There’s always been a constant battle between two selves in me. One is the responsible and  disciplined adult who has timetables and exercise schedules and financial plans and diet plans.

The other is a carefree happy-go-lucky child who doesn’t care about all these things and just wants to do what she wants to do, be in the moment, and enjoy life. She could binge through the night, eat cheesecakes through the day, sleep till noon, and just lie in bed reading or stay up playing with paints.

How do I make these two reach an understanding? The more the adult tried to impose her “adulting”, the more her plans would get sabotaged. But we can’t let a kid run the show also no?

That’s when I noticed there was another part of me (no, I don’t have multiple personality disorder if that’s what you are thinking). I am not sure what to call her though.

She’s sometimes like a mother, but when I say mother, I don’t mean a societally conditioned stereotypical mother who can swing to extremes.

I mean a more primordial, grounded, wise feminine energy who’s as old as Time itself. She can be both wild and wise. She can be both sexual and spiritual. She can be both woman and child. She has a wisdom that’s beyond me, beyond the books and courses and meditations and TED talks and podcasts.

I have been allowing myself to listen to her and let her lead. I have been following her guidance, not just listening. Earlier, I used to question and doubt and second-guess her. Earlier, after doing something led by her, I would sometimes feel doubt if it was indeed the right thing or regret or guilt because it was so different from what I was taught.

But inevitably, I would always realize that she was right. Whatever she whispered to me about a person, place, or opportunity would always be right. Logically, it would have made no sense to have said no or yes to some people or things, which is why I would always question that part of me.

But when I saw that she never went wrong, her compass, moral or otherwise, never led me astray, that’s when I started letting down my guard. I started feeling safe enough to let myself relax into her embrace. Into her way of being. Into her way of living.

When I live guided by that Knowing, I find myself doing things that other people who know me are surprised by, because they think it’s “out of character” for me.

But I think they feel that way because they have only known my “character” on the surface. They haven’t known the character that lies deep within me, which is my core essence, submerged by all the do’s and don’ts of society, drilled into me by my mother (what it means to be a “good woman” in this society is first taught to girls by their mother), and then my father, teachers, and influenced by my friends, lovers, partner(s), and media.

So when I let her lead and guide me, I end up living life and responding to it differently. I have less guilt, more of a calm assurance.

I dress differently, eat differently, spend and save differently. I even make different choices with my home decor, with people I choose as lovers or friends, with how I spend my time.

It’s an intuitive flow that allows me to live in the moment. It’s no longer a stressful tide that pushes me back into the dead past or pulls me into the non-existent future.

This moment, right here, is all there is.

After so many years of fighting this, living the way a patriarchal system teaches you is right, driven by milestones and goals and graphs and projections and metrics, I have finally come full circle back to Her.

I still don’t know what to call this path or this voice or this way of being.

But it feels right to be walking Her path.

I feel like I am back home at last.