How Would You Like to Be Remembered?
While I was on my personal retreat in Colorado, my coach gave me an assignment from her Create Your Blank workbook. The assignment was to journal about how I would like to be remembered. I had received a similar exercise from one of my intuitive sessions around what I would like my obituary to say.
When you’re sitting in your rocking chair when you’re 90, how do you want people to remember you? What contributions do you want to make to others, your community, and the world?
I took some time to sit with these questions. “How would I like to be remembered?”
I took a pause and went outside to commune in nature. Nature allows me to be more present and less stuck in my head. I walked down to the labyrinth and asked the question out loud again. “How would I like to be remembered?” I set an intention and asked for guidance and clarity. As I walked spiral after spiral throughout the labyrinth, tears began to fill my eyes. This question had way more depth to it than I had anticipated.
If my coach had asked me for an answer on the spot, I likely would’ve said something like:
“I want to be remembered as someone who was bold and not afraid to live life unconventionally. An adventurer who spent my life traveling all over the world. An Aunt Extraordinaire who fiercely loved her littles…”
It likely would’ve continued to name life achievements and attributes. It probably would’ve been a checklist of all the exciting things I did, rather than a dedication to who I had been. This is often how obituaries go. They list off who the person was, what they did for a living, and who they were survived by. A cut and dry resume of their life reduced down to a short paragraph.
The tears that filled my eyes while in the labyrinth were a nudge for me to dig deeper. “In order to know how you would like to be remembered, you first need to know who you are.”
That is what the voice was beckoning me to answer, “Who am I?”
I completed walking the labyrinth and went back in the house and sat down with my paper. I tuned in and asked for the words to flow.
“When people remember me and talk about me, I want gratitude, love, awe and wonder to be present. I want to be remembered as someone who loved deeply, went after her dreams, and stood in her power. I want to be honored as a healer and someone who took a stand for others in allowing their authentic, whole selves to be seen. Someone who challenged others to find and speak their truth; someone who inspired others to go after their dreams with courage, joy, and excitement. I want to be remembered for having a big heart and being an inspiration to others. I want to be remembered as a fearless, strong, adventurous, heart-filled, authentic intuitive and healer who allowed her beauty to shine.”
“She was a magnet for living a whole, authentic life. She was true to herself and not afraid to be bold and vulnerable, and let her whole self be seen and known.”
These were the words that flowed out of me. When I read them back to my coach, I could feel her emotion as she listened to each word pour from my heart. Tears filled my eyes. I was present to my higher self who chose to write these lyrics.
I was also surprised to find that I didn’t write any specific achievements, or even list being a world traveler. It was written to honor who I was being in life.
So often we focus on DOING that we forget to BE.
Photographer: Gabo y Mafe, Cartagena, Colombia, 2018
While it is important to DO—yes, we must do in order to take action—the BE is the part that will cause us to DO in our most authentic way. And when we are BEing our most authentic selves, magic happens. From my Values:
Authenticity & Ownership: I own who I am and allow my whole self to be seen in its truest and most natural form. My authentic self is experienced through the shedding of layers (personas and inauthentic ways of being) that disguise my true essence and unique beauty. Through living authentically and owning who I am and what I want, I am modeling what it is to be fully seen.
Being authentic and truly owning who you are is one of life’s greatest tests.
Children allow their authentic selves to shine throughout their truest self-expression. They are free to explore, express, and play in ways that allow their essence to shine. And then, as we all go through life, there’s comes a moment when part of our innocence breaks and we are faced with comparison, peer pressure, and conformity. We begin to hold back our authentic selves and allow a safer version to be seen.
It becomes a battle throughout our lives as we wrestle with who we know ourselves to be vs. who others want us to be. Life’s test confronts us with Imposter Syndrome, Limiting Beliefs, our gremlins (the voice in your head that convinces you it’s not safe to BE). If we’re lucky enough, at some point in our lives, something will switch and we’ll be reminded of who our authentic selves are.