House of Mirrors

It’s amazing the perceptions we hold of ourselves whether true or not. I was having this conversation with my beautifully crazy best bud last night and I guess on the other side of the line she must have fallen off her chair that’s how hard she laughing at me. You know the laughter that says “oh but you are so special”? In the process of telling each other how amazing we think the other is, I started telling her how I genuinely believed that I was a very shy and quiet person until I had my daughter who is a loud and rambunctious little creature with too much personality in her chubby 10-month-old body. She has an extremely independent and very happy disposition. When my daughter pulls one of her special stunts I often ask her “whose daughter are you?” and often the silent response I get is “Yours”. I realise now since she came into my life how much I reflect and mimic her personality and the more I peel off my supposedly ‘shy layers’ I find I am more comfortable in that skin than in my previous one.

 
So there was Tanya laughing at me because she was like in what Universe did you believe you were like that? Clearly in my self-created universe I thought I was like that. Somehow this perception was confirmed by my high school teacher who in my year-end report in telling my parents what a joy I was to teach said I had a very “placid and quiet nature”. After that I did not need further confirmation, it was done “I was placid and quiet”. I swear if you have to go to my CV right now, my personality profile has ‘calm’ somewhere in there.

 

 

The Sunning Moments

 

One thing that makes my daughter extra special to me is that she has opened this treasure trove inside me that I think I had made myself believe was something to be out-grow. She has changed all that. I want to have fun, laugh more, play more and best of all write more. I laughed when a colleague at a seminar described my personality as ‘sunny’. I nearly fell off my chair then because in my mind ‘Thembile’ and ‘sunny’ were very diametrically apart. The odd think though is that if you had to ask me how I would describe my ideal self I would tell you in my mind I am wearing a yellow/ white sundress with a sun-flower in my hair (I love sunflowers), bare-foot and I am prone to beautifully random dancing.

 

Remembering that conversation this morning I was reminded of one of my favourite movies – Enter the Dragon – I absolutely love martial arts movies and in particular the house of mirrors where Bruce Lee fights the Han. I remember watching the movie and how frustrated and petrified Bruce Lee was in that room because the images were so distorted and he could not see his enemy and he thought running away or avoiding who he truly was the solution. He learnt later he had to face up to his demon. In the last scene Bruce Lee realises that in order to change the image and reveal the truth he had to shatter the mirrors. How many of us keep mirrors so that we hide our real selves. I think sometimes we grab onto an image that helps us to survive and deal with the world around us. Bruce Lee had to shatter the mirrors before making before he can fight the Han and his men. Perhaps you keep dealing with the same challenges in different form over and over again. For me I have had to get to a point where I asked myself does what I see really show who I am and the answer was ‘No’. Slowly but surely I am shattering the mirrors in my mind.

 

Here is my prayer, blessing and hope for you: I pray that you get such clarity about who you are that you fairly vibrate with it, I pray that whatever true You, you are hiding in there moves so much within you that you have no choice but re-imagine yourself and let that beautiful light shine. I pray that you are challenged to find the beauty in who you are whether you are able to define it for yourself right now or not. Just don’t hide.

 

 

Love and Light

Thembile Cele

A Woman Re-Imagined

The Divine Thrust

Tonight I received a very valuable lesson in letting go. As a control freak in transition I thought I was really getting a hold of this letting go and trusting in my higher power to take care of the rest thing. I trust God but tonight I realised I didn’t trust Him with everything. There is that one spot I think I had hidden even from myself that in my subconscious allowed me to retain some form of my control. It reminded me of the hocruxes left behind by ‘He Who Shall Not Be Named’ a.k.a. Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter. For those not in the know a ‘hocrux’ is a powerful object in which a dark wizard or witch has hidden a fragment of his or her soul for the purpose of attaining immortality. I realised that I have been keeping a hocrux or two to measure how deep I went in surrendering to this great destiny I see for myself. Unfortunately for me I believe in a God of complete surrender and if you pray for and meditate on ‘complete openness’; complete openness is what you will get.
So my little ‘hocrux’ was revealed to me. I realised that in my drive to finally get my dream going one thing still holds me back, complete trust. My ability to let go and trust in the unknown, specifically for me as a Christian trusting God without a doubt. I now realise that this was the cause for my mental block, my inability to put my plans in a proper strategy to implement my project. The control freak in me still wants the 100% assurance that this thing will work out. I do not for one second doubt that this is my calling and I do not doubt that if I do not do it ‘NOW’ I will forever live to regret having clipped my own wings. I now understand the feeling that Icarus must have felt before he took those wings and clipped them on his back. I am sure he asked himself the very same question I have been asking myself but that isn’t the point is it? Because that sensation you feel under your skin, in between every cell in your body that says ‘NOW’. Your dreams scream in that voice and you just get no rest from it. Every breath you take and give aches of it. Icarus just wanted to fly, the sun had nothing on the fire that was burning inside him.
I was trying to control the fire that is why I was keeping my little hocrux; my fall back point. I forgot that to completely let go meant that I had to unshackle everything and no amount of subterfuge would help. I don’t know what you call it but I call it the ‘Divine Thrust’, the proverbial kick in the ass from God, the Universe or whatever you want to call your Higher Power.
All I know is that no matter what, there is no ignoring it. I can only obey.

 

Love and Blessings
Thembile
A Woman Re-Imagined