The Heart's Journey Home (Part 2)

by Debra Highland

← Part 1 of Debra's article

November 2003

A cold, dark, rainy day and I conclude that my search through the years has been all about the word "authentic." I have all but memorized the part in Beatrix Potter's "The Velveteen Rabbit" where Rabbit asks the Skin Horse about being real. Every time I'd read it my children when they were young, this was the part I dwelled on, I mean I really mentally parked on it for days and true, my environment did not exactly lend itself to authentic. So I key in the word itself. Authentic. Just that. And the first thing on the page is a contest challenge by a Toronto fashion designer. Write a letter about being an authentic woman, the invitation reads. In an hour I pour myself onto the page like never before and if nothing else, I reason, my letter will be read by someone. Just to know there are other women, even someone in the fashion industry on her own journey towards authentic, is incredibly inspirational to me.

I hit the send button, relieved from writing, motivated for another day.

June 2004

It's late afternoon on a sunny Friday. Sunny is odd in western Pennsylvania and we relish it. I answer the phone and an excited voice on the other end announces to me that I am one of the winners of the Linda Lundstrom Authentic Woman Model Search. I am winning $1000 worth of designer clothing, a trip to Toronto for a photo shoot wearing Linda's new winter line with three other winners, and someone will contact me about the details of date, time, and flight arrangements. I walk on a cloud; it seems, for the rest of the day. I went looking for authentic, and others like me, and just to be read. This is a day where goose bumps reign supreme. I am humbled and grateful.

January 2005

Day 1

I arrive in Toronto at 9pm on a very cold, cold snowy night. The cab ride from the airport is harrowing and I am tired. I can't believe the exquisite hotel in which I find myself. I am the first to arrive of the four winners for the winter line, so I shower and then call Kate, a winner from Edmonton. She has just arrived and we make plans to meet for breakfast since the other two, Janet from Puerto Rico and Lynn will not be here until tomorrow. I journal this experience, or try, the goose bumps are here again and I fall asleep before finishing my first sentence.

Day 2

Breakfast with Kate is like meeting up with an old friend. We spend hours engaged in conversation and finally decide we should go rest before taking the taxi to the Lundstrom offices, where we will meet Linda, and Jan and Lynn will meet us there. We will be choosing our photo shoot outfits, from what I understand. As we arrive later, I am awed by the creative energy, the colors and textures so apparent in this place of creation and by Linda's gentle, authentic spirit. We laugh and talk again; it's like a reunion of sorts, although we have never met. Goose bumps.

Day 3

We meet Yanka Van der Kolk, one of Canada's top models in the past, who is to be our photo shoot coach; getting us ready for the camera, helping us stare into the mirror of our past and to let it go, helping us stare into the mirror on the wall, calling ourselves beautiful. The day is amazing, getting to know the other women this way, hearing their stories, how they came to find the contest and write and then we return to our hotel for an elegant dinner and the reading aloud of our letters. Each of us struggles to get through; the words we have written came from a place deep in the heart, a place and path of authenticity. We have a girl party in my hotel room. Some wine and laughter. It seems like we have known each other forever. Tomorrow is the photo shoot so we call it a night and decide to get some sleep. More goose bumps.

Day 4

The photo shoot is in Yanka's apartment. We arrive by taxi in the morning. Henk, Yanka's kind and friendly husband, is busy making some coffee for us. Her daughter, the photographer, is making things ready, setting an order and we are doing make-up, hair, the works. Linda is scurrying about making sure we're okay with this and that. She asks me at one point, as she talks with a reporter, "Didn't you just Google the word 'authentic' to find the contest?" and yes, I say, I did. I was just looking for authentic. I realize it may not seem so cool that I hadn't actually heard of Linda, but she seems to be fine with it and happy that I am here. Beyond her thoughts on authenticity and reasons for this contest, her life is an example of recognizing a creative passion and making it a reality. I am amazed too that, yes, indeed, I had only been looking for the word authentic which led to this incredible experience. Goose bumps.

Those days and the subsequent fashion show in Toronto a year later, (a gathering of all sixteen winners in the two years in which Linda ran the contest) are things I will always hold dear, but I realize they would not have happened to me had it not been for the awareness of authentic and the longing I'd felt to connect with others who'd come to such awareness as well. Others who had chosen to let fear go that day and allow truth and love to embrace them, to move them forward.

Authenticity. It's not a destination, it is a daily commitment to the truth of who we are, a day by day, moment by moment decision to act according to the understanding and awareness from lessons learned and love applied. So it seems, authenticity is not something to obtain, but a road to travel that brings us back to ourselves yet again, and again. Have you experienced your quiet riot? Have you come to that place of questioning? Maybe your journey is full of misplaced loyalties and burdens from the weight of others' expectations. Have you had your reasonable revolution? (I assume if you're reading this, you have.) And... are you feeding the hungry fire, the creative endeavor, that desire and talent that is unique to all and which must be stoked for divine peace to heat all the corners, the cold and lonely places, of your heart?

Any day - Dusk

The sun has set, resting beneath today. The sky is deep blue, awaiting midnight.
"Here we will rest for the night. Watch. Wait." Truth sighs. "The progress is slow right now. We will wait for as long as it takes."
"Things are not always as they seem, though," Love smiles.
"True, true, but in here as opposed to out there, they definitely are more so. Have you found something yet again? What is that you're holding?"
"It is another piece of hope, I think. It's about fear. She is aware of fear as well."
"Hmm yes. The writing gives us hope. Here, may I?"

Fear

I fear. I am always afraid and growing so weary of the feeling. Fear. I want to kick fear in the teeth, the teeth that bite me every time I begin to believe I can, every time I decide to act upon my heart and passion. I want to kick fear in the face with laughter and gratitude, forgiveness and acceptance, love and truth, honesty and passion and I want to watch that face bleed and writhe in agony from the power surge of freedom all its victims realize once they decide to break free. To see fear writhing would please me more than I can say. Fear feeds on unbelief and insecurity, eyeing the tiniest self-doubt like a bird of prey hunched in the darkness, waiting to strike and that moment is right, fear lunges at doubt in the heart of mankind, infusing it, fattening it, moving it towards the outposts of hope.

Truth and Love eye fear. The chain is smaller now, almost. invisible.

With darkness comes the comfort and security of inaction. The woman has loosened her hold on fear, yet more and knows the fight must continue tomorrow. Today laughter reigned and bolstered her courage and hope danced around her gratitude. Today she fed her hungry fire, making it easier to choose tomorrow for heart and towards authentic. She knows the universe will support her. She knows that truth and love are ready to hold her up. She is every woman and she is grateful for this opportunity, the gift of today, the search for authenticity, the only way home.

Let authentic be your song if it is not already, the song which you would sing with your last breath. Let it be your light in the darkness, the only light at the end of the long, black night. Let it be your story, the one you would tell if you were breathing your last breath. Let it bring you home to your own heart, to the path off which you veered so long ago. Truth and love wait for you. The choice is yours.

Consider if you will, a scenario inside the heart of every woman.

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