Our culture is obsessed with perfection
Living the idealized dream
Many spiritual teachings are also similarly focussed
Being on the path; in a higher vibration; happiness or bliss
But authentic life is about death
Moving forward through the stages of life
Not getting stuck or holding on to who we are / were
Letting the child, adolescent, adult die to become more alive
The death of who we are feeds the life of who we are becoming
Each step forward into the unknown is fraught with choices
Initiations of challenge, shock, trauma, and eventually rebirth
We need hard choices
Dark nights of the soul
Experiences that shake us to the foundation of our being
Crash our “blue skies” selves to earth
Otherwise – stagnation
We struggle to rationally and intuitively make the best choice
Often thinking that we can minimize a difficulty or solve a problem
Peering forward, trying to anticipate how things will turn out
And when things go sideways we call our choices mistakes
And it is easy to drop into regret, shame, and a sense of failure
Assuming there was an alternative that led to a “better” outcome
But initiations aren’t about better
Rather, it is our response to our choices / mistakes that determines how we grow
Gathering courage and curiosity
Grittily creating meaning and making medicine
Becoming more authentically alive
Making the mistakes right