Emerald Green is a red crayon born to green crayon parents, and as hard as she tries to be a good green, it just doesn’t work. Life is difficult for her until she discovers her true colour, and then she blossoms.
I have learned a lot from Emerald, and I’d like to share some of those lessons with you. So here we go….
Lesson 1: Be Yourself
This is, of course, the main message of my book. Be yourself. As they say, everyone else is already taken.
But how the heck can we figure out who we are? Can our parents tell us who we are? No. Can our teachers? No. Can our friends? Our spouse? Pastor? Guru? Idol? No. It’s up to us. But how? Well, what did Emerald do?
In Emerald’s Big Discovery, after trying really hard to be green, Emerald finally gave up. She cried. She ran away. She sat under a tree and cried some more. But when her heart broke, it also broke open. And when it broke open, new ideas were able to come in. New light. New truths. Like the truth of who she truly is.
This goes for us too. So often we, like Emerald, run away. When we don’t feel right, when our heart is threatening to break, we get busy. We jump from plan to plan. We move. We change jobs. We change partners. Anything to avoid the pain. But when we finally surrender, our hearts are also able to break open to new truths of our own. Truths like the fact that we are perfect, just as we are.
Emerald ran away to a place she had never been before. She was all alone. And because she went somewhere she had never been before, she met someone new. To me, the old purple crayon represents her wise inner self that is connected to Spirit. For you, that kindly old crayon can represent whatever you’d like. Inner wisdom. God. Or just a purple crayon.
But however you view that purple wise one, the point is that Emerald stopped and listened. Because she took the time to listen, her eyes were opened to a new reality. When we are still, when we stop running, we, too, can start to focus on what might be, what could be. We experience a shift. A paradigm shift.
And when Emerald discovered the truth of who she is, she made a choice. She could have chosen to disregard what that wise old crayon said, and kept fighting to be a good green, regardless of the proof. It sounds incredible, but many of us do that very thing, day after day. We see glimpses of our true self, yet we pursue a contrary path in an effort to ‘fit in’. But in the book, of course, Emerald chose to embrace the path of redness. She chose to find out what else she could do, be, experience. She chose her true colour.
So heartbreak can lead to a more open heart, introspection can bring great wisdom, and it is all our choice. But is it always this easy? After all, life isn’t as simple as a children’s book. You’re right, it’s not. So let’s discuss that in Part 2, ok?
BreatheShellyGirl 