Photos from this beautiful east coast region included – keep scrolling!
It’s been exactly a month since I’ve found myself in this beautiful, new place. A month of trying to set up bills. A month of waiting on wifi installation. A month of second-guessing my purpose here. A month of hills. A month of valleys.
30 days of missing my family and friends. 30 days of soaking up every ounce of sun because I’m simultaneously bracing myself for the upcoming winter here (apparently it’s painful.) 30 days of walking up a hill to my place, now to realize I have abs I never thought I’d have. 30 days of new recipes. 30 days of being fearful of strangers. 30 days of trusting and loving strangers. 30 days of realizing I’m okay and that everything will be okay, even when it doesn’t feel like it.
A lot can change in a month. And I am so grateful for these changes. Yet learning to embrace them has been the most difficult thing I’ve had to do and I’m constantly having to remind myself never to hold onto life the way I used to.
Once I get comfortable in a position, a relationship, a home, etc… there is always a storm waiting to shake me. I’ve learned this the hard way.
Because you see, we were never meant to attach our sense of worth to the labels the world might offer us.
You can lose your identity as a student.
You can lose your identity as a friend.
You can lose your identity as a daughter.
A cook. A CEO. A dancer. A mother.
What I’ve come to realize is: change is the only constant in life. And you can never lose your identity as long as you’re willing to change it.
Let that sink it for a second. Read it over if you have to.
One thing’s for sure: you can never lose your identity as a human being, loved by a creator. This reality can never be taken away from you no matter what might change around you. And since change is the only constant, we’d better get anchored somehow.
Let your humanness shine. Get acquainted with it. Welcome the change. Let yourself feel sad. And happy. And angry. And proud. And ashamed. And guilty.
But don’t hold onto it. Any of it. It’s not what makes you, you.
Your bitterness is not your identity; it comes and goes. Your pride is not your identity; it lets you down as easily as it might have brought you up.
Our only true identity is our humanness.
When my own need for control and identity dominates, finding itself in what the world might offer me… pride slips in and gives way to inauthentic growth.
“Everyone thinks I’m really smart, I can’t let them know I don’t know the answer to this one.”
“Everyone thinks I’m always happy, I cant let them know I’m going through depression.”
“Everyone thinks I’m an amazing mother I can’t let them know I’m having trouble with my daughter.”
I can look perfect on the outside but in turn have a tougher time admitting I’m not okay, or admitting my frailty and weakness because I’ve held onto identities that gave me reasons to believe I was loved and whole.
It’s all fake, and deep in my soul I know it.
We are afraid of change because we‘ve attached too many labels onto ourselves which we’re afraid to give up because without them, our nakedness would be revealed. We would have to accept our bare selves, as we are. And it’s scary to face yourself at your core, beyond the walls you’ve put up.
Dwelling in change is freedom.
It’s so, so, difficult for us to get comfortable with the idea of changing these days because anxiety is crippling – I mean what might be on the other side of this change?
Well it might be everything you’ve ever wanted. (In that season..)
Until the next change comes for you to embrace in full discomfort again, so the cycle goes on like the death and life of leaves during this gorgeous season of Fall.
Rest easy, friends. We’re all growing and loving and changing together – we’ll be okay.
Welcoming change like:
Regretting it the next second like:
- Moral of the story: don’t be this chair, refusing to move to the flow of the waterfall. (To be fair, I put it there…)
I hope the truth, being you can change, heals you the way it’s healing me.
Have a sweet Monday night, y’all!
Xo
Manda
MAKTOUB 