Finally, after 14 months of being newly married, I have been working on the name change. What tedious work! But also, what benefits come with it. I find myself reflecting back on my life, the first 20 years spent with my given at birth name, the second 20 spent with my first married name.
As I consider the person I spent my 20's and 30's building, enjoying my 40's enthusiastically, I can't help but appreciate who I am building myself into now. This name change represents an opportunity for me to decide who I want to be going forward, and I love to think about that, especially with this new phase of evolution in my career as a life coach and author.
In previous guided meditations, I have done a lot of work around healing my younger self and looking towards my older self for guidance. How can I take the best of all three of us and merge them into who I am today is a question I enjoy contemplating. I don't always know the answers, but I do love to look at my older self with awe and admiration. She is a strong and wise woman, gentle and compassionate. She is so patient with me. The crows feet around her eyes smile, her hair a beautiful shade of silver. I look forward to becoming more like her.
This version of myself sets an ideal for me that helps me face today a little better. I have had a lot of challenges in my life recently, and as I wonder how much more I can take, I find comfort in this version of myself and what she went through to get where she is now. I often overlook the fact that I have to get there. I see the destination and in my mind it is so simple, I just awaken in the place I want to be. However, my situation is frustrating and I can't seem to figure out what I'm missing. Usually the answer is that I'm missing the joy of the journey. I forget that it's about the growth and that we grow the most through our challenges. I don't want to look at the part of life that I have to work to find my way through, I'd rather skip over that part and get to the destination. In writing it out, suddenly it seems so obvious, take a few minutes, connect with this older version of myself and ask her, "how did you get here?"
