Remembering When

I really think I'm starting to actually make some progress with this project, and it occurred to me this morning that the turning point came when I realized that there have been times in my life when I really have allowed my inner Aragorn to come through.

For example, when I was working as a full time dog trainer... yes... those were the glory days for my inner Aragorn. I could walk into a room full of crazy insane barking dogs and nervous clueless people, and within an hour dogs who had never in their lives ever done anything anyone told them to do, were actually sitting and staying on command. I could take a dog home with me that had been labeled untrainable and mentally retarded by the local "dog psychologist" and in four weeks, that dog would know his basic obedience so well he was flawless no matter what was going on.

I remember one memorable class when someone brought in this little bulldog for private lessons, and for one whole hour all that little dog did was bark until he puked and then he'd bark some more, and all the while he was barking and puking he was also lunging and jumping, and biting the leash.... I was thinking "Oh My God!!" But we preservered, and 12 weeks later, that same dog did basic obedience off leash in a room full of other dogs and people. Not because I trained him, but because I taught his 12 year old owner how to train him... and if that's not an Aragorn thing, I don't know what is.

My first thought was that I should get back into the dog training thing again... but I'm done with that. It's not something I have passion for anymore... those days are gone. Then I started to remember other times, other activities where I allowed that part of me to come through.... and I began to have little glimmerings of ideas about the different directions I could take my life. One thing led to another, and now I'm getting more clear about what I want to do with myself, and the best thing is that the Universe is stepping forward to support me. That horribly indecisive, wishy washy, self doubting angsting no-I-couldn't-possibly-but-I-want-to-but-I-can't loop that I was winding and rewinding has finally come to a full stop. I can and I will "be" Aragon. I've done it before, and I can do it again. Yes, that feels pretty good!

So... what about you? Maybe you have a pretty good idea of the character you'd like to be like, a person you'd like to emulate, someone you want to "be." Think about it... Has there been a point in your life when you've actually had a taste of it... an experience or even a period of time of really "being" there, expressing it, acting it out, or feeling it? I'm wondering if just thinking along those lines might give you ideas and insights into "how to get there from here." Yes, the past is over... no going back there now! The future, however, you will be going there... tomorrow even... and if you can see the possiblities of the past, maybe you'll be able to see the potentialities in the future.

Some of us have talked about a deeper connection with the Goddess, or the Earth Mother as described in The Mists of Avalon or seen in Avatar. If you think back... isn't there a time in your life when that connection was deeply felt and real? And if it was deeply felt and real then, there's no reason why it can't be deeply felt and real now. It's just a matter of remembering the situations and circumstances or whatever it was that fostered those feelings, and then finding a way to recreate it in a new and different way here and now.

Note: If you still don't have a clue about who you want to "be," maybe it would be helpful to go back and take a look at the stuff we did on archetypes. This link: archetypes should bring up most of those posts.