Three Different People

My first husband and I had hosted a number of parties, Super Bowl each year being the biggest ones we threw! The party itself always started at about 3pm with a pre-game spread and a lot of booze. In fact, one year we had to call our friend who owned a liquor store and who was coming to our house around 6:30pm and ask him to bring another keg of beer. We had already kicked the first one before kick-off! Our parties were well known and well attended. A mix of our friends were in attendance, including my college room mates and their husbands, many of the friends we had for many years given our history together and our new friends from our condo development where we now lived. These friends all mixed well.

I remember one year, I dropped something on the kitchen floor and my girlfriends, some new and some from college, and I knelt down to look under the stove. What we saw was dustballs, it was gross, and we all said a collective “ewwww.” Somebody made fun and I got a little embarrassed and therefore pissy. I remember my newer friend telling me later that my friends from college made a statement that that was who I was when she stated her surprise of my reaction.

At that moment I realized that they put me back to that person I was with them, the one who was over-sensitive, allowed then to pick on me and gave in on everything. I wasn’t that person anymore and didn’t want to be that person. That was who I used to be. They didn’t know the me I was becoming.

Now they would never recognize me. I am not the same person I was then. I recently read a quote, “Who you were, who you are and who you are meant to be are three different people.” It really resonated with me as I continue to grow and expand. I am changing and not the same person I used to be.

When I think of who I was, I realize that I was oversensitive, over emotional and over opinionated. I was highly judgmental. I have worked a lot on judgment, am working on my emotions and my sensitivity and I believe have become much more open to others opinions. I am no longer the person I used to be.

I have worked hard to change that story, allowing myself to laugh more at me and not take everyone else’s opinion of me as who I am. I know I am not that person.

I am also growing from who I am to my next phase. I recognized recently that I am not as forgiving as I had thought. I was challenged by my coach in a conversation a few weeks ago, she asked, have you forgiven or have you excused behavior? As I explored the situation we were discussing I realized that perhaps I had been mistaken with a few people over the years and have not forgiven the way I had thought. As I thought more about it I realized that I have excused behavior but still in some cases harbor animosity, anger, hurt and other emotions. That isn’t forgiveness. There would no longer be that emotion if I had forgiven the people I thought I had.

This has really caused me to begin to explore what it will take to forgive and how will I know. This isn’t about the people I need to forgive, this is solely about it no longer having any hold on me.

As I think about the person I am and the person I am meant to be, I know there is more growth. I continue to challenge myself to be more conscious and therefore continue to learn. As I get better at forgiveness I will vibrate at a higher level as my judgement of people will be reduced greatly. I will be different, the person I was meant to be. I also know that as my coaching skills are honed, I will be a coach no matter who I am talking with. I will be a coach, all of the time.

I am also relying on this way of being to enable my spirituality and faith to be more front and center, aligned to what I believe. I was told recently that I really walk the talk. Good I thought, that is what I am meant to do, that is who I am meant to be.

As I reflect on my adult life, maybe it is more than three people, but I have grown and have been different, and continue to be different. I like who I am becoming and don’t care if I am liked or embraced by those who expect someone they can push around. I’m not that person anymore.