They say it takes 7 years to replace every cell in your physical body. Maybe it takes less than we think.
This is a photo that was taken of me in 2015 that randomly popped up on my facebook feed this morning. Five years ago I had long dark ringlets, was living in Sydney in a 4 bedroom family home, parenting two teenage-almost-adult children, in a relationship, working as a healer and spiritual teacher, spending lots of time with close family and friends.
Life was reasonably predictable, I knew who I was, where I stood with life, and I was happy and contented with that.
This is a photo I took this morning of me as I am today, five years on. I now have short straight grey hair, my two children have moved out and are flourishing in their independent lives having all-but graduated from university, both in beautiful loving adult relationships, both in jobs they mostly enjoy, and I have given away/sold pretty much most of the furnishings that filled my home, as I now live in Melbourne in a small 2 bed apartment in a suburb where everything is within walking distance, and during these five years I've been through 1001 spiritual awakenings and shifts in energies, having let go of pretty much everything I previously identified myself with.
Like pulling a big tree up and out of the ground, taking a saw to its roots, shaking off the soil, giving all the branches a major trim, and then moving it to a whole new place to plant it in new ground to see what grows, I'd say every cell of my entire being has probably been through a complete and total change. I am not who I was five years ago. By any measure.
And yet, very little has to do with the outer circumstances of my life. They were simply the anchors I identified myself with. The greatest change that has occurred has been the change within.
Letting go of the ways in which I previously saw myself has not been easy. Nor painless. However, it has most definitely been a significant part of my spiritual journey.
Bit by bit this part of the journey has prompted me to let go of the limited ways in which I had seen myself. It has opened me to a fuller relationship with Spirit, life, and the world in which I am here to offer my light. Every day I continue to let go of all the false ways in which I identify myself. It is a never ending process of travelling back to the essence of who we truly are, and that which can only ever be found within.
And the greatest gift that comes from this? Giving others permission to do same. To travel back to the heart of who they are, that they too may let go of all the false attachments they have identified with.
What are some of the things you currently identify yourself with? How do you see yourself? What things are you attached to that you would feel less of a person if they were no longer there? That you would feel naked without? Be that physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually?
Identifying our sense of self with anything external limits how we see ourself. Whether it's our our physical appearance, material possessions, the people around us, the roles we play, the things we can or can't do, things we've experienced in our past... none of these things are who we truly are. At the heart of your Being you are so much more than any of these things.
Contemplate how you currently see yourself and feel into the energy of it. Feel into how your perceptions of who you are might limit you. What's one aspect of your current identity you might be willing to see beyond, to explore more aspects of who you that are waiting to unfold?