Sunday, February 22, 2009

Re-creation of myself

"Rebirth" Collage by Stitch

Since I've now begun a new life in California, I decided it's the perfect opportunity to make myself into the kind of person I've always wished I could be but thought I was incapable of becoming.  Perhaps the courage to become my ideal self needed a change of place in order to be born inside of me... but I have somehow come to believe that I CAN really be whoever I dream of being.

But, like any goal, the first step of my journey must be in the discovery of WHO I want to become (for it takes a destination to acquire the proper map).  WHO do I want to be?

In thinking about WHO I want to be I have determined that I first have to think about it in terms of my roles in life (a lot of my thoughts about how to become myself have been come to through the reading of Steven Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and {perhaps strangely} Bartlett's Quotations).  The specific roles I have identified as being those I wish to focus on are:
  • Mother
  • Individual (body, mind, soul)
  • Partner/Companion to Eric
  • Artist
  • Friend and Family Member (daughter, sister, niece, cousin etc..)
  • Business-person
  • Teacher/volunteer
  • Community Member/ Leader
  • Citizen
For the time being I have decided to begin with a focus on the first three roles.  I kind of put these together in terms of their importance in my life and to my (our) overall importance to my(our) happiness.  I am a bit conflicted about the ranking of mother vs. individual because, while I feel my primary responsibility and concern must be as a mother to Lily, I also feel that the best way for me to be a good and responsible mother to Lily is to be happy, fulfilled, and responsible to myself as an individual.  In any case, at this time I think that building a life (and home) for my nuclear family unit that is beautiful and supportive will serve as the proper foundation for my (our) happiness and security.  

In a way I think that my roles, which I kind of think of as my 'circles of concern' can be categorized in terms of their nearness to my central core.  The first three: Mother, self, partner can be seen as internally focused-roles, I will call them my primary roles/concerns. The second three, artist/friend and family member/business-person, are both internally and externally focused and dependent, I will call them my secondary roles/concerns.  The last three , teacher/volunteer, community member/ Leader, and citizen are externally focused roles that I will call my tertiary roles/concerns.  

The reason I feel the need to break these up into categories of concern and closeness is because I feel that it is a nearly overwhelming idea to completely re-evaluate and re-create oneself if taken as a whole.  In my experience, big ideas and goals often require dissection and portioning in order to approach them in a realistic and effective manner and avoid getting discouraged-- at least for me.  

I plan to work from the inside out-- I will begin with my first three roles, thinking about, planning, and understanding who/what I want in my personal/internal life.  I feel that once I figure out who/what I want to be there I will have a firm foundation for being who/what I want to be in my more external roles-- I also deeply believe that until I am who I need to be inside that I will be incapable of becoming who/what I want to be in my more external roles.  The last three roles (tertiary), while important to me in terms of my overall life are concerns that I feel are almost like things I need to EARN the right to do.  

It is very important to me to share my experiences and wisdom with others, to serve my community and the world through volunteering my time and acting as a role-model and leader/servant for others, and to be a useful and effective citizen of my community(ies), country and world.  I feel that as a mother it is even more important for me to achieve the ability to work within these circles of concern because I feel it is important that Lily grows up with a desire to help others and be actively involved in her community/country/world.

So I will now start at the beginning of my journey: my primary roles/circles of concern.  In order to begin to understand where I want to go and who I want to be I will first ask myself how I want to be 'seen' in these roles.  That will be the topic of my next post.

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