I'm not going to say I'm an expert in any sort of Maya History or theology. I have only read a small bit about how the Maya people viewed time and development... but some of what I read was meaningful and enlightening in this way:
Like many Americans, I see time as a line, a forward progression... sometimes straight, sometimes a spaghetti noodle, but always a beginning and some sort of an end.
As child I was taught I was born of God of would die human and evolve into some spiritual form in heaven.
I thought some day "when I'm 30", I would be this strong, developed, smart, in dependant woman. I thought most of my shortcomings and inadequacies would be resolved. I thought with my motivation and hard work I could set my mind to something and accomplish it.
What I think now, is that my primary shortcoming was the linear thought, and the lack of strong role models around me to challenge and guide my beliefs and strengths.... and to help point out the weaknesses and proper development.
What I found is that every thing, every day, is carried with you. Until you wake up at 30 with the same inadequacies you had at 25, 19, 13 years old They don't resolve and they don't magically transform with birthdays into strengths.
I gained wisdom and insight into my weaknesses through sheer force. Being forced into "life lessons" the hard way, and having the luck to have a few people around me strong enough to live through those lessons with me and love me anyway.
What the Maya belief system explained, as presented to me, is that time is not linear, but parallel. Perhaps existing together, or all at once as history marches forward......... So that you understand quite passionately that at 30, you are a culmination of all the years before you. You carry the 5 year old, the 13 year old, the 25 year old along with you inside of you. You are at 30 exactly who you were at 20. Isn't this so true? My base reactions to being challenged and torn down were so basely similar to the pre-teen I was and still had the same poor coping mechanisms.
I am not a single dot on a timeline, existing in this one moment. I am still the 15 year old who had her life in her hands then...
The wisdom I gained in life, was when I was forced to look long and hard at how I got there - cornered into a rough situation, and use rational thinking to reconnect the dots and rewrite my future.
I had to reclaim the hard and painful past, I had to own it, and understand it, I had to understand why the people around me hurt me. I had to resolve and understand the angst I felt so strongly.
At 30 I finally realized I was still 10 years old. I was still listening to music I thought my brothers would have wanted me to listen to... and in some parts of my life, I had gone stale. Where I disagreed with my family's lifestyle, I had just gone neutral. I had never claimed my own thoughts. Not REALLY. I was living in a neutral "I'm ok" space..... but not really claiming the "truth" in my heart.
I was exactly frozen in a space I had created.
I still was emotionally stuck, still bite my nails, still put up the "wall" of strength that other women often compliment me on, and yet, is probably one of my biggest downfalls.
That wall came from constant torment at home. Being told over and over how inadequate I was, being stripped down and the butt of jokes day after day. Until I got old enough to master Sarcasm and "wit" and quirkiness to turn others on the edge of their seats.
Insults and sarcasm are mostly a control tool used by lower classes to instigate Power over someone else when you feel powerless otherwise. It can work, but it sure doesn't make anyone feel very connected or warm around you.
As a survival tool for a young woman out in the world on her own, it has blessed my life over and over. Being able to tell someone to their face to F off and stomp off, well, it's pretty useful in a bad situation... or being able to close out social norms to not feel obligated to someone trying to do you harm in a social situation - girl on a first date, girl alone in Detroit, etc. I had balls.
But those balls really needed some close friends and family, and work skills.
Looking back I have turned my history around in my head. Most of my torment came from my brothers, and why? Well, it was their own defense mechanisms from being tormented and stripped down and left emotionally naked by my parents and their older siblings. Why? Well - My dad was ravaged by post traumatic stress syndrome and was also raised by a recovered alcoholic who also beat him and lived a strict life. My mother raised by a bi-polar alcoholic known to chase her mother around their house with a butcher knife in his "bad episodes". Hmmm. Who's to blame there?
What's been perpetuated for many generations, I want to stop in mine. I don't want to go blindly into raising my kids in a hostile, linear life.
My main thought here, is HERE. HERE and NOW. When you have youth on your side.... USE the youth to write the "RIGHT" chapters in your future. You can't "rewrite" history, you will CARRY your history with you forever. But you can look at your history, you can learn, you can share, you can talk about it, you can resolve your fears stemming from it. YOU CAN WRITE your future. You can use what you know and embrace the strong people around you if you let others in and let them help.
As a Johnson I Don't NEED anyone's help! My instinct is to do it all, do it right the first time and to hate on anyone who is too stupid to figure it out for themselves. But.... guess what.... Life was so much easier for friends I have who share, and love, and allow and depend. You can be strong and you can be strong enough to love and do the right things for yourself. You can be strong enough to allow someone to help you and to love you when you need it.
People LOVE to help others and support them. We love team sports, we love Extreme Home Make overs, we LOVE inspiration.... we need to love ourselves.
When you are 30, you don't want to get there and find out you still don't have the right answers, you just wake up 30 as forlorn as you were the day before at 29.
The way to freedom and happiness is piecing together TODAY who and what you truly are and embracing the goodness you have welling up inside you and reaching out all around you to the people who are most willing to help out.
Counselling and talking are the best ways, if available of course.... reading, writing.... but mainly having the goals and the patience and being OPEN to the opportunities that WILL come.
One lady told me once that she found most of the time she didn't exactly go "Searching" for opportunity, but just kept herself "ready" for it when it came knocking. That worked for her. Being open to ideas and thoughts and new doors. Don't say no. Don't think you know the story, don't work out the negative ending in your head.
I recently found out there were several professional opportunities I just never thought out. I "KNEW" I couldn't do them at the time they were presented so I never considered them. Didn't even explore the idea. Now I have realized I knew nothing about those opportunities and they would have really resulted in a completely different "future" for me that was totally do-able at the time, if I had even considered them. I didn't even explore. I just said "NO" to myself and settled for good enough.
My life is mine, and no one elses, but I just wanted to share with you in case it helped crystallize any of your own thoughts.
I'm just starting to really embrace "ME" in my 30's. I spent my 20's trying to get away from "myself", when "myself" was really just "who I thought my brothers thought I should be". There was good old Kyla in there but reluctant... Now that I'm finding "ME" I like her so much, I really don't feel like "getting away" and it's just getting better.
