Who You Are - Or Who You Once Were?

By: Lesley Moore
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:41:15
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What if this isn’t just the way you are? What if the way you have been living isn’t just the way it is? What if…this is just a version of who you are due to a situation that occurred at one point in your life? What if…instead of this being who you are, you are merely stuck in this being, unsure of how to get out?

Recently I recalled my son’s first year in preschool. My son was three at the time. I had purposely not put him into the two-year old program because he seemed to have trouble making smooth transitions…sometimes even finding just the right shirt was a challenge. After working diligently with him for a year at home, I knew he was ready to face the world, at least for a few hours, without me. Surprisingly, he did very well, with just a few tears as I left him in the arms of a loving teacher. I had to pat myself on the back for the work I had done.

When I went to pick him up after lunch, I nearly ran to the school, anxious to find out how he had done. I was immediately relieved to see him playing in the sandbox on the playground and went to speak to the teacher before going to greet him.

“So, how did he do?” I asked smiling nervously. “He did great. He was a bit quiet, but he didn’t cry and did participate in most of the activities.” Even though her words were comforting, I could tell something wasn’t quite right. “Really?” I asked, hearing some concern in her voice. “It was just that he never sat down,” she said to me. Expecting the worst, this did not seem like such a bad thing. As long as he enjoyed himself, wasn’t crying and didn’t disrupt the class, I felt like this was hardly even a problem. I did think five hours was a long time to stand, but who was I to judge?

Well, it turns out that he did enjoy preschool and actually didn’t cry again after that first day, but four months later, he was still standing. As hard as we tried to figure it pry it out of him, we couldn’t. He was standing…because he wanted to stand. That was all we knew.

The question was: Was that who he was? Was he too uncomfortable to fully be a part of the group? Or was he stuck in the situation of his discomfort from the very first day?

One day after winter break, the pre-schoolers once again gathered at their prospective tables for snack. My son also gathered, hungrily standing beside the table as usual.

“Maybe you would like to sit down today,” the teacher said to him, deciding to try something new. “Okay,” he said. And at that, after four months of standing for five hour stretches, he sat down.

It’s a simple child-hood story, but one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. We all have that little child in us and have the potential of getting ourselves stuck in a particular way of acting or a particular way of being. If you want to test yourself and see if it’s just the way you are, or if you are in fact stuck, try it out. Choose a behavior you have been comfortable with for some time, but not really happy about. Then make a commitment to do it different. After a few weeks, you may find that although standing is what you are used to, sitting down is a great way to take a load off your feet.

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