As we pulled out of our driveway and turned our car to the east, we were greeted with a beautiful sunrise, as the sun struggled its way over the hills on the other side of the city.
Reds and golds cascaded over the sky, bouncing off the early weekday clouds, and filling the morning with such a beautiful feeling of transcendent peace.
Except I could see very little of it.
Because that morning we were taking our ‘back-up’ car, which is my old and beloved Buick. It doesn’t look like much, but I’ve driven that car for many, many miles, and like an old sweater or a rumpled jacket in the midst of the cold of fall, sometimes just driving that car is a comforting pleasure. But since I don’t drive it every day, there are times where it just sits under a tree for a while, accumulating dust and grime.
Especially, and this is the important part for today, right over the windshield.
So as the morning broke over the foothills, all of a sudden my view was blocked as the sunlight bounced off not only the detritus of nature on the outside of the car, but also on the buildup of condensation and assorted moisture that we as humans exhale, and which somehow ends up inexplicably pasted onto the inside of the windshield of our cars.
And so we did that funny little dance of desperately turning on the windshield wipers while trying to find something with which to wipe the inside of the windshield enough that I could drive safely.
I’m sure you’ve experienced this once or twice in your life – that sudden moment of not being able to see anything as the world in front of you gets blocked by too much light, and not enough clarity. Maybe it’s been inside of your car or with dirty sunglasses, but maybe it’s been because of the fallout of the all the things that have happened in your life that have clung to your soul, obscuring the way that you see and feel this marvelous world into which we are born.
If you don’t feel like that last sentence applies to you, chances are you are exactly the person who needed to read this post today.
Because we all have things in our past that have carved their passing on our souls, and yet most of the time we don’t realize it. I recently had to have the same discussion with two different coaching clients, both of whom were determined to argue their point that a certain thing in their childhood (and in one case their entire childhood) had NOT had any trauma in it.
It’s times like these where I get to be the bearer of both bad and good news.
Because it’s a hard thing to accept that something in our past is blocking our way into the future, and sometimes it’s an even harder truth to accept that we can learn to let that go, and see the world differently. Very often the scars that we hold onto deep in our souls have been there so long that they feel like they are a ‘part of us’, and letting go of them feels like tearing off a piece of who we are.
And yet the tighter we cling to them, the more we will find our view of the world, and our experience in it, colored and covered, so that our days are clouded when they could be full of light.
I once heard it said that life after 20 was more about the unlearning of things that you thought than the learning of new things, and I have found that to be true. It’s almost like you spend the first two decades of your life covering up that childlike wonder with which you used to view the world, and then you spend the rest of your life trying to find it again.
Because sometimes children see the world so much clearer than we do.
So if you are one of those people who struggles to see life clearly sometimes because of the streak and smears on your soul, please know that there are ways to find a pathway to seeing clearer. If you struggle to find joy in your day, I am here to tell you that there is a pathway forwards for you. I’m not going to tell you that it is easy, but I am going to plead with you to believe me that it is worth it.
In my own life, I have had to go through, and am still going through, the process of wiping away old beliefs and behaviors so that I might find a greater joy, and a greater understanding, of this life which I have been given. The process is not easy, but over the years I have found my way into moments of love, light, laughter and living that have changed what was once the burden of living into a wellspring of wonder and love.
Your path is out there my friend, and whether you are just starting to walk it, or have been on it for many years, please know that I am here for you.
Helping in whatever way I can.
So that we may all find our way to wisdom, love and light.
And peace.
Always.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings