What wants to be born in us? What is eager to be hatched? A new, guilt-free, anger-free being. Our real Self. Our original personality.
A self is born which, when a mistake is made gives an immediate apology because the complementary feeling is immediate and authentic. We are immediately sorry for whatever misdeed we have committed. So the apology is genuine and immediately forthcoming. And even though the event may linger in memory, the wrenching guilt that used to linger, multiplying our not-OK feelings, lingers no longer.
Some scholars say our preeminent problem is that of shame: being ashamed of who we are–and who we are not, ashamed that we are not enough–in any situation. We can’t do enough, know enough, have enough, can’t be enough–no matter what. But guilt is the word we use to talk about our not-OK-ness. And when the guilt disappears, the shame and despair it covers also disappear.
What wants to be born in you? The real Self, the original you wants to be born–the human creature, begotten from the union of the inner masculine and feminine parts of the personality. The union of your rational will with your creative intuition (conscious/unconscious) that produces in you the Nurturing Parent, Capable Adult, and Free Child. The new self (having moved from childhood to adulthood to godhood) recreates our sense of awe and wonder and delight–the same that God experiences within his good creation, pronounced good from the beginning. The goodness/godness within us is what we are searching for. And what is searching for us.
The new Child is born–not childish, immature in its ways, but a new child-likeness–an innocence that lives in the world but believes the good will prevail. That celebrates the good in everyone/everything. That looks for the redemptive in every situation. That is able to celebrate wonder and awe and the comic–everywhere. That experiences joy, laughter, the expectation of every day holding the same excitement and newness that Christmas Day did for us as children.
Dream scholars suggest that when that happens we will dream of a wedding uniting a king and queen. I say a dream of a dear child is what tells us either that ours has been born or is calling us to allow it to be born.
Our story begets its own fairy tale happy ending. But ours is not a fantasy. Ours is a ‘until death do us part’ union, which keeps us grounded in the inner life no matter what happens in the outer.
Ann Glover O'Dell 