Finding Calm and Ourselves

Last night I was happily reminded of an old friend that I haven't had the food fortune to see since we left the place of work where we first got to know each other. He was the calmest person I think I have ever known. He is a Buddhist, and after an interesting discussion over lunch one day he brought me a book, the title of which had a huge effect on my thinking then and since then. It is entitled, "When the Student is Ready the Teacher will Appear" and I don't know but I believe that this is a very important tenet of Buddhism. I have been thinking of this in relation to our Project Transformation. I think that one of the reasons that we were chosen for this program is that we appeared to the panel to be ready for this Transformation for which we were asking to be considered. I keep that book in the drawer at my bedside, and just looking at the title sometimes calms me, because it tells me that the things that I might want to happen right now, and am angry and impatient if they don't, are perhaps not ready to happen, or perhaps, even though my conscious mind would disagree, perhaps I am not ready to have them happen. My point is that we were ready, and the contest appeared for us and we were chosen. It has been up to us to take advantage of the teachers and to learn the lessons.
And the reason I bring this up is that yesterday I received in the mail another book, one that I had forgotten I ordered quite some time ago, and it is entitled "Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be" and while it has to do with loss and change, just the title caught me up short. As we travel though life, we experience many different kinds of emotions, events, and places. Each one affects us in a way that changes us or affirms us in some way, even the smallest way that we may not recognize at the time. We have in our minds an idea of who we are, and yet, events and such are changing us all the time. Lately, some people I haven't seen in awhile have been telling me that I look different, but when I look in the mirror, I can't see the change. It tells me that I haven't yet let go of the person I used to be and that I better be pretty careful about how I look at things like food and exercise.
So far the exercise part is getting to be a part of the new me. I crave that hilly walk that I take if I miss a day. I like the way I feel when I am tired out after a workout with "the demon", and I hardly ever think "oh I can't do that, it's too hard" like I did when we went on our hikes that scared the bejezzus out of me.
But ice cream still looks good to me, and cake still sounds good, even though I was thinking the other day that the last several times I indulged in cake, it wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be. The texture wasn't really satisfying, and the taste just didn't live up to expectations and wasn't worth the calories. So if what I "crave" proves not to be as good as anticipated, and yet it still appeals, is it because I have not yet let go of the person I used to be, who ate sweets without thinking about whether they were as delicious as I expected them to be? That behavior belonged to the person I used to be.
Now, in truth, the book about 'letting go' is about reacting to loss and change in your life. When we lose a loved one, if we get mired down in the loss and the bad feelings, then we do not grow from the experience. In the last six years, I have lost both of my parents. I realize that I was very fortunate to have them for so many years, and we were close and I miss them, but I have come to realize that I have grown in ways that perhaps I could not have without the experience of loss. The person I used to be was a daughter, in addition to other roles. That daughter role no longer exists for me, and it's absence, although sometimes painful, has also freed me up to be something different, to take on another role.
I think that all of us at Project Transformation are perhaps shedding a role that we used to fill, and we may not find a new role so comfortable as we thought. It is important to think about how we want to embrace the new role, and how to let go of the old one so that the new clothes that we wear (figuratively) in our new role, are as comfortable as the old. Going from being the person who always worked behind the scenes to the person in the starring role of the play can be frightening, but it's the only one where you can see your name in lights.
So, the whole point of today's blog was to point out that there is a lot about us that is new and if we are not ready to let go of the person we used to be, and embrace the new, then backsliding is a distinct possibility. It happened to me before, but it is not going to happen to me again. I am ready to let go. Are you?