Renee sat at her desk, her art pad in front of her, a blank sheet staring up at her. She eyes roamed the room, pausing to look at the work of her fellow sudents emerging on their art pads.
Ms Darling moved quietly up behind Renee observing her as she explored her fellow students work. She shook her head. Renee was one of the most talented artists she had in her class but Renee refused to see her talent or even her own beauty.
Ms Darling gently touched her fingertips onto Renee’s shoulder to ger her attention. Renee looked up, a look of embarrassment crossing her face. Ms Darling smiled at her and asked quietly, “You know the assignment is to do a self-portrait? Watching the other students draw themselves isn’t getting your image on that paper.”
Renee signed deeply as she picked up her pencil and started sketching the outline using a reference photo of herself. She decided to explore the photo like she would that of stranger she was drawing. She settled into workflow bringing the self-portrait to life.
Having been able to distance herself from her personal dismay at doing something for herself, she started to notice many unique features her subject had. As she worked on the image she found herself forming a liking for the image that was emerging from her pencils.
The thought even crossed her mind that she’d like to get know this woman. She was smiling at the image when Ms Darling called the class attention so they could present their images. She asked each student to display their finished image and what they liked best about it.
When she called on Renee, she stood up to display the image. She stared at it for a few moments and said, “I’ve been getting to know this young woman as I drew her image today. I think I’d like to get to know her better.”
Ms Darling beamed at Renee, both surprised and proud of her student’s progress.
Renee’s feelings about herself are all too common. We live in a world of media and influencers constantly giving out the unspoken message of not being ‘good enough’. The message is usually designed to persuade people to buy some product or service.
Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are. You are uniquely you, perfections and imperfections come together to make you who you are. With your view from the inside out, you see everything about yourself. What you like and what you don’t.
When you look at others, it becomes very easy to compare yourself unfavourably to others. You don’t get the inside view of others that you have of yourself. The observer from the outside gets to see mostly the good parts and little of the not so good that makes them a whole person like you.
From a spiritual perspective, we’re all unique expressions of the divine. A unique perspective of the divine with our own unique purposes for being here as part of the greater whole.
Spiritually, if we focus on wanting to be someone else, we’re neglecting our unique role, the inner wisdom and knowledge we’re here to share. And we’re rejecting the devine.
The spiritual path is about self-discovery, about understanding and accepting who we are, and about aligning ourselves with the divine plan. When we focus on wanting to be someone else, we are turning away from this path and hindering our own spiritual growth.
You know, as I think about the spiritual, it also comes to mind that humans don’t live and function in isolation. We’re stronger as community of unique individuals contributing their own strengths, wisdom and talents to make the community stronger.
Understanding and living our own roles has to take precedence over longing to be someone else. There is nothing wrong with admiring others, learning from others and maybe even trying to live some of the example they set.
You just need to do so in term of who you are, not who they are.
Be you, everyone else is taken.
Shadowspub writes on a variety of subjects as she pursues her passion for learning. She also writes on other platforms and enjoys creating books you use like journals, notebooks, coloring books etc.
NOTE: unless otherwise stated, all images are the author’s
