“My favorite painting….I remember being so frustrated with my inability to capture what was in my mind’s eye—but I also remember stopping and painting slowly with eyes closed for just a few moments to see where it would go and it ended up as something I’m proud of… More real and primal.” ~David Hulon Hood Artist, Writer, Poet

The culmination of faith, contentment, love, peace, uniqueness and unity may be learning and experiencing:

The art of BEING while doing.

A friend recently wrote a very real and raw blog post where he candidly shared his struggle to be his true self. He honestly shared that he hides in plain sight, most of his days. He avoids dating because he fears judgments and hatred of his sexuality. He hides his thin body out of fear of judgment that he’s not thin enough. He hides part of his face with his hair, fearing the judgment of others about his acne.

If we’re honest we can all say that my friend is not alone. The struggle to discover, love and accept that unique “me” that God created as one in infinity, in His very likeness, is both painful and freeing. For the brave that go on this journey, we face all the parts of our “self” that are false. The parts that are what others or even a dysfunctional part of ourselves seem to be constantly demanding, expecting…but are not us. And we grieve those fractured, abandoned parts of ourselves that we’ve tried to be. We detach from them. We let them die. And in the dying, we are resurrected, like Christ from the grave.

Personally, I believe that Christ’s death and resurrection is both an actual event and an incredible metaphor and visual for the journey of discovering our true selves. We must allow a thousand or a million ideas of our false self to die in order for the true Divine-created and Perfectly-inspired self to live. And to live abundantly. I believe that resurrection does not just happen at the end of our days, allowing us to enter a future eternal life, but that along with our thousands and millions of smaller deaths come an equal number of resurrections to abundant and true life.

As we die and live, die and live in greater and exponential freedom, we learn and experience the beautiful art of BEING while doing. We find that we can DO life while simply BEING who we are, nothing more or less. Nothing different or better or worse.

This is the journey I find myself on, along with my brave friend who shared his experience this week.

God, teach me the art of BEING while doing.

I would love to hear your experiences of freedom, dying, living….the sacred moments on your journey that are teaching and freeing you to simply be.

~Heidi