This past week I had numerous conversations with people - clients, friends, strangers on social media - in which I heard the same question in different ways.
The burning thought on everyone's mind was: "What's wrong with me that I don't have the motivation to do anything these days?" The internet would have you believe that a global pandemic is the perfect time for
learning new things,
catching up on all the projects you haven't been able to complete in recent years, and
coming out the other side as a perfectly new human with new skills, such as speaking another language.
Sigh.
If that's you, and you are able to do all these things with ease and joy - have at it! But if it's not you, and you feel guilty (or worse: ashamed!) for not using this time to reinvent yourself, you're not alone. More importantly, however, there's nothing wrong with you.
This is not a time to reinvent yourself; this is a time to remember yourself.
Remember yourself. Don't those two words just feel like a warm hug wrapped in an invitation filled with love and hope?
Before the world made you into who you thought you should be... before you bought in to all the advertising, messaging, and hype about what needed to be fixed in you for you to belong... before you listened to the aspirational stories that made you feel like you weren't enough...
...before all that, you knew yourself. You knew. Somewhere deep down, you knew.
You knew you were happy, without worrying about how you looked.
You knew you were curious, without feeling ashamed for asking too many questions, and
You knew you were strong, without having to make excuses and diminish your strength.
You knew.
When you look at kids on a playground, they're not worried if their bellies are too big, too round, or too different. Nor are they worried about their hair, their hips, or their hustle. No - on the playground, children are worried about one thing (if they're "worried" at all), and that's simply whether they're going to get enough time on the playground.
Ask a child what they want to be when they grow up, and they have the most amazing answers. Everything from astronauts to actors, doughnut makers to doctors - the only thing holding them back is their own imagination. Their Self has no limitations.
There are no external messages telling them they're not enough, exactly as they are.
You are that child. We all are. And deep down, you know who you are. You know who you have always been. When you get quiet enough - when the outside world gets quiet enough - you can hear it. It's that small voice inside you saying, "Remember me."
Now is the time to listen.
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[Photo by Kyaw Tun.]