Hear and Now
A daily affirmation that I receive all the information I need each day to grow consciously and to be communicated with in ways I see and understand was almost bypassed. Perhaps I was only half listening for I almost missed the gift in this.
After hearing how cool podcasts can be, I decided to listen in while busy making soup. I disregarded one as it was from a very famous person so I could not imagine how I might enjoy what she had to say on a personal level. Well, first mistake right there.
These podcasts are between famous people and Oprah. Fame can get so much in the way of our understanding of who people are based on their fame as it can limit their impact on us somehow because of the main thing we don’t share – fame. However, when they are simply having a candid conversation about who they are outside of the fame, it turns out they are just regular folk and like us, only limited by the perceptions and filters we view life through.
The first podcast I listened to was with Tracee Ellis Ross, about her journey to herself under the loving guidance of her mom, Diana. Great conversation and completely worth listening to the whole thing. The highlight for me, also emotional, was when she was in the car with her mom and her mom said, “Finally…”. My own mother and I had worked through a lot of stuff and got to that place where we could ‘finally’ just be ourselves and comfy in our own skin, knowing we were both enough. Like Diana, my mom had the patience to let me catch up and get there myself. It was great to hear someone else’s finally moment.
The next podcast come on, (the one I had originally dismissed), but heh, I have an open mind I thought, so I listened on rather than change it.
This one was with Michelle Obama as part of her Becoming tour. Wow, what an excellent and down to earth person, with so much on her plate. She shares a lot of personal experience including how she has accepted that her body is now 57 and not 30 years old anymore and therefore, its okay that it does not look and function with the same energy levels and abilities as a younger person. Being older than her, it helped me realize that intellectually I got that but had not embraced it really. In general, yes, but little background thoughts that I’m still not good enough sneak in now and then. In listening I was able to experience the same relief she describes about accepting herself as she is now. It was one of those aha moments where you just let it go, where you give yourself permission to be more in the moment without the need to cling to past imagery at all. It gave me room to change my old concept of me and love who I am all the more.
The amazing power of these two podcasts and the gift in them might easily be skimmed over. Later in the day, as I’m replaying parts of them in my mind and letting them sink in and letting old limiting ideas about ‘me’ go, it occurred to me that these two women had no idea that by sharing their story, how they would be affecting people they don’t know in parts of the world they have never been to. They gave me a way to gain an understanding it may have taken years to get to on my own, if at all.
I am the only one who can choose to let my world change. Others can be the change they want to see as they will get their own aha moments in ways they see and understand, if they so choose.
I am so happy I listened in.
