I have always loved the bit in the original Bridget
Jones film when everything has gone wrong at her dinner party - her soup was
contaminated by blue string, and her orange sauce turned into marmalade - but
her friends toast her health "To Bridget, who we love, just the way you
are."
To be loved "just the way you are" is the
most precious gift. And to live as your authentic self is the richest, most
rewarding, and possibly most difficult, way to live. The theme of this year's Hucklow Summer School was "The Authentic Self: Discovering the Real You" and
it was a good, deep, stretching week.
This becoming who you really are is a long process,
full of risk and danger. But also full of light and joy. It is something which
tends to happen more as we approach middle-age, than earlier on in our lives,
unless we are lucky. In the first half of life, we tend to be preoccupied with
growing up, finding our place in the world, establishing a career and a family,
or close group of friends, and then settling into that unique niche, which we
have carved out for ourselves.
And that is good. I'm not saying for a moment that
this first half of life work is not necessary - it is vital. By the time we are
approaching middle age, most of us will have a particular position in the
world, a particular identity, particular roles, whether in the workplace or
outside, and will be identified by particular labels. My principle labels and
roles as I started this inward journey were "mother",
"wife", "librarian", "Unitarian" and
"runner".
This second half of life journey towards
authenticity and wholeness is about the attempt to become whole, about being
the same "you" wherever you are, and whoever you are with, rather
than cutting your cloth according to your circumstances. And it's about doing a
lot of shadow work, about digging deep to discover the real you, the open and
vulnerable person behind the façade you have spent so many years carefully
building. And then working out how to integrate that authentic self into the
real world out there.
It's a tough call. And not for the faint-hearted.
But it is so worthwhile. It is about waking up and becoming aware of what you
are doing and where you are going; about taking responsibility for your own
choices and values; and about working out what is important to you, and then
living it.
Like I said, it's a tough call.
But luckily, there are many tools and wise ones to
help us on our journeys. Such as an empathic spiritual director, a loving
Unitarian congregation, and some wonderful books, such as, in my case, Richard
Rohr and Andreas Ebert's Discovering the
Enneagram, Richard Rohr's Falling
Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, and John O'Donohue's Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Hunger to
Belong. All three have had a catalytic effect on my journey.
The words that work for you, or the teachers that
will influence you will probably not be the same as mine. This is not a journey
for the faint-hearted ... it can (and probably should be) quite painful and
uncomfortable. But to discover who you really are, "with unique flaws and
gifts" as Forrest
Church
