Self awareness

 There is more to self awareness than self awareness.

Things happen that make you stop and think, make you wonder why things happen the way they do. Today is one of those days.

It is my mother’s birthday today. She would have been 89. She didn’t make it. She died of cancer in the last days of 2013. She didn’t want to die, fought tooth and nail till the bitter end. I learned a lot from her: what not to do more than what to do, although the what to do’s still ring in my ears and in my mind.

I have a vision of my mother that doesn’t/didn’t match the vision that others had of her or that she had of herself, or at least I don’t think it did. My memories are tainted by my experience of her, and probably of my expectations of how she should have fit in my reality, or more precisely of my idea of what my reality was.

I think the biggest lesson I learned is that we get it wrong. We can spend ages searching our souls in search of ourselves, learn acceptance of ourselves and others, we try to let go of our ego and embrace the shadow. All good stuff, worthwhile effort which ultimately enriches us and makes us better people. The darnest thing though, is that when we engage with others we still project. We will never be quite able to guage what they are thinking of us, whether what we are, what we say and what we do is acceptable to them. We are taught not to care, but of course we do. We like to be liked, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Mum didn’t search for her soul, rarely accepted people for who they were, and never let go of her ego and the sense of who she was or thought herself to be. Mum believed everyone she met loved her. Who was I to tell her that very often they didn’t. She loved too, we just often didn’t understand how. Her way of showing it was so different to what we wanted. But love she did.

I can’t stop getting it wrong. Why should I expect everyone else to get it right.