Sib influence

It's seriously rare to hear about how our siblings influence - for good or ill - our behavior, but I am quite sure that I'm not alone in being way more influence by them than I ever was by my parents.  I like to think that a brother & sister can have an exemplary influence, that their kindness generosity ambition clarity focus inspired others within the family to develop those same traits.  

For lots of reasons, I took on a slew of my sister's self-limiting traits as my own, behaviors attitudes expectations assumptions that were antithetical to my nature.  Once I realized how out of whack they were/are with my life instructions I was born with, got easier to set them aside & latch onto the ones that came with my original plans.  

The past four years have been a time of off-the-charts opportunities, yet I've failed to take any one of them to full completion.  I've left them hanging around, cluttering rather than expanding my life.  Give my things, all of them, a place of their own & keep them there.  The things that have no place, move on. 

"Assure that everything is in its place & time, and your thoughts will be free to engage with what is before you."   (Rabbi Menachen Mendel of Satanov)  YES!  My thoughts have been roaming, they have NOT been engaging with what is before me.  My life is diminished by acting per my nurture instead of harking to my nature.  

Am I brave enough to, as Sister Joan Chittister puts it, "set out to find out for ourselves who we really are, what we know, what we care about, and how to be simply enough for ourselves in the world"?   To take what Rabbi Friedman describes as "a path of discovery," of what matters now" rather than what affixed itself to me through the years.  This "process of connecting to the past through memory, not just keepsakes ... is a powerful way to begin again."

Envisioning a life in which I AM rather than a hodge podge of whatever, cleared out, not only STILL creative, but now able to engage head & heart & hands.  

Am I brave enough to live according to my deep down nature rather than my convenient-in-many ways nurture?  Am I willing to BE, to connect to & engage with every bit of my being?  I'll do it in & through a way that celebrates all I AM.  

Hey - wait a minute!  What happened to the negative sib influence in my life??  Oh yeah - it's up in the title.  Will leave it there & move on.