What is your true nature?

​Our truest nature

Is it anger, victimhood, comparison, blaming, feeling sorry for ourselves and constantly battling negative thoughts?

No, I don’t think so. I think that these are reactions to a life that is sometimes really hard and really unfair. A life that really hurts, and not one of us is immune to life’s challenges.

Each of us gets to choose our reactions, our responses. This is one thing we do have control over. Life is a series of decisions about the story we will tell ourselves, the things we will believe to be true.

According to “America’s Life Coach” Martha Beck, “Your true nature loves things for their capacity to bring genuine delight, right here, right now. It loves romps, friends, skin contact, sunlight, water, laughter, the smell of trees, the delicious stillness of deep sleep.”

What does your true nature love? Think on these things.

My true nature loves the unabashed laughter of my darling little granddaughters, the precious hug from my 96-year-old mom and the softness of her hair on my cheek, the genuine smiles on the faces of my son and his family standing in the wilds of Alaska where they now live, the sound of excitement in my daughter’s voice as she shares stories of the life she has built for herself in another country and culture, the awe and wonder I feel when listening to my other daughter’s musical creations, the confidence emanating from my client’s whole being as they discover new ways of understanding, the strength returning to my body and soul as I move and explore the local wilderness and spend less time behind my desk at my in-home office, the deer, owls, eagles, hawks, rainbow pools, coyotes, bear and moose I catch glimpses of on my hikes, the sounds of guitar and voice and gratitude I feel for having been born into a family that cherishes music.

In addition, each of us chooses our companions along the way and each of us is influenced by our companions’ choices. “Flocking” may be a trauma response, along with fight, flight, freeze and fawn, and it may lead to “othering” and closing our minds to “the other”. We can get pulled into a crowd that builds an identity around anger, victimhood, comparison, blaming, and feeling sorry for ourselves, and sharing negative thoughts and attitudes. This is understandable but it is not healthy to stay in this energy. Sometimes we are born into our flock, and sometimes we choose it. Flocks may make us feel “right” and “better than”.

If you feel this in your bones and you feel that there is a better way, you can open to curiosity, and to the logic that none of us chose the families or situations we were born into. Blaming others for differences over which they had no control is not healthy.

I choose communities of others who are open, curious, empathic, compassionate and growing, not stuck in unhealthy stories.

​Choose growth. Choose healing. Choose your path of health and well-being.