Seeing Things Differently – Part 1

Blue Ridge Mountain Sunset, Weaverville, Western N. Carolina/Photography by Gaye Abbott

We come into this world to be astounded. By the magic, mystery, beauty and pure miracle of our being here. Yet that very purpose is often disrupted by the every day ups and downs of life as a human being. Let’s face it, being human can be a struggle and a rough ride.

One such female, a sensitive being, abruptly landed into this high stimulus world over seven decades ago. Into a lifetime with highly tuned visual and kinesthetic senses, which can indeed be a tad disorienting. Attuned to and sensitive to energy she was constantly being bombarded.

Learning to protect those sensitivities meant inhabiting a world of her own. An inner one, where communing with nature regularly, having an invisible imaginary friend and reading in the middle of the night with a flashlight under the covers took up lots of childhood time.

Shy and reluctant to step forward into the life she had been given, the fact that as a young child she was given glasses to wear for being severely near sighted was a mirror for her dependence on that safe inner world. But then there is so much more to physically “seeing” now isn’t there?

As she matured she tested how it would feel to step outside of the mainstream culture into adventure and creative endeavors. However, the comfort of the close in inner world where she could see clearly and not be “exposed” kept drawing her back.

Eventually “coming out” and connecting with others outside of this private inner inhabited world turned into a gradual introduction to how much fun and rewarding it could be to focus on enhancing others well being. With long and successful endeavors in these healing and teaching domains this creative and gifted female would have been labeled a “witch”. In other times she would have been ostracized, or even worse burned at the stake. Many of us were.

There were challenges of course, not the least of which was “burn out” from taking care of others ahead of her own self care.  A potential pitfall of our sex, (men have there own pits to fall into), when taken to the extreme as she was compelled to do. We all have our stories about how we formed such patterns and hers is probably not much different from others, so I leave you the reader to simply create your own story line here.

Gifts of insightful empathic awareness and sensitive knowing, intuitive perception, healing hands and close connection to nature often brought her into conflict with the world operating around her. Somehow it felt like never “fitting in” even in the younger years where it seemed so important to do so. 

Little did she know then that “fitting in” meant a sacrifice of being willing to fully express the best of who she was meant to be. A box constructed to inhibit that wild girl who simply wanted to be free of fear and create the steps to her own life dance.

It took years to accept the abilities and gifts bestowed upon her. Learning to step out of self imposed restrictions laid upon a foundation of fear she innovated, traveled, studied, created, loved and danced her way through the years valiantly accepting that the very hard dark parts were something she would learn from….eventually.

She claimed more of her own unique expression and felt at peace with who she was and the simplicity of the life she lead offering love, kindness, compassion and humor to others at every opportunity. Yet all that she had contributed during her lifetime no longer had much meaning as she entered into the elder years.

Something felt different and had been changing. There was a sense that a force was pulling her into a hazy place where power, creativity and perception were at risk. A veil over the immediacy of the mystery, magic and stunning beauty of this world she still lived in.

Without noticing the dimness that crept into daily life, and the extra effort it took to see things clearly, she simply adapted. Living in a shrinking world feeling cut off from the experience of passion, yet not really grasping the full extent of it. An elder invisible to herself and the culture she supposedly belonged to. 

Where did the passion and desire to explore go? Was it buried under layers of social and cultural conditioning especially since her silver hairs marked her as elder?

Was she unknowingly placing a barrier around herself to protect from the rampant fear and anxiety that humans are feeling globally?

What was she not “seeing” that was real to her soul?

TO BE CONTINUED….

Find out what happens by making certain you are notified when Part 2 arrives! (See below)

Meanwhile take a few minutes to watch the video below on Being Beautiful. I think you will enjoy it?

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Stuff everywhere! Bags, clothes, cars, iPads. We love our stuff. And over time, we’ve come to believe that this ‘stuff’ is what defines who we are. But our possessions will never fully satisfy the inmost desires of our soul. They never have. And they are not about to start. In fact, most of the time, it distracts us from the very things that bring meaning to our lives.

Instead, our lives are defined by the choices we make. It is these choices that define our character, our authentic self. So choose wisely. Do not miss out by placing importance on things instead of people. Pursue beauty, hope, love and kindness. Pursue opportunity to improve this world for somebody else. Let’s be simply beautiful.

Filmed in Grahamstown, South Africa by Reflections of Life. Featuring Theo du Plessis.

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Gaye Abbott, Wildly Free Elder, 02/02/24