being me

PS- of course I should know very well what it means to be genuine beyond just what our parents and environment tell us to be.

In my case, my parents would NEVER let me be a masseuse and a healer, or dance African or belly dance, or play drums, or do martial arts, or go out in wilderness tracking, or meditate and have a guru from India... To this day, they think I am a weirdo, and in (at least one) sect. When I said to my mom that I joined the belly dancing class, she just sighed in disbelief. The Buddha in my room got her feeling iffy because "he kept on looking at her", as well as Yogananda, who also "kept staring at her and bugging her" as she said. I said great, I am glad you met them.

I am such an oddball, the only way for me to prosper was to move away from all of my physical family. Which I did. But they should have known all this ahead of time - my father loves to hike and explore nature, my mom loves middle eastern music, my grandpas loved to play and dance, my great grandfathers were all fighters, my mom is an official psychoterapist to everyone, and my grandmas were good with herbs and foods. ,... The only unknown is the spiritual part. At least one of them must have had some seed of really being chummy with God. Hm... My father stands up and prays in whispers every night. And my mom prays to Divine Mother silently. And think of it, my grandma had little Jesus in her room and sent it to me before she died.

"We stand up on the box of our childhood and then kick it from below our feet."