Sculpting Yourself

Great sculpture artist have said that the final piece is already present inside the block of wood or marble and that it is a matter of chipping away the unnecessary to reveal the beauty that has always been within. This is often true of ourselves as well. The essential self, the work of art that is you, gets encased in a block, petrified and frozen in time, a block composed of thwarted expression and all the ways you mismatch worldly expectations; of all the missteps, mistakes, and failures you have endured. It is created out of the desperate need to protect your own precious vitality from the harshness of the world. Unfortunately, this protective shell effectively accomplishes what it tries to prevent.

Chipping away the unnecessary to release the essential self is one of the grand projects in life.  It can be painstaking work over years, with its own starts and stops and forgotten steps, with hard sacrifices and anxious second guesses, as you strive to bring your vitality back to life knowing you risk again the very hurt and heartbreak you hardened yourself against in the first place. But it is this grand project that restores you to your Self and turns your life into a work of art. And the truth is that the very world that squashed your vitality, that wanted to change you into an image of itself, desperately needs your uniqueness and your vitality in order to thrive.

© Nick LeForce
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How have you sculpted your uniqueness?

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