The songwriter, Libby Roderick’s signature tune, “How Could Anyone?” had a global impact with her message of acceptance in the news media and the Associated Press when it first came out a dozen years ago. There is an epidemic going on among us very sensitive lightworkers regarding feeling our unworthiness. The Buddha taught that suffering arises out of feeling separate. When we identify ourselves a separate self, we have the feeling that something is wrong, something is missing. We want life to be different from the way it is. An acute sense of separation—living inside of a contracted and isolated self—amplifies feelings of vulnerability and fear, grasping and aversion. Feeling separate is an existential trance in which we have forgotten the wholeness of our being.
What’s wrong with me? Especially in our culture there is this underlying sense that “I’m not okay.” There is a belief of self that has been so exaggerated causing so many of us to sabotage ourselves. A winning entry in a Washington Post T-shirt contest highlights the underlying assumption of personal deficiency that is so part of our Western culture: “I have occasional delusions of adequacy.” Many of us feel that we are wrong if we are anxious, wrong if I we are sick, depressed, lonely, alone or just a general sense of deficiency. The list goes on and in that isolated moment our worlds close in on us feeling trapped in unworthiness.
Carl Jung describes the paradigm shift in understanding the spiritual path: Rather than climbing up a ladder seeking perfection, we are unfolding into wholeness. We are not trying to transcend or vanquish the difficult energies that we consider wrong—the fear, shame, jealousy, anger. This only creates a shadow that fuels our sense of deficiency. Rather, we are learning to turn around and embrace life in all its realness—broken, messy, vivid, alive.
When we are constantly in the process of trying to be better to reach that next plateau in our minds we never arrive and always feel spiritually insufficient.
The spiritual teacher and author, Tara Brach, wrote, “Each of us grew up with set standards—provided to us by our caregivers and the larger culture—that informed us how to act in order to be loved or respected. I should look a certain way. I should achieve certain things. At work we have these ideas of what it means to be successful, and we’re always rating ourselves and other people. We have ideas about what it means to have a good personality or what it means to look good. The larger culture has very explicit standards on what it means to “make it.” To the degree we judge ourselves as less than, there’s this gap between the standard and our sense of self that weighs us down, and we can feel it in our body. Some people say, “Well, it’s just a belief,” but the belief we are falling short has a physical correlate—shame and depression show up in our bodies.”
Once we can get in touch with those parts of ourselves and begin to love ourselves through it at that moment by changing our perception and forgiving ourselves for even thinking that we were less than, you can experience a shift. Once you begin to tell yourself “I’m sorry for ever believing I was less than love, shift happens. There’s also the ho’oponopono prayer which goes: I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. After repeating this phrase to ourselves our identity shifts. For many spiritual teachers I tune into, it turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world.
Once you begin shifting Know that you are the One you are waiting for. Get excited! You are your mission. Know you are being lived through your passion. For many of us we feel no one has ever met me or can fully sense me. Start to feel how you can go deeper within yourself and meet who you are. Feel what your heart is yearning to express. Go deeper become ravished with You are and who you are becoming.
The author, David Deida writes, You are your mission, and if you don’t know it, you are not relaxed in the moment. It is being shown to you right now. You are being lived by a force deeper than you. A Masculine practice is intuitively feeling and identifying with that force so that when you wake up in the morning, you are lived by your mission. If you don’t know what that is, it is because you are thinking. Your mind will never know your mission. You will never feel your mission if you are attending to your thoughts hoping to see what your mission is in the future. The longer you pay attention to your thoughts, once you realize that 99% of your thoughts are essentially random motions (there are useful thoughts, of course, but not for finding your sense of purpose). When you rest in this present moment, it is wide open. Now, if you allow your body to be okay with that feeling of “I don’t know,” for eternity, that is about as close to enlightened being as you can speak in words. Be wide open to the manifestation of existence through your being, living in a state of “beginner’s mind” as some people call it, acting with precision. I think people misunderstand what mission is and what purpose is. It is not something you have or don’t have; it is something you are ignoring or not ignoring in the present moment. Finding your purpose is fully sinking into the present moment and letting reality manifest through you as a gift to all.”
Be the love that loves all things. How can you express how much more loving, deeper and brilliant your work or your relationships show. Being the spiritual gladiator in the deepest part of you resides the most infinite, glorious, unlimited being.
We are the divine. Start trusting your heart and open to all things. Practice compassion with everyone. With your own fears and those of others. Even when it is tough to do begin letting go a little bit into the endless opening of love for yourself.
Feel that joy of what you want to live most as a gift to the world today and do what you can to give it today. Every moment waiting is a moment not living your purpose and each moment taking your clarity of purpose away dulls our souls. You may feel there is so much more that can be showing up in your life now. You may be more loving than your relationships allow, more brilliant than your career suggests, more outgoing than those in your elite circle. In your secret heart of hearts you are endless, infinite, more loving and more brilliant then you could ever imagine. Now take that feeling and make it a memory you can never forget and share it with the world.
So much love to you all at this Profound time, when everything is probable!
As Viktor Frankl wrote, “That which gives light must endure burning!”
How Could Anyone Ever Told You
How could anyone ever tell you
You were anything less than beautiful
How could anyone ever tell you
You were less than whole
How could anyone fail to notice
That your loving is a miracle
How deeply you’re connected to my Soul…
