Heart of Strength: Forgiving One's Self

I am sure that in the course of this year, I will have a lot to tell of trials and tests of strength. However this entry is about my experienced in making mistakes and finding joy in moving past that moment. It was also inspired by a prayer stone my parents gave me when I left home. On the stone, one word was engraved.

Tuesday after Labor Day, Alex, Becca and I had a meeting with Jack. We got our schedules which had us working in some combination or another in each of the four departments of service. They consist of youth, children, elderly, and community service programs. We were told that we would start our scheduled work the following day.

After our meeting with Jack, we went to the library to get library cards. So I had the chance to checked out a book called "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success" by Deepak Chopra. Personally, I thought it was an ok book. Some of it bugged me a bit and some of it was things I already knew. However, two things stood out to me since I hadn’t thought them before. 

One is that silence is hard. Even when we are not talking or around any sound, we are not truly in silence. Because our minds or still thinking about stuff and it is hard to empty our mind of the sound of thoughts. 

The other is the difference between our objective self vs. our realistic self. In one of my business classes I was assigned to read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". In the second chapter it talked about “starting with the end in mind.”  How do you see yourself being remembered. I can safely say how I would like to be remembered by others, but I can't tell you how I see myself without feeling ashamed for coming up short of that ideally self. I have learned that this image of how I wanted to be seen might have some fragments of me, but it was overall an objective “me.” I have to face myself, flaws and strengths, honestly. I knowing that at times I am going to make mistakes jumping in to new work and building relationships with the people who I am helping. I also know that by jumping in and making mistakes I will learn how to do the job right. I know that I never want to make mistakes but the truth is that I am going to make mistakes sometime down the road. I am growing to be ok with that truth about myself and know that I will grow stronger because I am ok and I'm going to learn. 

I have also started become more active on Facebook again after being off for two years. I am glad to see what everyone has been doing lately. The weekend following the start of work here, a good old high school friend of mine updated her art gallery on her Facebook page.  

(Just to note: I loved to draw pictures all the time in high school. Any time I had a pencil in my hand and a paper in front of me I would love to drawl. My Seiner year of high school I drew so much that my hand hurt. I did draw in college but not as much as I did in high school and when I graduate from college I had a hard time getting myself to draw. It felt more like a chore than a joy to draw. I did not feel joy in the moment that I started or finished a drawling. Only in the brief moment in the process would I find joy.) 

But as I was looking through her artwork, I saw something that I felt that I was missing. The feeling of being ok. Of a simple joy and a simple love in her art. With me learning to be ok with myself, and seeing art with that same feeling of being ok. I finely found my old childhood feeling of the love of art. So once again, it is hard for me not to want to drawl because I am looking forward to each picture that I am working on and the next one I am going to work on. And if they are not perfect or my idea of good quality, I am ok with it. Why because I had an old friend tell me once, "the thing about drawing is that you can always erase a mistake." For me it can also mean, "If I make a mistake in work or in life I can always find a way to ask for forgiveness,  learn from my  mistakes, and continue to walk forward in life learning along the way".  I can learn from making mistakes and learning from others and their mistakes along the way. We can't undo a moment in time but we can make the next moment better by our strength to learn and forgive.

Oh, the word engraved on the prayer stone: “Strength.”  I know that there is still more to learn about “strength” and I am going to be open to learning what else comes of it.    “Strength” is my prayer.