Full Grown!

 There was a sit com a few years back called Suburgatory which no one watched except us. One of the supporting characters, Dallas Royce, whose life has been embodying the perfect wife, mom, and PTA chair, finally gets fed up with her husband and tells him to move out. And while she is sad and confused and angry, she has some sort of inner reorientation; she is shaken awake, she becomes conscious of her own needs, her own gifts even when those are not what her husband, her daughter, her community assume. Standing in that shaky new place of self knowledge, she declares- “I am a full grown woman. Full grown!” Eric and I thought that this was, first of all, hilarious, and also perfectly summed up some inner knowing of who you are, and what you need and what you desire, even when it is out of alignment with the expectations of the folks around you. This is a knowing that comes with the weight of decades of life experience behind it. We use this all the time at my house nowadays, when we make a decision that comes from our own inner authority, our own inner knowing. “full grown!” one of us will declare.

When I was getting ready to turn 50, I asked a lot of people what they thought were important gifts of the 50s, and the answer often was “you know yourself better.” One friend said “gravitas.” 

When we are little, experts tell us it’s important to use the body and mind in lots of ways while they are still flexible, to give yourself a wide range of possibilities when you grow up. Our schools are set up so that 30 totally different children in a classroom get the exact same lesson, then sit down to take the same test, as if each of these totally unique beings have the same capacities and gifts and challenges. We are told that our low scores tell us “where we need to work harder” or “where we need to improve.” “You’ll need this when you are older” they say. Well, now I’m older. A young yoga teacher told me recently “stick with it, it will come eventually” and I thought, no-- I’ve been doing yoga for 20 years, my body is 50, that ship has sailed. I am no longer a clump of clay that can be formed into anything, I’m this, I’m me. I’m full grown. As John Wellwod wrote:

Forget about enlightenment...
Open your heart to who you are, right now,
Not who you would like to be,
Not the saint you are striving to become,
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.

There has to be a time in our lives when we are no longer waiting for someone’s approval, we are not waiting for someone to certify and sign off that we are finally and completely ready to begin. Perhaps this is the initiation to being fully grown. No one else can tell you that you are full grown, we have to see it, we have to claim it for ourselves. Perhaps we make our own graduation cap to fit, and write our own diploma, and claim who we are right now as “good enough.”

I was trying to explain this to my sister and she said “so does that mean you are done changing?” It was a good clarifying question. "Heavens no" I thought. Life is growth and change. But I’m done waiting for and working for some full final form when I will finally be perfect, when I will finally be someone else. I am full grown.

Jung called it individuation, the journey to know who you are, even when it is different than what the people or society around you expect. It’s okay to have a different opinion than others in your community. It’s okay to have different needs. My husband likes to watch almost every game of his beloved Oakland A’s. I like to sit on the porch and watch the squirrels and maybe read a book, even when it’s cold or rainy. I don’t need him to love the outdoors, he doesn’t need me to love baseball. Sometimes I choose to sit and read my book on the sofa during the game because I love him and it’s companionable and it sounds like you are at an outdoor party even if you don’t follow the game. But I know that I am choosing to do it not because I feel I SHOULD like baseball, or because he won’t love me if I don’t, but I am making a choice knowing fully who I am. Sometimes he joins me on the porch if the day is lovely. He even noticed that the trees were that exact shade of spring green I love. Then he heads back inside. “I think I’ll stay out here” I say “full grown!” he replies. Whenever we realize that Eric and I want something different I’ll say “would you mind if I…” or “I don’t think I want to…” and he’ll say “full grown” “full grown!” I reply.

Individuation means we can be in community without sacrificing, or repressing our true self. Healthy communities are made up of people who know who they are or are discovering who they are. A healthy community encourages people to figure that out. When someone leaves this church community because they realize “actually, I need different ritual, I need to connect to the divine in a different way” I know we are doing our job. I am sad to see them go, it’s okay for me to feel sad, and proud that their time with us helped them discern that truth about themselves.

Our 3rd UU principle is “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregation.” We delight as each of us grows into ourselves. We ask clarifying questions, we hear each other’s journeys. Our listening circle has been meeting for years, and the longer we meet, the more we notice the shape of our individual journeys, how we are different, where our paths are similar. We notice how each of us is growing and changing. We witness that, and honor that. Breyn Marr, in her piece “second dancer” offers these words, written specifically toward women, but believe crosses all gender:

Women, when you sense another woman approaching the edge of jus the “right kind of madness,” gearing up to say or do something that could change her life forever …
Women. When you see that look in her eyes, and she swallows hard – the moment when she digs, one more time. Digs. Way. Down. Deep inside. Reaching some primal reserve of wild courage she didn’t yet know was there… and you are there when she ACTS on that wild courage, by SPEAKING her truth. .., yes, I’m talking to YOU, for Goddess’ sake, BACK HER.

That is one way “encourage one another to spiritual growth;” When we come to the scary edge of speaking or acting our own deep truth, you know your community has your back, even if your truth is not ours, we honor your truth anyway.

This claiming of who we are right now in the present moment is psychological, it is personal, it is communal, and it is also spiritual. If what we seek is enlightenment, it can’t be found out there in some Holy Grail it can only be found in the moment we are living. As meditation teacher Dorothy Hunt writes in her book Ending The Search "The spiritual search is a call to remember who or what you essentially are. What ends the search is actually present from the very beginning, beckoning you to come Home. In truth, you are what you seek, yet you must make the discovery for yourself."

If what we seek is the divine, the holy, that too can be reached only in this present moment. I believe that God is available to all of us in every moment, even when we have not become that “saint we are striving to become”. When the scripture says “the kingdom of God is at hand” mystics interpret this to mean that the most sacred is already here, right now in this moment, not after some final apocalypse.

If what you seek is actualization as a human, it will not be found following the whims of fashion, the requirements of society, which seem to change month to month. Being fully who we are starts with you, where you are in this very moment. With all your wrinkles and lumps, your inability to catch a softball or your passion for quilting. Those are not the things keeping you from being your true self, because you are already full grown.

And if what we seek is community, bringing your true, authentic, full grown self, and encouraging others to do the same is critical. Because the great end of this exploration is not our own happiness, our own actualization, but a better world for everyone. By being who we fully, finally are, not someday but now, we are of greater use to one another and to the divine. As Clarissa Pinkola Estes Writes:

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.”

Your soul can only shine through you- your gifts, your struggles, your knowing. Your unique experiences, both fruitful and disappointing, beautiful and strange, these have formed you into exactly who you are in this moment, with a unique perspective and a unique voice the world needs. Full grown!