“We shape our self to fit this world and by the world are shaped again.”
{David Whyte}
There is a dance we all must do. It is the dance of forming ourselves well enough to meet the requirements of our lives while also allowing ourselves to be formed by those same forces.
Those requirements, those forces, are not static, linear or concrete. Those forces are dynamic and fluid, most often we call them other people.
It is a deeply vulnerable act to willingly, as an accomplished and self-assured adult, allow others to use the tools of their dynamic selves to transform our own soft clay into something even more beautiful.
To trust the possibility of that happening is to trust those people, first of all. And as we know, that only happens when we create the space, the time and commit the energy to building a reservoir of trust that is filled by our mutual offerings.
A question to consider is this: do I allow myself to remain soft enough that I am able to be formed? And another: do I cultivate relationships with people whose forming power I can deeply trust and who are open to receiving my own?
Offered with affection for Tom, Molly, Kyle, Alia and Theresa.
