Coming home to yourself
I write this sitting on the shoreline in south Tasmania, Australia. I’m celebrating my birthday today surrounded by fragrant eucalyptus trees, bird song, bouncing wallabies (we’ve seen five this morning!), a very fresh breeze, and clear blue skies.
When the day-to-day has been chaotic, tense and emotionally charged like it has been in Hong Kong these last few weeks and months, it feels strange to be somewhere else where life carries on regardless and as if the anguish in Hong Kong isn’t happening.
I’m feeling grateful for the choice that I have in my life and holding softly the paradox of joy and peace in myself today and the compassion for the pain and fear that others are experiencing right now.
Over the years, as I’ve got quieter on my birthday, I can feel this sense of returning home to myself. Astrologically, the Sun and the planets Mercury and Venus, all return to the same position in our natal chart (a snapshot of the sky at the moment of our birth) on our birthday.
If you let go of all the societal connotations about getting ‘old’ and where you ‘should’ be in life at any given age, and use some quiet time to reflect, give thanks and feel deeply, you can feel that sense of returning home, a spiral back to oneself, and as I’m reflecting on 40 years of life I feel it more than ever!
Growing older for me has become just that, a growing with each year, a returning deeper to all that I am (the good, the ‘bad’, the great, the sometimes ugly), and to my belonging, feelings, body, will, voice, purpose, healthy connection to self, others and spirit. It’s become increasingly clear to me that my purpose is this journey, this journey of coming home to myself, so I can support you in doing the same.
‘Coming home to yourself’ may be a bit of a flouncy statement, but as a practice, a journey, an exploration of personal mastery, I believe it’s essential in these shifting, chaotic and complex times.
It’s being at home in your body, it’s feeling what you feel and knowing that it will move and change, it’s having a clarity about who you are and what you believe in beyond your roles and responsibilities, it’s trusting yourself deeply, it’s knowing your own power, it’s knowing what you stand for and building an everyday life that supports you to stand for it.
Everyone’s path is different and my birthday wish is that today and everyday you always find your way back home to yourself.