These Are The Learning Grounds — sara lynn lashbrook

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.

-The Invitation

How many times have I disappointed myself to be true for someone else? To be what they want me to be? To be what they need me to be? To be what I think they want me to be? To be how they want me to be? How many times I have turned my back on myself to be for someone else?

These are the questions that arise when I read this.

How many times have I disappointed myself? How many times have I not been true to my self?

Does this resonate with you? Does this meet you? What do you feel stirring within? A hint of nausea, yes. Nausea, mixed with immense power. Why? For once you know something you can not unknow it. Forget, yes. This happens for me, this forgetting. Knowing something, really knowing something in the core of your being, at the core of your being- is different. There is no going back once this is known. I will never turn my back on myself the way I have in the past. I will no longer succumb to the pull, the draw of being anyone other than me, anyone other than the truth of who I am, of who I know to be.

Can I disappoint another to be true to me? Yes. It is possible? Yes. Am I willing? Yes. I have and I will, again and again and again. The more I take these steps, the more I break out of the old pattern of disappointing myself to be for someone else, the more familiar it becomes, the easier it is. It is the steps, the early steps that are critical to build the foundation to return to again and again and again.

When I forget, I will rise and face myself fully. Meeting myself with the grace that is needed in the moment. Adaptable, responsive, nurturing, loving, enveloping because I cannot get this wrong. You cannot get this wrong. It is not possible. If I ignore the inner knowing, the subtle clues and messages. If I override them thinking my way is better or someone else’s way is better, I will be provided an opportunity to face myself again, to go at it again, to have another chance. What is for me is the same for you.

For that is all we have, possibilities and opportunities.

We have only forgotten this.

These are the learning grounds.

They can be soft and forgiving, padding your fall. They can be hard, rough and cold providing a shock to the system, a call to wake up and see things from a different perspective.

There are only solutions, infinite ways to see, to address, to overcome, to transcend.

If we are willing to see.

This is why we are here, to learn.

For these are the learning grounds.

Meeting you here, for where else can we be, besides here.

With a hug,

Sara