The Stone People
Breaking free from our self created molds
We are set in stone. Only thing is that it is US who do the carving. It is US who makes the decisions about how to be - and we do this very young, before we are stone people. When we are young, we are supple and spongey. We absorb everything around us – everything heard, everything seen, everything felt by our developing nervous system and we filter it all through our unique predispositions. Over time we become calcified into the rigid egoistic notion of who we are. Our statue of self is well under way.
Our mind has its well-worn paths and today, we believe that we JUST ARE this way. I was chatting to a friend last night, and he said “this is just the way I am, what choice do I have”. I cried a little inside.
Our patterns of processing the world, our patterns of behavior, our habitual comforts, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves – we believe that this is all set in stone and that it can ONLY be this way. Yet what we forget so easily is that WE picked up the tools and WE carved ourselves this way and that. The thing is we are not a finished statue. No, we are a dynamic flowing ever shifting being. Remember when our parent’s used to tell us that if we pulled a funny face and the wind blew it would freeze us into that expression? It didn’t freeze our faces but instead we froze our sense of self. We chipped and chiseled away until we had created the identity that would help us to navigate the world. That would keep us safe from the world. Our armor .
We unveiled our amazing statue-selves as teenagers with proud ‘ta-da’s!’ and we stepped out into the world with all the ‘screw you’ that we could muster (if you’re Gen X you know what I mean!) and we knew that we knew it all. Any and all disagreement was met with more fortification. We locked in for the long haul. Then we toppled head first into adulthood and as we HAD to do this and we HAD to do that, the list of HAD-TO this’s and that’s grew so much longer than the lists on our childhood star charts – and at least in those days we received a star for our efforts. Where are our adult stars we ask ourselves puzzled and perplexed? I’ve only just figured out that nice doesn’t cut it, being good doesn’t cut it, playing by the rules doesn’t cut it, living our stone people lives doesn’t cut it. Life doesn’t hand out stars. Nope, it rewards those who take control. Claim their space. Break the molds - those of their own making and those made by society. Those who pick up their chisel and start a new living artwork, based on their dreams and their innate belief in magic.
So pick up your chisel my friend, your paintbrushes and your magic wand. You are not set in stone. You can create any masterpiece you want. Break the old sculpture to smithereens. Release yourself from your self imposed prison. Your mind will hate you and it will try to stop you at every turn. It only knows what is linked to the past and where you are going is brand new territory. You are an artwork my friend. Isn’t it time you created something beautiful?