Learning & Changing

One of the most magnificent things a person can do is learn. Learn about themselves, learn about the world, learn about others.

And when we become curious, we discover things. Sometimes these things change us and our behaviour. Sometimes we can look back and because of what we have learnt, we can hardly recognize ourselves!

I look back on the teenage me and I have great compassion for this young woman looking to find her place in the world. She wanted to fit in yet she was so different. She had talents but knew not where to place them. She had ideas and knew not how to action them. I look back too at myself in my 20’s and I saw how travel opened my eyes to other cultures, other beliefs, other ways of life. I saw my way- or the way I experienced the world- wasn’t the only way or ‘the right’ way.

I became a ‘seeker’- I began to exercise my rabid curiosity and extend my horizons through learning about myself and the world more deeply. My spiritual life opened up as well as my life in general. I became a witch when before I was not. I became an author, when before I was not. I became a wife, when before I was not. I became a mountain climber, a skier, a teacher, a horserider, an aunty when before I was not.

As I learnt more about myself and who I really was, (hard won by the way), my views on certain things changed simply because I was uncovering the REAL me.Let me give you some examples. I have spoken before of my great love of horses…and so as a young woman I just loved going to the horse racing. But then, I learnt more about the way these horses were trained and experienced this first hand and then couldn’t look at the races the same way again.I became a practitioner of Natural Horsemanship so I could work with horses in a kinder way. It was the same for me with meat. My brother is a butcher and we always had copious amounts of meat, but as I grew into my paganism and myself, it made it more important to learn more about how meat is produced, I eventually found it impossible to eat it knowing what I knew and I became a vegetarian. I simply thought, once I had all the information, nothing needed to die for me any longer. It was the same change for animals in circuses, dolphins and whales bred in captivity, animal testing- I saw it, experienced it, I learnt about it deeply and changed my mind and behaviour. I would never attend a circus now with animals, never attend a place where dolphins and whales are bred to perform, I do not buy any products that animal test. In short, I evolved and grew.

As for less obvious learning opportunities- within the way I react to the world- I learnt how to not “people please”, not worry about what others think who do not matter, and to focus on me! This was perhaps the hardest lesson to learn for that young woman who so wished to fit in.

May I suggest to you that you are not the same person you were 10 or even 5 years ago- and may I also suggest you wouldn’t want to be! I invite you to learn. Seek out things that may even disturb you. Stay awake on issues that seem hard. Act on what you learn. CHANGE!

I wish you the greatest growth and change as Spring approaches….

Stacey.