I usually run into a great deal of difficulty whenever I attempt to share myself. I am not what people perceive me to be, nor am I even who I perceive myself to be. What we put out into this world is an ever changing being who focuses on any given number of stores at any given time. What I can share or what seems more relevant is the story that led me to create Project: KAring. This is a story that I hold close to my core, but is not something I share often because of the sheer amount of vulnerability it makes me feel. I feel vulnerable when sharing this story because I consider myself to be nothing and unimportant, yet strange and unique. This conundrum also describes humanity for me. Humans are complex individuals that are single entities and yet are also cumulative; humans are “the one” in any moment in time. Several religions or spiritual concepts have been built around this idea. It seems as if by sharing a single story, I separate myself from all there is and paint myself as special, something that would make anyone who was raised to be humble cringe.
I will begin by saying that it is the fluidity between my true self and human life that has been my focus. It is this fluidity, or the struggle to retain it, that has been a guiding force in my life. My earliest memories are not of me seeing the world through my physical eyes, but of a distant perception through my mind’s eye. I clearly recall play as a child being a flow between the physical and the beyond, as though there were no barriers in between. It was effortless and “normal”. There are many words I can use as reference for the beyond, none which would not make it taboo or relate it to a religion. For me, the beyond can’t be described in words. However, for the sake of sharing I would describe it as: the non-physical, beyond the mind/thoughts/beliefs, the soul, the spirit, the one, our higher self, KA, our life force, that which is never changing, our core, our true self.
The single commonality throughout my life has been my perceived struggle in retaining this fluidity and finding peace within myself. In the physical world, I am a jack of all trades and have been perceived as an artist, dancer, fashion designer, interior designer, painter, tile layer, handy-woman, entrepreneur, baker, chef, teacher, mom, and more recently nomadic hippie. These are only a few of my titles and are based on things I have done, but they have never described who I am. As a magical person once described it “We are nothing.” None of these titles we are given, or give ourselves, describes us in any way, they just describe a specific task we may be doing at a specific moment in time. But I am not a baker or teacher or dancer. I am merely an entity exploring the human experience. It has been a struggle to make myself fit into a box given to me by the physical world and filled with specific beliefs I should live by. The whole idea seems so limiting and uncomfortable, but when you are a child you are taught that your elders know better and that their beliefs should be your beliefs.
What we are not taught is that the limiting beliefs we grow up with are not the same as every other human on earth, that they create separation, that they mold the life you will experience, or that they will become a weight dragging you back if you let them. My seemingly ever-present struggle with these beliefs created a story of loneliness, sadness and inconsolable angst, and I was unable to express these feelings because of these same beliefs. I understand this might be confusing so let me explain a bit further:
Our parents teach us their beliefs because they love us, want to protect us, want what’s best for us, and wish for our happiness, success and prosperity. They have no handbook on how to parent, they only know the views and principles they were taught or have learned along the way. They do the best they can with what they know and the only way they know whether or not they did a good job of parenting is by how we “turn out.” There may be variations between each culture, but in essence this is how being a parent goes, and why so many children are pushed to achieve at an early age. We, as parents, want to know we are doing alright or, even better, that we are exceling at this parenting thing.
Knowing this makes it difficult for a child to authentically express themselves because their authenticity might be in direct opposition to the beliefs of their family and those around them. This is my story. I was born into a lovely family that cared for me and protected me by enforcing their beliefs upon me for my own good. How can being loved and protected be a bad thing? How can anyone with this problem feel like they are drowning in deep muddy waters without a way out? Modern medicine would have diagnosed me as depressed and given me some pills. And maybe they would have been right, but my struggle between the physical and the beyond would lead me through a different route.
My earliest memory dealing with the aggravation of adapting to the physical world, was of me sitting at my desk in my kindergarten classroom staring intensely at my pink Hello Kitty pencil. I was flipping images and commands through my mind as if playing with the dial on an old-school radio in search of a clear station; as if once the right frequency were found that pencil would succumb to my desires and defy gravity or the laws of this universe to move as I wished to. Needless to say, that never happened, but it’s a fond memory I hold closely. As I grew up, my perception of reality was always a bit off. The veil between realms was thin for me and I could see more than the physical. My dreams were portals to other lives and would feel heavy side effects once I awakened. And my interactions with others were deep and empathetic. Now, in my current circles, all of this seems perfectly normal and acceptable. This was not the case throughout my youth and into some of my adulthood; experiencing life in this manner caused me to feel isolated and not accepted. I remember visiting a doctor whose diagnosis of all these occurrences was “loneliness”. I guess he wasn’t completely wrong, but this was not a helpful conclusion for a child that felt like their life experiences were not normal, or maybe even evil.
The reason for this judgement was that the flow between my mind and the beyond had been depicted by religions and cultures as a sixth sense, something that only a few special people experience, and some believe to be a curse. My lack of understanding as a child caused me to own this judgement and be hurt by it. As my knowledge expanded and I learned that this perception is not universal, I was able to free myself from the story that had been created for me by the observers around me, and found freedom and true happiness in separating myself from it. So here we are now, in a world beginning to accept the concept of the mind being of this world or part of the body, and the beyond as our true or higher self thanks to books like the Untethered Soul and The Power of the Now (both extraordinary books that I highly recommend), amongst many others.
Once I had children, I knew I wanted this to be my guiding parenting principle. I don’t see being a loving parent as being equivalent to protection through rules and limiting beliefs. I see myself more as a guide who shows them the rules this world or community abides by, without restricting their ability to think for themselves. I want to allow them to learn who they are through experiences, without creating a story that will dictate the rest of their lives. This sort of parenting led me to search for alternative forms of education: I have homeschooled, unschooled, lifeschooled, roadschooled and worldschooled them. These are just a bunch of fancy names for learning through the life experiences. As I experimented with different ways of educating my children, I concluded that alternative education is not easily accessible to the masses and just not clearly understood.
This is what led me to create Project: KAring, the directory, this blog, and the programs. Life changes rather quickly, yet our educational system has not changed with it. And more options exist, but are not always available to those that wish to use them. Most, if not all, children are born with fluidity between the mind and the beyond, but there is a lack of resources and tools with which to nurture this fluidity. Eventually, this causes children to slowly adapt to limiting beliefs and their natural born fluidity becomes nonexistent. A lack of freedom and lack of self-understanding may lead to feelings of unhappiness, isolation, depression, and anxiety. If we can nurture children’s abilities through play and teach them how to coexist in society without being given a label, maybe we can grow a generation that doesn’t have to be healed from their childhoods.