On the Courage to be Yourself
Debra Ann over at Tangled Stitch had a recent post about accepting yourself that really got me thinking. Here she is talking about Thomas Moore’s Dark Nights of the Soul:
Well I am up to the chapter on Temporary Insanities and I think this is the chapter that best describes me at this time in my life. I have to decide whether I am willing to accept the eccentricities of myself or whether I am going to hide them. This one sentence made me cry” Without the zany persona, you might be condemned to darkness, and that would be a tragedy”. End quote first paragraph Page 259.
I got to thinking about how much I modify myself to please others and how it shuts down my creative process. Then a friend sent me the inspiring video below of Vanessa Hidary “The Hebrew Mamita”. I find that I can’t stop thinking about it. The video is a little off my main topic in subject matter (confronting prejudices), but bear with me. It’s more than just the importance of confronting prejudice. Hidary displays a radical acceptance of herself, an absolute and fearless facing of who she. And she defiantly displays it to the world. Her abandon is truly breath taking and courageous. It’s an inspiration. Watch this and imagine if you felt this way about yourself what kind of work you would allow yourself to make; what kind of nourishment you would provide the world.
Related posts:
- The Binding of Isaac
- On Hands and Pursuing Your Gift
- Hildegard of Bingen: Illness and Creative Purpose
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009,
by Painter of Blue and is filed under "Acceptance, Blogs, Courage, Judaism, Poetry, Predujice, Spiritual Path, Thomas Moore, Vanessa Hidary, creativity, Acceptance, Blogroll, Courage, creativity, Judaism, Poetry, Prejudice, Thomas Moore, Vanessa Hidary ".
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One Response “On the Courage to be Yourself”
Thank you for your lovely heads up. Loved the Jewish Mamita and have to agree with her(at least for today), if you don’t show you have pride for yourself no one else will notice it either.
I think we all spend so much time packing ourselves up and putting ourselves away and only letting people we love or who love us see us in our entirety. Time to change that because everyone, even the most perfect have their skeletons and their reasons. If we don’t embrace ourselves warts and all how can we expect anyone else to or our world to change. We need to realize that even our crazy persona’s and our crazy eccentricity is much more commonplace then we think it is.
Hopefully this is a good side affect of the dreaded menopausal woman.