Being Yourself Ain’t Easy

Painting by me.

A great sense of security develops from this process of individuation. One begins to understand that it isn’t necessary to struggle to be like someone else, for by being one’s own self one stands on the surest ground. We realize that to know ourselves completely and to develop all the strengths that are built into us is a lifetime task. We don’t need to make an imitation of someone else’s life. There is no further need for pretensions, for what is already ours is riches enough, and far more than we ever expected. — Robert A Johnson

My story isn’t sweet and harmonious, like invented stories. It tastes of folly and bewilderment, madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves. — Hermann Hesse

Soul is the glue of the world and the connecting agent of existence. When we lose our way in this world it is the soul’s way of being in touch with the pulse of life that has been lost. For we are most lost and truly abandoned when we have lost touch with our own soul, with our own inward style and way of being in the world. By its nature soul is the mutable, multiple, changeable aspect of both the world and individual life. — Michael Meade

My parents had six children, two of whom are already gone to their great reward, as are our long suffering parents. There are four of us left, one, the youngest, in hiding, cut off from…