By Denise McKen | Tiny Buddha
“When one realizes one is asleep, at that moment one is already half-awake.” ~P.D. Ouspensky
Growing up, the only truth I believed existed was that of the religion in which I was raised. The truth? The world was ending soon. I left it all behind in my mid-teens.
Little did I know it would take me another twenty-odd year to figure out my own truth and worse, that knowing this truth would initially leave me feeling disappointed.
Once I became a mum, that’s all I was—mum.
The concept of knowing my own truth didn’t even enter my mind. I had never asked myself all the questions that force you to dig deeper: Who am I? What’s important to me? What do I really want?
As far as I was concerned, I had to just get on with it, so the years consisted of a bit of everything. I went from feeling like I was the luckiest person alive for having two gorgeous children, to wishing someone would come along and take over, to feeling like a complete failure, to feeling proud of myself for coping so well.
In other words, I did life—a mum’s life. Sometimes really well, other times, not so well, but the fact is, I did it. The only problem is, I still had no idea about my truth let alone the fact that I could have one.
After many more years, a friend lent me a book, The Magic of Thinking Big. That one book opened my mind to a whole new way of thinking. It helped me realize that I didn’t have to live in hope that my life might change someday. It showed me that I could take charge and steer my life in any direction I chose.
I read about believing in myself, dropping excuses that hold me back, and how I am what I think I am.
All of the information was new to me, yet it made so much sense. I was overjoyed to have been introduced to these concepts that I believed were guaranteed to change my life.
So it’s a shame the excitement I felt and the possibilities I saw in my mind for a happy, fulfilled life were fleeting. I returned the book to its owner and within days, the old adage “out of sight, out of mind” came into play.
I may have read the book twice, but it made no difference. The humdrum reality of my life took over and consumed my mind. I went back to being a mum and justified my life with the very excuses I had been excited about dropping. I had forgotten that they were the reason nothing changed.
The good thing is, once my mind had been opened, it didn’t quite go back to its same level of thinking. Even though I hadn’t changed any habits, I still knew deep down that life could be very different for me and my kids. And then one day, it hit me.
I realized the world hadn’t ended and I was still very much alive, so I still had a chance to make things happen.
One day during a personal development course, I experienced an awkward moment that woke me up to what I had been unaware of all those years. During an exercise, I had to answer the question “Who are you?”
Silence.
