Day 24 SOS – 1999 Poetry Project

The Next Step
By Barbara Brennan

Honor this divine uniqueness within you.
Recognize yourselves.
Recognize the divinity within you.
Honor, listen, and very gently, take yourself through the door into self -acknowledgement of who you truly are, including all aspects of your being.
All aspects of your life.
All aspects of your humanness.

You are divinely perfect in your imperfections.
And so, as we take the next few steps together
in this learning process, enjoy!
Give yourself the freedom to test, to choose,
to be, to surrender, to what is.

It is your life.
It is your predilection to choose.
No choice is wrong.
Every choice simply leads you to the next step.

Surrender to what that next step is for you.
Leave all expectation behind.
Step deeper into the self, and open to what is.

Gayle’s Reflection:

“Honoring the divine uniqueness within me.”

Opening with this line gives me permission to love and understand myself. Honor myself. Love myself. Choose me first. Barbara is telling us to see ourselves as we are in every detail and honor it as sacred.

Self-acknowledgement was not part of my vernacular growing up. Attempts to “claim” myself in my favorite choices were met with accusations of selfishness or overpowered my mom claiming that uniqueness of me as her own. After all, I was “just like her”. This caused me to stop trying to choose my desires and direct myself to pleasing her alone.

By doing this I created an inner conflict of needing to be exactly like her in order to survive and be loved. This went against my true need to self-express and NOT be just like mom. I only recently learned that inner conflict creates confusion within the mind- body, prevents alignment and misdirects creative choices.

Years later the patterns of following in the footsteps of parents become quite clear. Seeing them now, I am able to improve some aspects of the well-worn path of single parenthood. It is a part of my humanness to want to stay true to the tribe even if it is a difficult and painful path.

Now, I reflect on these perfect imperfections and inner conflicts, and pray that by the end of my time on Earth I will fully understand how perfect it all is. I use the phrase every time I feel I may have made a mistake or wrong choice.

“You are (I am) divinely perfect in my imperfections.”

Wow it lets me off the hook doesn’t it?
It allows me to surrender into God’s divine plan for me. I feel a sense of relief around being perfect. That is the freedom to choose from the heart…to dare to take another step away from expectation… Go ahead Gayle…You can do this…I got your back. . . There are no mistakes. . . See who you really are. . . Choose what you really desire. . . Be open to your next step.

Thank you Barbara, I walk my own path with ease, more confidence and grace.

See you tomorrow.
Love, Gayle