Authentic Fulfillment

Why is there so much toxic anxiety
with people always striving to be better?
To exceed who? Determined by what?
We are divided from our very selves
by this endless casting about
with the grass always greener
looking anywhere but here
and we need to find
the needle and thread
that will bring and bind
ourselves securely back together.
Wake, yawn, stretch, and arise,
roar, and then relax.
Be brave enough
to be incomparable.
No one else will
totally understand
because no one else is you,
(which of course
is your superpower),
but instead of yearning
to fit in, stand the heck out
in bold trust and faith.
Be your own
saturated or muted
combination of colors.
Make your own mark;
it will be like no one else’s
and that is wonderfully marvelous
just as it should be.
Comparison is strangulation,
suffocating the euphoria you feel
when you embrace your native,
but fledgling, uniqueness.
You don’t have to look for it.
It is a moist and promising seed
flourishing and promulgating
deep within you, already there,
rough, ready, and resonating,
like a songbird that
does not choose its own tune
while candidly contributing
in oblivious but riveting harmony
to all of surrounding nature,
with no pressure from anywhere
to be anything else, bringing joy
and beautiful background sound
to all that hear. Your own
internal rhythm makes others
tap their toes, smile,
or even innocently twirl,
while your soft stillness
feeds and satisfies grace.
Give up your prevarications
and take on only your own part
which no one else can fulfill
– but YOU can do it valiantly –
with courage and with flair.
Do not borrow an ill-fitting outfit
when you can wear your very own,
that was precisely tailored for you
from before the beginning of time.
Collapse with relief into the
reliability and guilelessness
of unwitting, childlike perfection,
like falling backwards into a nest
full of frothy, fuzzy feathers.
Yield to your core truth,
and allow yourself
the cosmic permission to let loose
and accept unconditionally
who you really are.
In proportion as you do,
you’ll encourage everyone else
to be as liberated and authentic too.
Then extrapolate and integrate
to universal fulfillment, genuine
peace on earth, easy going survival,
and florid fun, with each of us
considerately and unapologetically
playing our exclusive role
without trying hard at all,
riding the wave of crescendoing,
orchestrally choreographed glory.

by Polly Castor
2/22/2021