9/18/2012 2:32:02 PM:   i found this on the internet years ago and have re-read it many times because it's so descriptive of MY life for so many years. Until i was in my late 40's, this described me perfectly....always doing everyone else's bidding, allowing myself to do things i didn't really want to do to conform to other people's desires, not doing things i wanted to do for fear of rocking the boat, always living to please others at the cost of missing out on so many things i wanted to do. i finally woke up in my latter 40s when it hit me that i was just as good as everyone else and i deserved to do more of the things i wanted to do. When i began to assert myself, everyone took notice and wondered what had happened...what had changed me. i had stayed home for 12 years keeping house, raising kids, etc. and didn't feel like i had much value. i think it was when i went back to work that i started feeling better about myself, that i was contributing to the household financially and starting to bring us out of debt, that the people i worked for thought i was a very capable worker and everyone actually liked me, for me, not because i was some mindless sheep who meekly went along with the crowd even if i didn't really want to. i've come a long way since that discovery of myself and might still have a ways to go, but i AM coloring with RED crayons now. :) If anyone knows the author of this wonderful writing, please let me know so that i can credit them.     THE CHRYSALIS   We start so young being influenced by the world around us and those people with whom we come in contact. Oftentimes the shaping of our very being can be such a painful process, but we each must go through it.   Little by little we learn to bend as we are molded into what others want us to be. Little by little we learn to display what others want to see, and put aside the parts of us that others don’t seem to wish to acknowledge. Those parts aren’t always bad…just others can’t seem to handle dealing with them. As if in some great dance, we learn the social proprieties of life.   So it is…we begin creating caverns inside. So it is we learn how to please others…and how to get attention. We begin the weaving of a person.   As we venture through life, the process continues. We are continually forced into the molds of other’s expectations. We are compartmentalized into their little boxes that keep them safe and content. We sometimes do it to ourselves as well, but more often than not, it is our desire and need to be accepted…to be wanted…to be loved…and so we bend, and we weave, and reroute our circuitry for the sake of belonging and pleasing others. We learn that even though we love to color in our books with reds, that everyone else is coloring in blue, so we put our red crayons down in exchange for a blue one. We may not like being part of the games that are being played on the playground, but it’s the only way that we can become part of the group, and so we join in.   The weaving sometimes is so very complex. We find ourselves in the looms of life and we spin and turn and bend...the tapestry being woven with the fibers of our soul and spirit.   There are times when we feel like we will burst if we don’t get to express ourselves but more often than not, we hold those pleasures deep inside.   Then one day…we learn how tightly woven we’ve become. We learn that all of those feelings from inside are really us, just trying to get out…just trying to express themselves. It is that realization that gives us the feeling of being lost…the feeling of captivity…the feeling of not being able to realize those dreams. Even into adulthood we put down our red crayons and color our world with blue.   There comes a time when we feel ourselves letting go. Some are able to do it in a manner acceptable to society. Others are not so fortunate. But soon, we learn that if we don’t let go…if we don’t fulfill our dreams that we will bend to the point of breaking and become nothing more than little splinters of ourselves.   Then it happens…we begin to say what we feel…we begin to sing songs we’ve always loved. We begin to dance the dance of the music in our heart. We find ourselves stretching, dreaming out loud, twirling and swirling in happiness because that day comes when we free ourselves of everyone’s expectations. That day comes when we finally say, “but that’s not me…that’s you”. It is then that we sing the loudest. It is then that we find our red crayons and the whole world takes on a different color. We are freed!  That color is called HAPPINESS.  

2/1/2010 8:00:58 AM: Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to tear them down.