becoming a self in history, becoming a self in my street

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