Kerstin Cuming
Being afraid to hurt anyone
Being afraid to offend anyone
Being afraid to say the wrong thing
Being afraid to make any mistakes
Being
afraid to move in the world
Being afraid to take up space
Being afraid to speak
For more than two decades I was desperately trying to change myself into someone else because I was told
— and I believed — that I was not good enough the way I was.
I lost myself in the process and was
becoming increasingly meek, heartbroken, empty, tired, invisible and silent.
NOOOOO.
A sound so unfamiliar, enormous, exasperated and raw erupted from my throat and escaped my lips.
It rose up from the deepest forgotten parts of my belly.
It had grown, taken shape and
gathered strength during those many long years of desperation, loneliness, silence, fear and self-doubt.
A force so strong it shook every single cell of my body.
This single moment in time was my
turning point.
I had found my voice.
It was the tenderest beginning of my becoming a
self, becoming my Self.
From that time onwards my journey is taking me one courageous
step at a time on a soul-expanding, life-affirming and freeing new adventure into life, which is best described
with words taken from the poem The True Love by David Whyte:
…and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all the struggle
and
all the years,
you don’t want to any more,
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love…
Poem quoted The Truelove from House
of Belonging ©Many Rivers Press, Langley, Washington
www.davidwhyte.com