Personal reinvention is challenging and disruptive, but a good catharsis for one’s spirit, a motivator for the mind and body. I want to use words like “exhilarating” to describe the process. I would be lying, making the challenge seem like a cakewalk, when it’s fearful and death-defying.

via Flickr’s alfanhuiFor me, the reinvention process, comes about every eight years, nearly stripping away my existing identity and the props I’ve earned in this version of myself. The journey is similar to peeling the layers of an onion, including the waterworks. That faucet is just a drip these days, but decades ago, it was a gusher.

Today I never worry that I will arrive at my core, discovering nothing there.

My one-time torrentially wet, dark and nebulous heart is calm and rich with live tissue.

In Memoriam

Allowing myself to go into free fall at this moment, I land on the concept of the Inner Child. The majority of my reading has been Jungian, with a focus on the unconscious mind, not the tiny, mighty person who was me.

These stops on my psychological ocean passage pull me closer still to my internal essence, the vortex that is this young, caring Minnesota girl with big dreams. She is my favorite version of myself, except for the hair.

This Inner Child waltzed into my conscious life a few years ago, although she lived in my dreams long before, as an older cousin or sister. The two of us had a very tight relationship, in which she was the truth serum in my life, a confidante who saw me truly, without judging.

We walked through some very challenging dreams together, and always ended up flying higher and higher. I give you this rather aimless Inner Child music, in case you want to reflect on your own Inner Child. They have a lot to say, you know.

Psychological literature focuses on our evolution from childhood to adulthood, moving towards a psychological state called self-realization. I only assume that this process accelerates with age, knowing that there is some finite pressure to get “it” right with oneself.

I returned this morning to my Pretty Woman writing. There’s little for me to add there, except that I understand the depths to which some of us struggle, trying to prevent the events of our lives from defining us.

Your private notes to me confirm that writing about my own experiences has a benefit. I write as much for you as for me.

Defined By Dreamstate

Dreams are amazing. Mine come aggressively, brimming with information and life lessons that demand my full attention and remembering. These dreams are branded on my brain, and I relieve them frequently, like being with good friends.

My last profound dream came on Thanksgiving weekend, 2004, at the home of someone I was dating.