09 Aug Unwrapping the Present

Recently I’ve kept being given the phrase Moving into Being by spirit – and you might have seen it mentioned as part of my Facebook or Instagram posts over the last few weeks.

I’m undertaking a fabulous course at the moment with an amazing group of people which is encouraging a deep dive into the self, and into the soul and this phrase, Moving into Being, has made perfect sense with this work.

Layers are being uncovered and as each one is slowly peeled back, peered at, dissected (to some extent at least!) and reflected upon, I move further into my being – and into being myself, more deeply myself, more honestly myself, more fully myself, more present as myself more of the time.

I’m reminded of the childhood party game (I am sure we have probably all played it) – pass the parcel? Where a parcel wrapped in many different layers of pretty paper is passed around the children with music playing and as the music stops whoever has the parcel at that moment in time gets to unwrap one of the layers until, finally, the last layer is taken off and the gift revealed.

I remember quite a few birthday’s – mine and others, where this game was played and where we would all find excuses to hold onto the parcel a little bit longer as the game went on before passing it to the next person in the hope that the music would stop on us and we could unwrap a layer, which might be the last layer and therefore receive the present ourselves.

Life can be a little bit like this can’t it – and so can we. We hold onto to things rather than pass them by or pass them on (move on) just in case the next moment, the next turn in the road, the next shift unwraps the layer of paper that we have been waiting for – the last one, and the gift is revealed.

In ourselves, we hold on too. At some level, we are all programmed to be afraid of change, or at least afraid of big change, and it takes effort, determination, courage and sheer grit for most of us to actually overcome that and embrace change, as well as a sense of belief within ourselves and in our capabilities and resourcefulness. Whether the change is external or within ourselves, we hold on. We like familiarity, it is comfortable. We hold onto our sadness or our depression or our anger or fear or grief or loneliness – because we know it. And in knowing it, there is a familiarity which makes us feel safe. If we change it, if we let it go, if we peel back another layer of ourselves we don’t know what we might get in its place.

Truly though, unless the present was very badly wrapped none of us kids had any idea which layer was the last layer! None of us knew where the gift was until we opened that last wrapper and it revealed itself – and the joy and excitement when it did! Oh boy. Yet none of us would ever have got to that point if we hadn’t passed the parcel on.

To peel back the layers, to unwrap the present (in both meanings of the word) we need to let go of what we know, dive deep and be prepared to uncover something we might not. To move deeper into ourselves, realising as we do that the present, the gift, is in the present and that it is us now, just as we are. Never finished, never complete, always with another layer to unwrap – simply moving into being more of the gift that we are.

Blessings

Nicola xx