THE LAKE HOUSE (Warner Brothers, 2006) is one of my all time favorite movies, and very possibly my favorite romantic movie. At least I can’t think of any I like better. In it, there is a scene in which Kate (Sandra Bullock’s character) shares with Alex (Keanu Reeves’ character) that her father – who whisked her away from a would-be singing career with a musician boyfriend when she was just 16 – had a dream of her becoming a doctor, and eventually her father’s dreams became her own.
If you ask me, a parent dreaming of their child becoming a medical practitioner is probably preferable to persuading him or her towards…say…involvement in organized crime or a terrorist group. And I certainly admire anyone who has the wherewithal to make it through medical school. All the same, I would rather see every parent encouraging their children to explore the most authentic dreams in the deepest recesses of the child’s heart and soul.
I read two things today (I am writing this September 3, 2014) by two different writers who approach this topic in radically different ways. To me, they are both well-written excerpts which speak to the same overriding philosophy. I want to share them both with you.
The Unwatched Space
I tried so hard to please that I never
realized no one is watching.
I imagined, like everyone else at school,
that my parents were sitting just out of view like those quiet doctors behind
clean mirrors, watching and reprimanding my every move. As I reached adulthood,
the habit continued. I walked around constantly troubled by what others must be
thinking of what I was or was not doing. In this, we are burdened with the
seeds of self-conscious. From this, we trouble our spontaneity and the
possibility of joy by watching ourselves too closely, nervously unsure if this
or that is a mistake.
It is from the burden of others watching and
judging that the need to achieve gets exaggerated into the want for fame. I
remember at different times fantasizing the future gathering like an audience,
ready to marvel at how much I had done with so little. It didn’t even matter
for what this attention might come. Just let some form of watchfulness be
approving, and I would know relief.
It wasn’t till I woke bleeding after
surgery, with all those mothlike angels breathing against me, that I realized
that the audience was gone. I cried way inside, not because I had just had a
rib removed and not because I was in the midst of battling cancer. I cried
because I had not only been physically opened, but also opened beneath my sense
of being watched. Somehow the unwatched space was given air. Though I could
explain it to no one, my sobs were sobs of relief, the water of a de-shelled
spirit soaking ground.
Years have passed, and I wait long hours in
the sun to see the birch fall of its own weight into the lake, and it seems to
punctuate God’s mime. Nothing said about it. Now the audience of watchers is
gone and I can feel life happen in its quiet, vibrant way without anything
interfering. Now, sometimes at night, when the dog is asleep and the owl is beginning
to stare into what no one ever sees, I stand on the deck and feel the honey of
night spill off the stars, feel it coat the earth, the trees, the minds of
children half asleep, feel the stillness evaporate all notions of fame into the
unwatched space that waits for light. In this undistorted silence, the presence
of God is a kiss. It is here in this unwatched space that peace begins.
– Mark Nepo, THE BOOK OF AWAKENING. Conari
Imprint, Red wheel/Weiser, Boston, MA 2000
Is Becoming Your True Self a Scary Thought?
Ultimately, Financial Success is an Act
of Individuation.
Individuation is a psychological task we should’ve undertaken as adolescents, but which few of us (especially women) have actually completed.
Individuation means distinguishing what’s
true for us from what’s been artificially imposed—by our family or society as a
whole—then letting go of what no longer serves us.
What we think we are supposed to be—all the
shoulds, oughts, musts—too often gets in the way of what we actually could be.
I invite you to ponder this: What values,
goals, beliefs have I absorbed from my family that no longer suit me? Then
consider how these may be standing in the way of your utmost success.
Warmly, Barbara. www.barbarastanny.com
Authentically Yours,
Laura
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