I am sipping my coffee after a very good night’s sleep, and waking with relative ease to the sound of the alarm. I am in pain this morning, and so stiff that I’m more than a little grateful that my bed doesn’t rest on the floor – how would I get up? Sometime after the shower that eases some of the stiffness, and the yoga that moves that process along, and the meditation that insulates my nervous system and emotions from the battering the world may (or may not) deliver later, I am sipping my coffee and letting my mind coast…

Humble beginnings; the herbs in my garden have the power to change an entire meal.

I find myself considering how often the movies deliver to us a Hero (or more rarely a Heroine) who is somehow ‘The One’ – the only being in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills and a dash of good fortune and great sidekicks. They rarely seem aware they are The One. It takes persuasion, convincing, sometimes even force to get them to understand that ‘everything’ depends on them. Heroes are humble like that. At some point in any good tale, the Hero has some sort of awakening moment, at which point he (or she) recognizes ‘the truth of it’ and goes forth to save the day – with some luck, and the help of their trusty sidekicks. Most of us have a sidekick or two in life, someone – a friend, a family member, a work buddy, a lover – who is reliably ‘there for us’ when we need emotional support. Most often, we (and by we I mean ‘me’) don’t seem aware that we’re the hero of the story…that we are, in our own narrative, The One. So far so good in hero territory, I suppose…only…where’s that moment of awakening, when we each take on the world – or at least our own circumstances – and solve the puzzle, master the challenge, clear the hurdle, or conquer our foe? There’s a metaphor here, but there is also something very directly real and true in it. We do well to be our own heroes, and to embrace our opportunity to be The One in our own experience.

Remember Keanu Reeves, in The Matrix, that moment where he begins to do his virtual training in the matrix, learning to fight, to fly, all that? When did you last take your own education so seriously that you plugged into a machine and just went for it – for hours, or days, or years if it takes that? (It’s those damned verbs, again!) How much time do you put into becoming the person you most want to be, investing  your will in that endeavor with mindful deliberately chosen actions? I know I could do more, myself, and within the thoughts I find the questions that light the way along the path ahead.

Be ‘The One’. Be ‘The One’? What does that even mean, really? I hear it, and I feel a certain implicit understanding of the thing…but that’s hardly enough to manifest a change, is it? Being ‘The One’ in my own narrative, the hero of my own experience, implies that I value myself as worthy – even in my humblest bumbling and fumbling and inept moments, even as I learn things I didn’t know previously, even as I swing and miss, even as I try – when I meant to do. Being ‘The One’ in my own story means trusting the hero to save the day – all the while aware that I am my own hero, and saving the day clearly means there will be verbs involved, and as in any exciting hero’s tale, I will likely get it wrong once or twice, bring my world to the brink of disaster perhaps, but always finding my way at the last minute. Or something very like that.

Isn’t it okay to grow and learn and change? Isn’t incremental change over time part of the process of healing and growth? How much more easily will I make progress if I am seeing myself as the hero of the story – and actively investing in my further growth, trusting that the journey will take me where I most need to go, and accepting my missteps along with my great triumphs as being part of the experience all along? Yes, it is okay – totally okay. I know the truth of it, even as I struggle sometimes with the reality of how many damned verbs really are involved, and how relentlessly continuous the journey can sometimes feel. Being ‘The One’ has immense power to heal and transform and bring change…but there’s rarely a great prophet around to tell us who we are when we most need to hear it – making us, once again, ‘The One’ – the one with the message to the woman in the mirror.

A beautiful sunset, a cherished experience.

I enjoyed last evening in the company of a friend. The conversation went a lot of places, and as with some friends more than others, the conversation was fairly ‘deep’. I woke this morning from dreams filled with reminders of things said, feeling inspired, and experiencing a deeper understanding of what being ‘The One’ in my own experience may require of me in will, and in action. I’m not likely to save New York City from disaster…or to save the world from alien invaders…but I very easily could be ‘The One’ who saves the day – my day – probably from me. 🙂

I take a moment, sipping my coffee, to appreciate how many times friends become sidekicks when I most need one, and how often sidekicks turn out to be great prophets revealing that particular truth I most need to hear. Today is a good day to be grateful for the connections I share with people – we are each so very human, each having our own experience – each the hero of our own adventure story – it’s quite wonderful when we connect, overlap, share the moment – and save the world.