There is something that happens when we give ourselves permission to be ourselves. When we allow ourselves not just time outs to catch our breath before plunging back into the cacophony of all the business and the messages, the expectations and needs, the grinding of the wheels and everyone around us murmuring and gasping and shouting “Look at me??!!!”, but significant lengths of time that is just for us. No other purpose. No plans, no agenda, no need to do one thing over the other, no requirement to be happy, to find a passion or discover a joy, just time. There is something that happens when we give ourselves permission to be ourselves. We start doing just that.
It’s like the opposite of making something from concentrate. Instead of being too much and having to add something to dilute us, we remove ourselves from what dilutes us and begin to concentrate again. Without everything else grabbing our attention, watering down our ability to desire, bleeding out our energy, we start regaining a sense of self. Our batteries recharge. Our interests become deeper, broader, more complicated and more simple. We start to discern everything around and instead of seeing it as a kaleidoscope blur. We begin to recognize that we have connection with things, people, activities, or we don’t. Things we took for granted now become anathema. Things that we wanted now seem like cheap plastic. In allowing ourselves to concentrate, we’re able to experience the world again just as we did before the world filled us up and washed us out.
Concentrating into a full expression of ourselves causes us to spontaneously express. We get a rush of energy and feel like going out to play a game, see something new, or explore. Things that have been in the back of our mind to do now have space to come to the front and our problem solving skills start working on figuring how we’d actually do them. Creativity starts emerging like forest dwellers after the tiger has walked past. Hesitantly at first and then more confidently ideas, urges, designs and desires begin making themselves known. Feelings we had forgotten about come back awkwardly like an old friend we dismissed long ago. We find we have joy in frivolous things, we have energy to do so much more than usual, and things which were a burden either become lighter or we find other ways to get them done. In concentrating ourselves we become more adept at interacting with the world.
