Life Change

I have always been the person I want to be.

That was my epiphany today. It came to me while I was reading Making a Change For Good: A Guide to Compassionate Self-Discipline by Cheri Huber. I was reading about my sub-personalities, and the voice each possessed and the conditioning that caused those voices. In the book, Cheri talks about how each of our sub-personalities are like children we have to care for inside our self. That they are greedy, needy, selfish, hungry children who need our love and compassion, and it's true.
The book's focus is on well learning to focus on being here in the now. We are distracted from being in the now by the little children within our heads, tugging our on mental shirt sleeves for attention and throwing tantrums when they don't get it. So, how, through this information, did I come to the realization that I have always been the person I want to be?

Simple: each time I've failed, I've recommitted Each time I stopped being here and started caring for my sub-personalities, I came back to where I'd left off. I am who I want to be, and I always have been, it's just that other aspect of my psyche have been distracting me from myself. A funny little paradox I know.
But that was not all that happened to me today.
Today I was introduced to a former child solider from the Congo. A young man, who at the age of five had been kidnapped by rebel fighters and forced to kill his best friend. A young man, who after two months of living as a child solider escaped and ran for three days and nights through the jungle to get home. A young man, who at the age of ten was forced to witness the gang rape of his mother and sisters in their home. A young man, who spent months in a refugee camp, who watched his father die, who got the chance to come to Canada and who now works for Free The Children. A young man, who has seen horrors with his own eyes and yet he is still happy.
There is something about walking through Hell that humbles a human spirit. Something about it's fires that ignite a passion in the very heart of our soul. Something that cannot go out, but can only spread like wild fire through the hearts of mankind. Something that is greater than love. Something I think that's called life.