by Marcy Heller
Back in 1951, there was a wonderful song written by Rogers and Hammerstein for the Broadway musical, ‘The King and I’, called ‘Getting to know You’.
I want to pose a question to all of you – how do you get to know your true self? I would love for you to ponder that question and possibly do some self-inquiry on and about getting to know who you truly are?
By studying who you are you’re actually trying to find yourself. The truth is, we were the ones who actually screwed ourselves up in the first place. Remembering who I truly AM and not what my mind and five senses continue to tell me is quite a spiritual practice. As one of my teachers have imprinted on me, “If you’re in your head you’re dead!” How can we dare to be Brave and discover who we truly are? In reality, we have to un-study ourselves. By studying and adding every word to define ourselves we dig a deeper hole and become even less authentic. When we label ourselves or others, we are not seeing with our hearts but with our heads. Our judgments. We have to forget who we thought we are. When others say ‘You have to be mindful’. It is not being in our mind that matters. It is about being heartfelt. To be stay Present. To see with the eye of the heart.
We hear Buddha saying the ultimate cause of suffering is ignorance. Learning to know about ourselves is getting out of the ignorance. (Getting to know you, getting to know all about You.) Being mindful doesn’t mean being intellectual. It’s not about talking, it’s not about discovering something new. It’s being present with ourselves. Learning to be free. To be in the flow. Being the Light of God and coming into the world as your true self. (Haven’t you noticed suddenly I’m bright and breezy.)
The good news to remember is that we are often more afraid of our light than of our darkness. We have become afraid of our true self, to be open to the possibility that we are so much more. We are addicted to our false self. The blessing is being able to laugh at ourselves and realize how we ever get ourselves into this predicament! (When I am with you getting to know what to say.) We have to stop taking ourselves so seriously. It’s about living our life and then trusting the illusion of what our mind is chattering about!
Trying to invent or disguise who we are is just adding more stuff. We start figuring and adding titles to ourselves. Every word we add to ourselves is a distraction. If we try try to intellectualize, using terminology that too is so limiting, we keep trying to figure it out to no avail. News Flash: The more we know who we are the more magical we become! (Getting to like you getting to hope you like me.)
When we begin to let go and start living through our hearts and not our heads, and as we begin releasing all the blocks that have kept us from being our true authentic selves, something magical happens: we become alive again. We feel ourselves fully, possibly for the first time. We realize we are magical, magnificent, powerful creatures beyond measure. When we reach this place, even momentarily, we belong everywhere and nowhere. In polishing that mirror we will not only heal ourselves, but humanity as well. It’s about believing what we are not able to see. (Because of all the beautiful and new things I’m learning about you day by day.)
We are all being initiated and trained to remember to become the frequency that we want to keep reaching! But if we really want the light, we cannot afford to flee the heat. As Victor Frankl said, “What gives light must endure burning.” Being with the fire’s heat doesn’t just mean sitting with the difficult stuff in meditation, it is also going into it, trekking to its core, facing and entering and getting intimate with whatever is there, however scary or traumatic or sad or raw. The most powerful courageous spiritual warriors are the ones who have let life break and remake them a hundred times over! I promise you this, you are so much more then your mind or senses can tell you. (Getting to know you, putting it my way but nicely, you are precisely, my cup of Tea.)
“We are all here to walk each other back home!” And, this is something to remember. You want to start walking the path that leads you exactly to your home. Otherwise, you’ll end up in somebody else’s bed! The surest way to do that is to keep course-correcting and follow your own yellow brick road home by being the truest and most authentic You!
Give yourself time to make a prayer that will become the prayer of your soul. Ask yourself how to Love yourself more. Listen to the voices of longing in your soul. Give attention to the unexpected that lives around the rim of your life. Listen to the memory and to the voices of those near you and those you have lost. Out of all of that attention to your soul, make a prayer that is big enough for your wild soul, yet tender enough for your shy and awkward vulnerability; that has enough healing to gain the ointment of divine forgiveness for your wounds; enough truth and vigor to challenge your blindness and complacency; enough graciousness and vision to mirror your immortal beauty. Write a prayer that is worthy of the destiny to which you have been called. You are well-loved. As a matter of fact, You are precisely my cup of Tea…
