfless to make others important. It elevates your own relevance.