What Matters Most Is How You See Yourself.

Do not forget who you are; most of us forget our true essence and purpose in life due to the challenges, vicissitudes, trials and tribulations that we all have to deal with as a result of being human. It all started in childhood when we were indoctrinated with self-limiting beliefs, domesticated like wild animals, and programmed with our caregivers’ and parents’ projections and fears. You were told you could not do that; money is the root of all evil; people like us cannot attain that level of success. You need to know your place in this world and take care, among other well-meaning but self-limiting beliefs.

American author and businessman John A. Shedd once said, “A ship in a harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” You are here to make waves, leave your footprint in the sand of time, make epic shit, make the world a better place, and serve society. In A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles,” American author Marianne Williamson asserted in her poem – Our Deepest Fear: “Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.” We get programmed and brainwashed to forget who we are; we are told to grow up from childish things as we have responsibilities now. We are given a sleeping pill to live on autopilot and in a trance. In A Return to Love, Williamson writes:

When we were born, we were programmed perfectly. We had a natural tendency to focus on love. Our imaginations were creative and flourishing, and we knew how to use them. We were connected to a world much richer than the one we connect to now, a world full of enchantment and a sense of the miraculous.”

“So what happened? Why is it that we reached a certain age, looked around, and the enchantment was gone?

We were taught to think thoughts like competition, struggle, sickness, finite resources, limitation, guilt, bad, death, scarcity, and loss. We began to think these things, and so we began to know them. We were taught that things like grades, being good enough, money, and doing things the right way, are more important than love. We were taught that we’re separate from other people, that we have to compete to get ahead, and that we’re not quite good enough the way we are. We were taught to see the world the way that others had come to see it. It’s as though, as soon as we got here, we were given a sleeping pill. The thinking of the world, which is not based on love, began pounding in our ears the moment we hit the shore.

Don’t Forget who you are ²

In West Africa, the story is told of an animal expert. This expert knew every animal in the bush. In America, you say forest, but the real word is bush. One day, as this expert was walking, he passed a farm. In the back of the farm, he saw so so[*] chickens, and in the middle of the chickens was an eagle. The man was vexed to see the eagle acting like a chicken. He went to the front of the farm and knocked on the farmer’s door.

He said, “Bop bop.” In America you say knock, knock, but the real sound is bop bop. The man inside said, “Who that?” The man outside said, “That me. You must open the door and see.”
The farmer opened the door and said, “What’s your business here?” The man outside said, “I’m an animal expert, and I see that behind your farm, you have so so chickens, but in the middle is one eagle.

The farmer said, “No, I don’t have any eagles. Only chickens.” The expert said, “Let me show you.”
They walked to the back of the farm, and the expert picked up the eagle and said, “Listen to me. You’re an eagle. You can fly. They’re chickens. They can’t fly. So go now and fly.”
The eagle looked at the man and then looked down at his chicken brothers and sisters eating their chicken food. He hopped off the man’s arm and started eating the food. The farmer laughed at the expert and said, “I told you. I don’t have any eagles.” The expert was shamed and vexed. He said, “I’m coming to go.”

He left the farm. The next day he came back so early in the morning that God was not awake yet. He knocked at the farmer’s door. The farmer was frustrated but let him in. He walked to the back of the farm and picked up the eagle. He climbed on top of the barn. He told the eagle, “All your life people have treated you like chicken. They taught you to talk like chicken and eat like chicken and think like chicken, but you’re not a chicken. You’re an eagle. You can fly now, so fly.

At that moment the sun started to rise. The animal expert said, “You see how far that sun is? You can go there. Now fly.” The eagle thought, “This man will come bother me every day until I try this thing, so let me try.” He stretched his wings, and my people, you have never seen such a beautiful sight. The eagle flew toward the sun, and the farmer never saw him again.

Like the eagle in the above story, most of us have forgotten our uniqueness and purpose in life due to our environment. We have forgotten who we are: A king, queen, royalty, a force of nature; we think what we are going through is who we are, and we propagate a limited vision for our life. As Ralph Waldo Emerson “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” To be a lion in a world full of cats, to be an eagle in a world full of chickens, to be unique in a world of sameness, and to be extraordinary in a world of mediocrity is a very courageous act. To achieve anything worthwhile, you have to believe in yourself and trust your process. What matters most is how you see yourself, people are going to doubt your greatness but you have to trust that you are here to create something epic.

When you begin to come into your wholesomeness and greatness, it is going to make people around you uncomfortable. You are going to be called names and labelled with traits like condescending, you have a superiority complex, and you have changed. Don’t be surprised, as this is one of the prices of freedom. As theoretical physicist Albert Einstein once noted “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”

Tension is uncomfortable. ³ That’s why it sometimes makes people uncomfortable to hear about how things could be. One of the reasons Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech made such a huge impact on the world and carved such a vivid place in our cultural memory is that it made the world of August 1963 very uncomfortable. John Lennon painted his vision of a more harmonious world in the song Imagine. Within the decade, he was shot to death. Gandhi, Jesus, Socrates … our world can be harsh on people who talk about an improved reality. Visions and visionaries make people uncomfortable.

Meditation

• Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Invincible
• We worry about being labelled weak and unstable, so we bury our struggles. But as we fear judgment from others, we may also judge ourselves. If we don’t accept our illness, this perpetuates our shame.
• Mindfulness teaches us that when we resist what is, when we make who we are or what we feel is wrong, we are adding another layer to our suffering. When we can find acceptance for our struggle. Our relationship with illness begins to change.

• Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Good Ingredients
• There is nothing wrong with trying to take your life to the next level, explore new methods, add beautiful layers, or garnish it with something delightful. Don’t get caught up with how things appear or how impressive you are to the point of neglecting your building blocks.

Podcast

• ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER On How To Change The Trajectory of Your Life! ”I was unhappy with reality…” – Jay Shetty Podcast

All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.